Guild Wars 2

For people that have played/mained multiple (or all) classes, what do you feel is the best (and/or worst) designed class (skill mechanics/ect..) and why?

I’ve been pretty multi class from the start, and for me it’s:
necro > mesmer > ranger > ele, engi > guardian > thief
I think I have the majority of my games played on thief, and the least on engi.

the good

• Necro: Death shroud is probably the single most brilliant class mechanic design in the entire game. It’s an ability that can be used defensively (sit in it) and offensively (pop in, use skills fast, pop out), countered by passive play (bar diminishes over time) or aggressive play (chunk through the bar + cc). Necro has the kit to make both power and condi builds work, and the skill cap to make them work even when the class is pushed outside the meta.
• Mesmer: Again, the shatter mechanic is a good balance of pros vs cons in using a skill (trade your clones/anonymity for a powerful skill, and the power of that skill scales with what you gave up). Mesmer has the versatility to answer anything, but the balance to make answering more than one thing at a time extremely difficult. It is arguably the highest skill cap in PvP and probably the funnest to watch skilled people play.
• Ranger: While passive mechanics are usually pretty bad game design, the ranger pet is a good example of what a passive mechanic should be. Left alone, it’s a small damage increase that quickly dies to AoE, but when played actively it can be an extremely effective/versatile tool. I think ranger wep skills could use some improvements, I disagree with casting evade to any wep skill, but if Druid sees some collaboration with the Necro design team, that could solve a lot of those problems.

the bad

• Thief: I mained thief upon release thinking it’d be a class with burst that had to be set up skillfully over a long fight and only executed as a sort of combo finisher. Nope. The initiative resource mechanic promotes spamming the same skill on repeat, and most thief builds that have come out of the woodwork over the past 3 years have incorporated that sort of play style. Gw2 Thief is equivalent to that character your brother always played in that fighting game you had growing up. You know, the one that spams the same skill and locks your character into a cc chain for 3 rounds straight. Thief is the epitome of bad game design. It’s boring to watch, encourages little (to often no) counter play, and is typically pretty boring to play long term (due to a fairly low skill floor and cap compared to other classes). The class was designed to break newer players into PvP, but it essentially let newer players dominate/plague the game modes designed to break other newer players into PvP for a large portion of GW2’s history.

Worst would be necro best would be engi.

Get your flame proof shield ready btw.

OP, you forget. you cant call out Thief or Ele on the forums, they are the highest skill cap classes! /scarasm

This is what map chat actually believes. Yes any class can be skillful in the right hands but to neglect every other class, call everything easy or bad and proceed to play the strongest FTOM specs and claim to be skillful is another.

Once D/D ele is nerfed, people will rave about how hard and skillful the next FOTM spec is.

Best designed class:

I really admire the Engineer they have a real unique mix to them.

Worst: Well this sums it up..

Yes I did this for fun

I’d like to remind everyone that this is not a balance thread. Remove all numbers and stats, what class has the funnest core mechanics to play as/against?

Zodian.6597:

I’d like to remind everyone that this is not a balance thread. Remove all numbers and stats, what class has the funnest core mechanics to play as/against?

Very opinion based then, it would still remain worse necro because people don’t like fighting HP sponges in their 1v1 especially at full LF necro themselves don’t like the restrictions of DS some even call it a glorified downstate,no one ever complained of engi toolbet skills engi likes them because it gives another layer to their skills even racial ones it’s unique to them so best engi.

Uh… Is this based on ideals or implementation? Because Necro is definitely not designed well currently…… The main mechanics completely negates an entire trait tree’s use for its duration… o.o Thats like the #1 worst class design flaw in the game.

Best: Mesmer

Worst: Rangers.. Traits/Utilities/Skills all have a lazy design in mind, passive & boring

Strictly by fun and unique… I like Mesmer’s. Engineer is sort of fun with it’s changing F1s. And Dragonhunter (specifically DH, not Guardian)

From best to worst

Engi=Mesmer
(Unique, fun and they are both strong but have counters)
Warrior
(Simple but good, almost everything can be dodged and counterplayed)
Necromancer
(They can put out crazy pressure but are very slow and easily killed)
Elementalist
(Unique and fun concept, but cele ele is spammy and boring and fresh air is all instant damage, which isn’t fun)
Guardian
(Dragonhunter looks like a top choice, but guardian has some passive mechanics)
Ranger
(Passive traits, pet AI)
Thief
(Could be switched with ranger. Cool and active profession, but in my opinion almost impossible to balance. They have also used the same weapon since launch- shortbow)

Elementalist could have been much higher, but at the moment they are either easymode tank or instant damage gimmicky zerker.

Zodian.6597:

• Necro: Death shroud is probably the single most brilliant class mechanic design in the entire game. It’s an ability that can be … countered by passive play (bar diminishes over time) or aggressive play (chunk through the bar + cc).

Doesn’t this mean that any playstyle will counter Death Shroud?

I’m probably going to get chastised for this, but i think Necro is the worst designed & balanced class at the moment.

Not in the way everