Guild Wars 2

I think so. I know I’m going to get hate from the sudden spam of ranger haters, but I think this is the best the classes have ever been.

Instead of destroying elementalists they only nerfed them a little, making them still viable. The inability to heal in mist form was a good choice along with the lightning small nerf. I tried playing them and I was still pretty mobile and annoying. The updates to warrior were good, and although they could use some work, they are actually in tpvp matches now. They even have a good burst that kicks my kitten from time to time. This class still needs small updates, but it really is viable now.

Every other class had some viable buffs in things we never use. The thieves are finally at a good point with damage and stealth. Mesmers confusion is no longer ridiculous and rangers can finally compete with the big leagues (I agree their pet needs a leash, but otherwise good). Necromances are also very dangerous in tournament. I have played with several fantastic necros who just obliterate the opposing team. Last, the guardian as always been at a good place. For the first time, I want to thank ANET for ignoring the stupid haters and people yelling NERF and KILL. You have made this game something that is nearly reached it’s goal. A game with balanced classes.

So I just wanted to say Thank You. I might finally play warrior now. Keep ignoring the bad players and continue to make this game a better place. Now if only we could get some separation of Leader-board rankings with solo and team join.

I have to somewhat agree. Though deemed over powered by some it seems that many classes now have at least one build that offers good sustain with limited ability to also do bust damage.
Others have exceptional sustain and others exceptional burst.
This goes along with the direction aNet seems to be taking with slowing down the pace of PvP.

Ya I agree. There are no classes that are “OP” anymore. Granted some people think there are but we no longer see teams running triple or quadruple classes and stomping tournaments (like ele before the first RTL nerf).

Huh?

You still have to take a bunker guardian in your team if you want to play competitively.

Stealth still has no counter whatsoever – aoe spam does not count, it’s a silly workaround that does not benefit overall game play.

AI is still far too prevalent and impacting to heavily on PvP game play.

Class balance has whittled most professions down to a single, and in many cases “cheesy”, competitive build.

Balanced? I don’t know what the kitten your talking about.

I disagree, so many things wrong with balance right now still after 8 months.

Also just had a D/D Ele holding cap point against 4 players and killing them all because they still have crazy amount of boons, heals, invul’s, escape skills with still enough damage to take people down quickly enough…so you have to trait for boon hate and then your useless for anything else…

Don’t even get me started on thieves and mesmers…or underwater ranger downed skills or….many many other things that suck in GW2 when it comes to balance.

I’d really like to see this posted in necromancer’s forum

hackks.3687:

Huh?

You still have to take a bunker guardian in your team if you want to play competitively.

Stealth still has no counter whatsoever – aoe spam does not count, it’s a silly workaround that does not benefit overall game play.

AI is still far too prevalent and impacting to heavily on PvP game play.

Class balance has whittled most professions down to a single, and in many cases “cheesy”, competitive build.

Balanced? I don’t know what the kitten your talking about.

Actually, I’ve played with many teams that use a bunker engineer or bunker necromancer. I do play competitively in tpvp quite often actually. Bunker warriors are also a possible option with the update. It’s not limited at all. You could also do well with a bunker elementalist. I’m not sure what planet you’re on, but bunker guardian is the least viable considering how slow they are how easy it is too block the hammer.

As for one build for each class, I disagree on that point as well. There is a viable hgh engi, bunker engineer(two different options for this build as well), the minion necromancer, the power necromancer, the condi necro, phantasm mes, shatter mesmer, condi ranger, pet ranger, bunker guardian, semi-bunk guard, power warrior, bunker warrior, cantrip ele(this is the only build I can think for this class), d/d thief, p/d thief, and that is all the builds I can think of for the classes, but as you can see, there are plenty of options. Perhaps, elementalists actually have it the worst build options wise.

Stealth has a counter. When you see someone stealth, wave your sword around and and you will hit them. It is not that difficult. Perhaps there are still some changes needed, but you are not looking at the facts. Go play some tournaments. Learn about the different viable builds. There are far more than you think.

Ranger is the best SPVP class atm par none.

Go on the Warrior forums and tell them they are balanced in PvP.. LoL

Daecollo.9578:

Ranger is the best SPVP class atm par none.

Go on the Warrior forums and tell them they are balanced in PvP.. LoL

Because of that massive AoE damage right?

A team of 5 rangers all running the allegedly OP BM would get stomped in any fight greater than a 2 v 2 because of enemy AoE.

Eurantien.4632:

Daecollo.9578:

Ranger is the best SPVP class atm par none.

Go on the Warrior forums and tell them they are balanced in PvP.. LoL

Because of that massive AoE damage right?

A team of 5 rangers all running the allegedly OP BM would get stomped in any fight greater than a 2 v 2 because of enemy AoE.

This, and in the current state of tpvp, stability, reflection and vigor are huge. This means that there are only two classes below all the others.

1). Warriors
2). Necromancers

Every other class is pretty fairly strong even if in the case of Engineers limited to one build.

Unfortunately with no ability to escape and the inability to handle Hard Control both the Warrior and the necromancer can get manhandled and are one of the main reasons we saw so few of them in the last Tournament. Warriors and Necromancer require constant babysitting.

And both necro and warrior teams beat the ranger team in the profession tournament…..

Bas.7406:

Eurantien.4632:

Daecollo.9578:

Ranger is the best SPVP class atm par none.

Go on the Warrior forums and tell them they are balanced in PvP.. LoL

Because of that massive AoE damage right?

A team of 5 rangers all running the allegedly OP BM would get stomped in any fight greater than a 2 v 2 because of enemy AoE.

This, and in the current state of tpvp, stability, reflection and vigor are huge. This means that there are only two classes below all the others.

1). Warriors
2). Necromancers

Every other class is pretty fairly strong even if in the case of Engineers limited to one build.

Unfortunately with no ability to escape and the inability to handle Hard Control both the Warrior and the necromancer can get manhandled and are one of the main reasons we saw so few of them in the last Tournament. Warriors and Necromancer require constant babysitting.

Actually, I completely disagree. I played with a team that had two necromancers, a mesmer, a thief, and elementalist. We completely destroyed the other team every single game. No one could kill the necromancers holding the points with their minionmancer builds. Our thieve, mesmer, and ele would kill the second person fighting them. It was an easy game most of the time. The necro could sit on a point and fight 1 person and kill them easy. In addition, he could also fight 3 people for awhile before getting killed. Necros are in a great place and this was before the update.

Balance is not bad. Certainly better than it used to be. Could use more build variety. As a thief I have 2 very different variations of D/P and a S/D build I’d be comfortable playing in a real tourney, so I guess it’s not completely awful. There are weapons and utils for every class that could use some love though.

Also a big l-o-l to the sensationalists in here. A d/d ele that held a point 1v4 and also killed everyone attacking him? I wanna meet the guy that can pull that off.

While a class can 3 shot and if hit, stealth and heal over 60% of its health with no risk, this game wont be balanced. I am not bashing, just using an example.

loper.9034:

hackks.3687:

Huh?

You still have to take a bunker guardian in your team if you want to play competitively.

Stealth still has no counter whatsoever – aoe spam does not count, it’s a silly workaround that does not benefit overall game play.

AI is still far too prevalent and impacting to heavily on PvP game play.

Class balance has whittled most professions down to a single, and in many cases “cheesy”, competitive build.

Balanced? I don’t know what the kitten your talking about.

Actually, I’ve played with many teams that use a bunker engineer or bunker necromancer. I do play competitively in tpvp quite often actually. Bunker warriors are also a possible option with the update. It’s not limited at all. You could also do well with a bunker elementalist. I’m not sure what planet you’re on, but bunker guardian is the least viable considering how slow they are how easy it is too block the hammer.

As for one build for each class, I disagree on that point as well. There is a viable hgh engi, bunker engineer(two different options for this build as well), the minion necromancer, the power necromancer, the condi necro, phantasm mes, shatter mesmer, condi ranger, pet ranger, bunker guardian, semi-bunk guard, power warrior, bunker warrior, cantrip ele(this is the only build I can think for this class), d/d thief, p/d thief, and that is all the builds I can think of for the classes, but as you can see, there are plenty of options. Perhaps, elementalists actually have it the worst build options wise.

Stealth has a counter. When you see someone stealth, wave your sword around and and you will hit them. It is not that difficult. Perhaps there are still some changes needed, but you are not looking at the facts. Go play some tournaments. Learn about the different viable builds. There are far more than you think.

lol I don’t even know where to start. Did you really just say Bunker Guardian isn’t viable? And out of all those builds you listed, would you say their representation within competitive play is equally split? Spamming Auto Attack is a counter to stealth? Really? That’s the most intelligent active game play we can come up with for a counter to stealth? This is an acceptable ideal for competitive game play?

Go play some tournaments? I’m r50 with more than 3500 tourney matches. How many more should I play before I can fairly say, “I’ve got some experience in tPvP”?

You know what, let’s just say I’ve got some different ideas of what ideal competitive play should be like in this game and leave it at that.

Swim.6830:

While a class can 3 shot and if hit, stealth and heal over 60% of its health with no risk, this game wont be balanced. I am not bashing, just using an example.

This and the dude talking about ranger underwater downed state. We are talking about balance in tourneys between decent players and not in hotjoins on bad maps. Thanks.

@Hakkz beside putting a bunker guard on kyhlo at tower I have to agree bunker guards aren’t necessary. Granted their team support is helpful but by no means necessary.

I’m sorry, but when I see threads/posts like this, I start thinking PR campaign.

It is painfully obvious there are 1-2 dominant builds on each class, most of which are cheap. Hell, most people argue that warrior has NONE, and would almost certainly agree that he belongs in a burst spec and must use Greatsword. -lame-

Balance here goes like this: out of the 100’s of builds a player can make, you either:

A) Copy and paste one of the few cheese builds for each class and start dominating
or
B) Try something else and get wrecked in utter futility

Not only is build diversity a huge problem, but the 5% of builds that are OP haven’t even been balanced unto each other properly. It has a lot to do with failed mechanics such as A.I., stealth, and huge disparities in boon stacking, conditions, cleanses, mobility, ect…

This, combined with the fact that conquest is an inherently unbalanced format that supports the extreme bunker build and cowardly playstyles such as zerging and running away due to someone constantly being outnumbered, has ruined pvp.

As for me being a hater, I hate that my pvp game is pretty much dead, and that they didn’t listen to all the logical feedback back when the population was at critical mass.

hackks.3687:

loper.9034:

hackks.3687:

Huh?

You still have to take a bunker guardian in your team if you want to play competitively.

Stealth still has no counter whatsoever – aoe spam does not count, it’s a silly workaround that does not benefit overall game play.

AI is still far too prevalent and impacting to heavily on PvP game play.

Class balance has whittled most professions down to a single, and in many cases “cheesy”, competitive build.

Balanced? I don’t know what the kitten your talking about.

Actually, I’ve played with many teams that use a bunker engineer or bunker necromancer. I do play competitively in tpvp quite often actually. Bunker warriors are also a possible option with the update. It’s not limited at all. You could also do well with a bunker elementalist. I’m not sure what planet you’re on, but bunker guardian is the least viable considering how slow they are how easy it is too block the hammer.

As for one build for each class, I disagree on that point as well. There is a viable hgh engi, bunker engineer(two different options for this build as well), the minion necromancer, the power necromancer, the condi necro, phantasm mes, shatter mesmer, condi ranger, pet ranger, bunker guardian, semi-bunk guard, power warrior, bunker warrior, cantrip ele(this is the only build I can think for this class), d/d thief, p/d thief, and that is all the builds I can think of for the classes, but as you can see, there are plenty of options. Perhaps, elementalists actually have it the worst build options wise.

Stealth has a counter. When you see someone stealth, wave your sword around and and you will hit them. It is not that difficult. Perhaps there are still some changes needed, but you are not looking at the facts. Go play some tournaments. Learn about the different viable builds. There are far more than you think.

lol I don’t even know where to start. Did you really just say Bunker Guardian isn’t viable? And out of all those builds you listed, would you say their representation within competitive play is equally split? Spamming Auto Attack is a counter to stealth? Really? That’s the most intelligent active game play we can come up with for a counter to stealth? This is an acceptable ideal for competitive game play?

Go play some tournaments? I’m r50 with more than 3500 tourney matches. How many more should I play before I can fairly say, “I’ve got some experience in tPvP”?

You know what, let’s just say I’ve got some different ideas of what ideal competitive play should be like in this game and leave it at that.

I never said guardians weren’t viable, I said I believe other classes are better at point capping. Guardians are fantastic in team fights, but so are eles and engineers.

I’m not as high rank as you, but I am rank 38 and have played engineer, guardian, elementalist, mesmer, and ranger relatively equally. I would say that guardian is a great addition but not necessary to the team. You can play with engineer and elementalist or necro and still win the game. Why don’t you try it? I have played over 1000 pvp games. This isn’t a competition for who has played the most games, the point is other classes are just as useful. Maybe you are just used to the guardian. Try it out. team composition is based around skill and good dynamics not necessarily having a good guardian.

loper.9034:

Bas.7406:

Eurantien.4632:

Daecollo.9578:

Ranger is the best SPVP class atm par none.

Go on the Warrior forums and tell them they are balanced in PvP.. LoL

Because of that massive AoE damage right?

A team of 5 rangers all running the allegedly OP BM would get stomped in any fight greater than a 2 v 2 because of enemy AoE.

This, and in the current state of tpvp, stability, reflection and vigor are huge. This means that there are only two classes below all the others.

1). Warriors
2). Necromancers

Every other class is pretty fairly strong even if in the case of Engineers limited to one build.

Unfortunately with no ability to escape and the inability to handle Hard Control both the Warrior and the necromancer can get manhandled and are one of the main reasons we saw so few of them in the last Tournament. Warriors and Necromancer require constant babysitting.

Actually, I completely disagree. I played with a team that had two necromancers, a mesmer, a thief, and elementalist. We completely destroyed the other team every single game. No one could kill the necromancers holding the points with their minionmancer builds. Our thieve, mesmer, and ele would kill the second person fighting them. It was an easy game most of the time. The necro could sit on a point and fight 1 person and kill them easy. In addition, he could also fight 3 people for awhile before getting killed. Necros are in a great place and this was before the update.

GZ, you play’d vs some noobs – atm necro even in MM/bunker builds are very bad. It’s like random buff, you never know will your minion do what he has to do or is he going to sit there like a mini pet. With all my love to Necro class, it is still too weak and only few players are managing to play it effectivly [still not so effective ,as you take other class]. Yes they can easily take bunkers down, but thats pretty much it.
-no escape mechanics
-hard buffs (mostly over DS)
-DS skill bug’d
-Corruption Boon and Epidemic are bug’d after last patch
-the worst mobility
-etc

I disagree with people saying that you “need” this or that to win (per specific builds/classes). It is a result of a tiny player pool, and thus incredibly stale meta. People at the high level are, honestly, not very inventive right now. Why take the time and effort to make something besides Guardian work as a bunker when you can just roll a guardian and copypasta one of the builds. Why try to make Necromancers work when you can copypasta a build from someone else and know it will work well.

I’ll agree that certain classes have a lot of difficulty being useful (like Warriors and Necromancers), but outside of Warriors, a lot of it is just people at the top being happy moving from FOTM to FOTM and not having to do any actual work at theorycrafting.

emon.1863:

loper.9034:

Bas.7406:

Eurantien.4632:

Daecollo.9578:

Ranger is the best SPVP class atm par none.

Go on the Warrior forums and tell them they are balanced in PvP.. LoL

Because of that massive AoE damage right?

A team of 5 rangers all running the allegedly OP BM would get stomped in any fight greater than a 2 v 2 because of enemy AoE.

This, and in the current state of tpvp, stability, reflection and vigor are huge. This means that there are only two classes below all the others.

1). Warriors
2). Necromancers

Every other class is pretty fairly strong even if in the case of Engineers limited to one build.

Unfortunately with no ability to escape and the inability to handle Hard Control both the Warrior and the necromancer can get manhandled and are one of the main reasons we saw so few of them in the last Tournament. Warriors and Necromancer require constant babysitting.

Actually, I completely disagree. I played with a team that had two necromancers, a mesmer, a thief, and elementalist. We completely destroyed the other team every single game. No one could kill the necromancers holding the points with their minionmancer builds. Our thieve, mesmer, and ele would kill the second person fighting them. It was an easy game most of the time. The necro could sit on a point and fight 1 person and kill them easy. In addition, he could also fight 3 people for awhile before getting killed. Necros are in a great place and this was before the update.

GZ, you play’d vs some noobs – atm necro even in MM/bunker builds are very bad. It’s like random buff, you never know will your minion do what he has to do or is he going to sit there like a mini pet. With all my love to Necro class, it is still too weak and only few players are managing to play it effectivly [still not so effective ,as you take other class]. Yes they can easily take bunkers down, but thats pretty much it.
-no escape mechanics
-hard buffs (mostly over DS)
-DS skill bug’d
-Corruption Boon and Epidemic are bug’d after last patch
-the worst mobility
-etc

So we played noobs for 10 games in a row? I agree they need work, but they really aren’t as bad as people think they are.

Eurantien.4632:

Swim.6830:

While a class can 3 shot and if hit, stealth and heal over 60% of its health with no risk, this game wont be balanced. I am not bashing, just using an example.

This and the dude talking about ranger underwater downed state. We are talking about balance in tourneys between decent players and not in hotjoins on bad maps. Thanks.

@Hakkz beside putting a bunker guard on kyhlo at tower I have to agree bunker guards aren’t necessary. Granted their team support is helpful but by no means necessary.

Balance is not exclusive and these builds are even worse in tPvP. When you say balance, you can’t say “Oh just this class vs this class and in this ring and rules rules rules, maps maps maps”. Balance involves everything. When you understand that, please post again.

loper.9034:

emon.1863:

loper.9034:

Bas.7406:

Eurantien.4632:

Daecollo.9578:

Ranger is the best SPVP class atm par none.

Go on the Warrior forums and tell them they are balanced in PvP.. LoL

Because of that massive AoE damage right?

A team of 5 rangers all running the allegedly OP BM would get stomped in any fight greater than a 2 v 2 because of enemy AoE.

This, and in the current state of tpvp, stability, reflection and vigor are huge. This means that there are only two classes below all the others.

1). Warriors
2). Necromancers

Every other class is pretty fairly strong even if in the case of Engineers limited to one build.

Unfortunately with no ability to escape and the inability to handle Hard Control both the Warrior and the necromancer can get manhandled and are one of the main reasons we saw so few of them in the last Tournament. Warriors and Necromancer require constant babysitting.

Actually, I completely disagree. I played with a team that had two necromancers, a mesmer, a thief, and elementalist. We completely destroyed the other team every single game. No one could kill the necromancers holding the points with their minionmancer builds. Our thieve, mesmer, and ele would kill the second person fighting them. It was an easy game most of the time. The necro could sit on a point and fight 1 person and kill them easy. In addition, he could also fight 3 people for awhile before getting killed. Necros are in a great place and this was before the update.

GZ, you play’d vs some noobs – atm necro even in MM/bunker builds are very bad. It’s like random buff, you never know will your minion do what he has to do or is he going to sit there like a mini pet. With all my love to Necro class, it is still too weak and only few players are managing to play it effectivly [still not so effective ,as you take other class]. Yes they can easily take bunkers down, but thats pretty much it.
-no escape mechanics
-hard buffs (mostly over DS)
-DS skill bug’d
-Corruption Boon and Epidemic are bug’d after last patch
-the worst mobility
-etc

So we played noobs for 10 games in a row? I agree they need work, but they really aren’t as bad as people think they are.

Well, they ain’t so bad – but they aint good aswell. They standing near Warrior (well warrior is bit worst)
As Bunker Guardian is better, as it can provide good support for team – Necro can’t.
Condition build are great , but Engi is better
Power Necro…..don’t want to compare that at all.

So when you gathering Team, will you take hafl a player?! NO.

loper.9034:

emon.1863:

loper.9034:

Bas.7406:

Eurantien.4632:

Daecollo.9578:

Ranger is the best SPVP class atm par none.

Go on the Warrior forums and tell them they are balanced in PvP.. LoL

Because of that massive AoE damage right?

A team of 5 rangers all running the allegedly OP BM would get stomped in any fight greater than a 2 v 2 because of enemy AoE.

This, and in the current state of tpvp, stability, reflection and vigor are huge. This means that there are only two classes below all the others.

1). Warriors
2). Necromancers

Every other class is pretty fairly strong even if in the case of Engineers limited to one build.

Unfortunately with no ability to escape and the inability to handle Hard Control both the Warrior and the necromancer can get manhandled and are one of the main reasons we saw so few of them in the last Tournament. Warriors and Necromancer require constant babysitting.

Actually, I completely disagree. I played with a team that had two necromancers, a mesmer, a thief, and elementalist. We completely destroyed the other team every single game. No one could kill the necromancers holding the points with their minionmancer builds. Our thieve, mesmer, and ele would kill the second person fighting them. It was an easy game most of the time. The necro could sit on a point and fight 1 person and kill them easy. In addition, he could also fight 3 people for awhile before getting killed. Necros are in a great place and this was before the update.

GZ, you play’d vs some noobs – atm necro even in MM/bunker builds are very bad. It’s like random buff, you never know will your minion do what he has to do or is he going to sit there like a mini pet. With all my love to Necro class, it is still too weak and only few players are managing to play it effectivly [still not so effective ,as you take other class]. Yes they can easily take bunkers down, but thats pretty much it.
-no escape mechanics
-hard buffs (mostly over DS)
-DS skill bug’d
-Corruption Boon and Epidemic are bug’d after last patch
-the worst mobility
-etc

So we played noobs for 10 games in a row? I agree they need work, but they really aren’t as bad as people think they are.

Necro’s aren’t bad. They are extremely powerful, but they provide the least amount of utility as abunker, and with limited to zero access to stability they can be easily controlled. They are amazingly strong in damage, and have more versatility than any other class, but they have zero mobility and so require a babysitter to help keep them up and effective.

I’m not sure why you’d mention Mesmer Confusion since it’s been no different in sPvP for months (and wasn’t affected by the recent patch).

It’s like the OP isn’t even playing the same game as me.

Thief
-Stealth doesn’t have any proper counter making the thief the class with most potential survivability in decent hands
-Survivability + Damage + Mobility
-Braindead monkeys can play as one and still be somewhat useful

Ranger
-Best 1v1 class in the right hands
-Dependent on the pet

Guardian
-Bunker Guardians are still their only really viable build
-Ranged options are kitten
-Outdone by most classes outside the bunker department
-No mobility

Elementalist
-Survivability + Damage + Mobility (less than Thief)
-Can outdo a Bunker Guardian due to also having good killing power
-Only one viable build
-Best class at supporting teammates and 1vX harassing

Necromancer
-Requires tremendous skill to play well
-No actual blocks and invulnerabilities
-Minions are kitten and mostly useless (minionmancers are extremely easy to defuse and destroy, which means that you were fighting bads when you saw them killing tons of people)

Mesmer
-Has everything but condition removal, making it instant top tier

Warrior
-kitten condition removal so it can get locked down and destroyed easily
-No survivability, only damage potential
-Underwhelming
-Has stuns and dazes but, again, you can simply lock the warrior down, preventing him from doing anything

Engineer
-Lack in direct damage but can do pretty much everything else

How the kitten is this balanced?
Some classes are good at everything, others can only fill a niche and others are just bad.

only thing massively imbalanced is player skill.

oh, and player’s skill at assessing player skill.

RAVVSlathotep.5463:

It’s like the OP isn’t even playing the same game as me.

snip

How the kitten is this balanced?
Some classes are good at everything, others can only fill a niche and others are just bad.

The classes that fill a niche perform in said niche significantly better than the more well-rounded classes.

Nobody is going to take your arguments seriously so long as you spew subjective non-sense without anything solid to back your broad claims.

Thief’s survivability is some of the worst in the game if you’re able to catch them. Their ‘survivability’ relies wholly on remaining untouched, which won’t happen if your opponent outskills you.

You only focus on one ranger build, which is the absolute best 1v1 in the game while offering very little team support. In other words, it’s a balanced niche spec.

Guardians, as you said, are probably the best bunker right now. Outside of the bunker spec they offer some of the best utility and have the best inherent survivability in the game. Any sensible Guardian build is pretty well-rounded.

I could go on, but really if I were to remove your biased undertone and change your crumby points for the warrior I’d feel I was advocating a pretty balanced game.

Whatever the current state, I am hopeful that the complaints about some of the other classes points at the possibility of a new meta, or what would be even better multiple metas, emerging.

Demonsoul.9271:

Thief’s survivability is some of the worst in the game if you’re able to catch them.

Catching a thief? What a novel idea! Why hasn’t anyone thought of that before!?

Demonsoul.9271:

RAVVSlathotep.5463:

It’s like the OP isn’t even playing the same game as me.

snip

How the kitten is this balanced?
Some classes are good at everything, others can only fill a niche and others are just bad.

The classes that fill a niche perform in said niche significantly better than the more well-rounded classes.

Nobody is going to take your arguments seriously so long as you spew subjective non-sense without anything solid to back your broad claims.

Thief’s survivability is some of the worst in the game if you’re able to catch them. Their ‘survivability’ relies wholly on remaining untouched, which won’t happen if your opponent outskills you.

You only focus on one ranger build, which is the absolute best 1v1 in the game while offering very little team support. In other words, it’s a balanced niche spec.

Guardians, as you said, are probably the best bunker right now. Outside of the bunker spec they offer some of the best utility and have the best inherent survivability in the game. Any sensible Guardian build is pretty well-rounded.

I could go on, but really if I were to remove your biased undertone and change your crumby points for the warrior I’d feel I was advocating a pretty balanced game.

Sure, let’s pit guardians, the class built around boon distribution to compensate for the low base hp, against s/d thieves who can steal any of those boons at will. Pretty balanced, I’d say. WHAT, YOU HAVE STABILITY? MINEMINmineminemine

Lucky thieves don’t have ample stealth that cleanses conditions, heals them and lets them reset or run from fights right?

But it would be unfair to focus only on stealth, after all, my thief has
Withdraw: heal + escape +mobility condition cleanse every 15 seconds
Roll for initiative: stun break + escape + mobility condition cleanse + init regen every 60 seconds
Shadow step: x2 (stun break + teleport + condition cleanse) every 50 seconds
Infiltrator’s strike: teleport + immobilize, then condition cleanse + another teleport + stun break, on no CD at all!

Oh yes, people catch me all day with this :(

Bas.7406:

loper.9034:

emon.1863:

loper.9034:

Bas.7406:

Eurantien.4632:

Daecollo.9578:

Ranger is the best SPVP class atm par none.

Go on the Warrior forums and tell them they are balanced in PvP.. LoL

Because of that massive AoE damage right?

A team of 5 rangers all running the allegedly OP BM would get stomped in any fight greater than a 2 v 2 because of enemy AoE.

This, and in the current state of tpvp, stability, reflection and vigor are huge. This means that there are only two classes below all the others.

1). Warriors
2). Necromancers

Every other class is pretty fairly strong even if in the case of Engineers limited to one build.

Unfortunately with no ability to escape and the inability to handle Hard Control both the Warrior and the necromancer can get manhandled and are one of the main reasons we saw so few of them in the last Tournament. Warriors and Necromancer require constant babysitting.

Actually, I completely disagree. I played with a team that had two necromancers, a mesmer, a thief, and elementalist. We completely destroyed the other team every single game. No one could kill the necromancers holding the points with their minionmancer builds. Our thieve, mesmer, and ele would kill the second person fighting them. It was an easy game most of the time. The necro could sit on a point and fight 1 person and kill them easy. In addition, he could also fight 3 people for awhile before getting killed. Necros are in a great place and this was before the update.

GZ, you play’d vs some noobs – atm necro even in MM/bunker builds are very bad. It’s like random buff, you never know will your minion do what he has to do or is he going to sit there like a mini pet. With all my love to Necro class, it is still too weak and only few players are managing to play it effectivly [still not so effective ,as you take other class]. Yes they can easily take bunkers down, but thats pretty much it.
-no escape mechanics
-hard buffs (mostly over DS)
-DS skill bug’d
-Corruption Boon and Epidemic are bug’d after last patch
-the worst mobility
-etc

So we played noobs for 10 games in a row? I agree they need work, but they really aren’t as bad as people think they are.

Necro’s aren’t bad. They are extremely powerful, but they provide the least amount of utility as abunker, and with limited to zero access to stability they can be easily controlled. They are amazingly strong in damage, and have more versatility than any other class, but they have zero mobility and so require a babysitter to help keep them up and effective.

What is wrong with that? They are meant to be the highest damage dealers. The best teams that work well together will use a necromancer well and it will obliterate the other team. This game is about balance. If they are going to be the highest damage dealers than they also have to have a drawback. What is that drawback? Lack of evades, stun blocks, and the like. This makes them balanced. If they had the blocking abilities other classes had, people would be crying OP necro OP necro.

loper.9034:

What is wrong with that? They are meant to be the highest damage dealers. The best teams that work well together will use a necromancer well and it will obliterate the other team. This game is about balance. If they are going to be the highest damage dealers than they also have to have a drawback. What is that drawback? Lack of evades, stun blocks, and the like. This makes them balanced. If they had the blocking abilities other classes had, people would be crying OP necro OP necro.

Except they aren’t the Highest damage dealers, they are the highest amount of individual conditions. They are not a condition damage class or a high damage class. They are a condition management class. Chill/Blind/Cripple/bleed/Posion and reapplying them all with easy, but they are far from the highest damage class. The reason they are scary when left alone, is because you could end up with an entire team chilled, crippled, poisoned, burning and bleeding.

The drawback is greater than the benefits currently. They can’t escape a fight, they can’t disengage, and with extend cast times and easily spotted animations they are easy to control.

Demonsoul.9271:

The classes that fill a niche perform in said niche significantly better than the more well-rounded classes.

See the guardian quote.

Demonsoul.9271:

Nobody is going to take your arguments seriously so long as you spew subjective non-sense without anything solid to back your broad claims.

So I’m spouting subjective BS and you’re sharing self-evident truths with your post? Might wanna step down from that pedestal there, son.

Demonsoul.9271:

Thief’s survivability is some of the worst in the game if you’re able to catch them. Their ‘survivability’ relies wholly on remaining untouched, which won’t happen if your opponent outskills you.

Well, I was born with a natural skill at playing the thief then cause I decided to try one out for the first time after the latest patch and I kept getting into MevsX fights and surviving them pretty easily. I should write a macro saying “outskilled, scrub” every single time I manage to kitten out, stealth and run away, just to come back and repeat everything until the enemy is finally downed.

No, you don’t catch a good thief with good perception and awareness. It’s not about player skill, it’s about class skills.

Demonsoul.9271:

You only focus on one ranger build, which is the absolute best 1v1 in the game while offering very little team support. In other words, it’s a balanced niche spec.

With traps they also have great AoE, especially against classes that need to get in range. The only thing they can’t do is actively support other players. Doesn’t sound niche at all, just excellent at multiple things and bad at one. Opposite to niche.

Demonsoul.9271:

Guardians, as you said, are probably the best bunker right now. Outside of the bunker spec they offer some of the best utility and have the best inherent survivability in the game. Any sensible Guardian build is pretty well-rounded.

I main Guardian and Primary Alt an Elementalist and that’s just BS. A good elementalist is better when it comes to actively helping others with multiple heals, almost permanent fury/swiftness, can give every boon except stability.
Also, the elementalist can do this while surviving AND dealing damage. Again, excellent at multiple things, not a niche, while the guardian is indeed a niche that is only a bit better at bunkering down because Stability out of the kitten and circles, and this goes against what you said in the first quote: they aren’t significantly better at this niche than the master of all trades that the elementalist can be.

Demonsoul.9271:

I could go on, but really if I were to remove your biased undertone and change your crumby points for the warrior I’d feel I was advocating a pretty balanced game.

u wot m8?

Regardless, no matter what I say will get you off the forums and into the grinder so keep being an armchair general.

Bas.7406:

loper.9034:

What is wrong with that? They are meant to be the highest damage dealers. The best teams that work well together will use a necromancer well and it will obliterate the other team. This game is about balance. If they are going to be the highest damage dealers than they also have to have a drawback. What is that drawback? Lack of evades, stun blocks, and the like. This makes them balanced. If they had the blocking abilities other classes had, people would be crying OP necro OP necro.

Except they aren’t the Highest damage dealers, they are the highest amount of individual conditions. They are not a condition damage class or a high damage class. They are a condition management class. Chill/Blind/Cripple/bleed/Posion and reapplying them all with easy, but they are far from the highest damage class. The reason they are scary when left alone, is because you could end up with an entire team chilled, crippled, poisoned, burning and bleeding.

The drawback is greater than the benefits currently. They can’t escape a fight, they can’t disengage, and with extend cast times and easily spotted animations they are easy to control.

This makes them the highest damage dealers. They can deal with team the most damage to everyone on the opposing team. They can kill an entire team with the right circumstances. They have fantastic aoe. I believe every animation is easy to spot once you are used to the classes like guardian hammer or elementalist churning earth. Necros are always targeted in games because they are scary. If you can use one well, they destroy in team fights. Some of the highest ranked teams use necros such as team paradigm. I will admit that perhaps they could use shorter cooldowns for their only two stun blockers. Spectral walk and spectral armor deserve cooldowns decreased by say 15 seconds, but really honestly necro’s purpose is in tact.

Anyway, there are a lot of examples why this game is faw away from any balance

loper.9034:

Bas.7406:

loper.9034:

What is wrong with that? They are meant to be the highest damage dealers. The best teams that work well together will use a necromancer well and it will obliterate the other team. This game is about balance. If they are going to be the highest damage dealers than they also have to have a drawback. What is that drawback? Lack of evades, stun blocks, and the like. This makes them balanced. If they had the blocking abilities other classes had, people would be crying OP necro OP necro.

Except they aren’t the Highest damage dealers, they are the highest amount of individual conditions. They are not a condition damage class or a high damage class. They are a condition management class. Chill/Blind/Cripple/bleed/Posion and reapplying them all with easy, but they are far from the highest damage class. The reason they are scary when left alone, is because you could end up with an entire team chilled, crippled, poisoned, burning and bleeding.

The drawback is greater than the benefits currently. They can’t escape a fight, they can’t disengage, and with extend cast times and easily spotted animations they are easy to control.

This makes them the highest damage dealers. They can deal with team the most damage to everyone on the opposing team. They can kill an entire team with the right circumstances. They have fantastic aoe. I believe every animation is easy to spot once you are used to the classes like guardian hammer or elementalist churning earth. Necros are always targeted in games because they are scary. If you can use one well, they destroy in team fights. Some of the highest ranked teams use necros such as team paradigm. I will admit that perhaps they could use shorter cooldowns for their only two stun blockers. Spectral walk and spectral armor deserve cooldowns decreased by say 15 seconds, but really honestly necro’s purpose is in tact.

Well there a lot of diffrent reasons ,why necro is focus’d first:
1.Signet of Undeath
2.No escape mechanics=easy to burst down
3.Necro AoE .

Yes ,necro can be very painful for enemy team, but it is very easy to avoid.

RAVVSlathotep.5463:

snip

See, now you make some valid points, rather than just saying blank is kitten and blank is good at everything. That was my qualm with your post; those are literally just opinions.

To start with, I should clarify when I speak of survivability, I mean practical and useful survivability. Yes, you can escape fights all day as a thief, but while you run, regen, cleanse, you’re achieving nothing. What I mean by thieves having next to no survivability ONCE CAUGHT is that if you react fast enough to their openers and/or avoid them altogether, you should have no trouble taking them down in mere seconds. Thieves are always the first thing I target in a fight (maybe next to warriors), and even if they escape the fight it is at least easy to force them out of it almost immediately after they show their face. I think a duel versus a thief is almost always a skill match up, save maybe some glass cannon builds. They shine in picking off glass cannons in cluster kittens then getting away, but they don’t have any large advantages against a team with good awareness.

Just because BM rangers have aoe on traps doesn’t mean they are on par with other classes in teamfights. They lack in teamfights and excel in duels, that’s it.

I’m not going to lie, I’m going off of hearsay on the guardian point, but from what I’ve seen and heard, guardians are definitely the go-to bunker class. Elementalist support is potentially stronger (I think they both have larger support impact in different situations), that’s why I specified guardians have “some of the best utility.” I would agree Guardians’ build options could use some expansion, but that doesn’t make the game unbalanced. They are excellent tanks, as they were designed to be, and can fill a couple of niches in any team comp.

I don’t know what you meant by the last sentence, but I’m merely trying to have a discussion on game balance, I don’t mean any personal offense nor do I have the arrogance to believe my opinions are the be all end all on PvP balance.

I merely think balance is in a good place right now, possibly the best I’ve seen on an MMORPG (although that isn’t saying much). Of course it can stand to be improved, but any drastic changes right now would probably just make balance worse.

I would say hgh is a bit over the top and needs a nerf relating to might stacking, but this will definitely come though. The rest is actually pretty balanced, compared to 2012.
What has to be done now is build diversity.

Same thread like one popped 2 days ago, anyway going to repeat:

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 past patches too (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 too many useless traits.
(^these 2 = need more buffing instead of nerfing. need more build diversity.)
-still to many bugs.

(imo)

This thread is a load of kitten. Warriors are in such a bad way right now its ridiculous. I am pretty much forced to play my bunker guard if I actually want to do anything noteworthy in a fight. The changes from the patch did SFA to the state of warriors, boon hate 30 points into a tree where its secondary tree buff gives 3% dmg to burst attacks… still? golfclap

By going 30 points into that tree the enemy needs what? 3-5 unique boons up constantly to be worth it?

No.

Oh and dogged march, step in the right direction but horrible implementation in spvp. -33% to the duration? How about to the effectiveness. I’ll take that over duration any day. The chain snare that is clearly prevalent in spvp shows that this trait is nigh on useless.

Get your kitten together anet.

hackks.3687:

loper.9034:

hackks.3687:

Huh?

You still have to take a bunker guardian in your team if you want to play competitively.

Stealth still has no counter whatsoever – aoe spam does not count, it’s a silly workaround that does not benefit overall game play.

AI is still far too prevalent and impacting to heavily on PvP game play.

Class balance has whittled most professions down to a single, and in many cases “cheesy”, competitive build.

Balanced? I don’t know what the kitten your talking about.

Actually, I’ve played with many teams that use a bunker engineer or bunker necromancer. I do play competitively in tpvp quite often actually. Bunker warriors are also a possible option with the update. It’s not limited at all. You could also do well with a bunker elementalist. I’m not sure what planet you’re on, but bunker guardian is the least viable considering how slow they are how easy it is too block the hammer.

As for one build for each class, I disagree on that point as well. There is a viable hgh engi, bunker engineer(two different options for this build as well), the minion necromancer, the power necromancer, the condi necro, phantasm mes, shatter mesmer, condi ranger, pet ranger, bunker guardian, semi-bunk guard, power warrior, bunker warrior, cantrip ele(this is the only build I can think for this class), d/d thief, p/d thief, and that is all the builds I can think of for the classes, but as you can see, there are plenty of options. Perhaps, elementalists actually have it the worst build options wise.

Stealth has a counter. When you see someone stealth, wave your sword around and and you will hit them. It is not that difficult. Perhaps there are still some changes needed, but you are not looking at the facts. Go play some tournaments. Learn about the different viable builds. There are far more than you think.

lol I don’t even know where to start. Did you really just say Bunker Guardian isn’t viable? And out of all those builds you listed, would you say their representation within competitive play is equally split? Spamming Auto Attack is a counter to stealth? Really? That’s the most intelligent active game play we can come up with for a counter to stealth? This is an acceptable ideal for competitive game play?

Go play some tournaments? I’m r50 with more than 3500 tourney matches. How many more should I play before I can fairly say, “I’ve got some experience in tPvP”?

You know what, let’s just say I’ve got some different ideas of what ideal competitive play should be like in this game and leave it at that.

I agree with hackks. Loper, you should watch more recent tournaments, there ano that many viable builds as you think.

• Thieves mostly 25-30-0-0-15 burst damagers
• Mesmers 20-20-0-0-30, shatterer build no matter what
• Rangers 0-0-30-10-30 beastmasters only, Shaman amulet, Sword/Dagger and Axe/Torch or a mixed version
• Elementalist S/D with 0-20-0-20-30, Valkyrie amulet as always (Europe)
• Guardian 0-0-10-30-30 bunker shout-based
• Engineer HGH or bunker, anyway condition-based
• Warriors… lol, sadly my class is just… meh… (don’t say there are viable builds for Warrior, because the Warrior itself is not viable)

Where did I get this information? Last tournaments like King of the Beta and some shoutcasted TvT. You will see a confirmation of this in Heart of the Mist tournament unless something get changed in a patch before 19th.

You missed Necro

Well Downstate is far from balanced lol , Also warriors are horrible , but rest are Ok lol

I agree that balance is probably in a better spot now than it ever has been. However, I think the devs should begin to focus on expanding build variety for all classes.

Here’s what I think needs to be done:

1. Spread out stun breakers a bit more.
2. Spread out condi removal slightly.
3. Buff and lower CD of underused utils.
4. Fix bugs on broken traits.
5. Buff very weak traits if necessary.

This is just my opinion, but I really feel like it could help open doors to new builds. Most professions have about 2 builds (sometimes 1) that work well in a pvp environment, and I just wish people could be more creative and remain viable.

Jericho.4521:

I agree that balance is probably in a better spot now than it ever has been. However, I think the devs should begin to focus on expanding build variety for all classes.

Here’s what I think needs to be done:

1. Spread out stun breakers a bit more.
2. Spread out condi removal slightly.
3. Buff and lower CD of underused utils.
4. Fix bugs on broken traits.
5. Buff very weak traits if necessary.

This is just my opinion, but I really feel like it could help open doors to new builds. Most professions have about 2 builds (sometimes 1) that work well in a pvp environment, and I just wish people could be more creative and remain viable.

Synergies of several traits are the reason of a build being viable or not.
EG for synergy-traitlines: Cantrip-Ele, Shout-Guardian, Shatter-Mesmer, HGH-Engineer, Staff/Mark-Necro etc.

At the moment there is a lack of synergies and 80% of the traits are not worth being taken. This issue prevents build-diversity the most (besides utilities).

War Mourner.5168:

Lucky thieves don’t have ample stealth that cleanses conditions, heals them and lets them reset or run from fights right?

But it would be unfair to focus only on stealth, after all, my thief has
Withdraw: heal + escape +mobility condition cleanse every 15 seconds
Roll for initiative: stun break + escape + mobility condition cleanse + init regen every 60 seconds
Shadow step: x2 (stun break + teleport + condition cleanse) every 50 seconds
Infiltrator’s strike: teleport + immobilize, then condition cleanse + another teleport + stun break, on no CD at all!

Oh yes, people catch me all day with this

Man, who’d have thought that the class Anet billed as “Mobile and evasive” (recall, they’ve gone so far as to say they want thief to be the “most mobile class”), running 2/3 utilities as mobility based stunbreakers, a mobility based heal, and one of our most mobile weaponsets might be…

…wait for it…

mobile.

Dont forget they also want you to have the highest burst. Highest mobility and highest burst, an innovative and often successful design.

GankSinatra.2653:

Dont forget they also want you to have the highest burst. Highest mobility and highest burst, an innovative and often successful design.

The mobile thief advertised above is very far from having the highest burst ability in game.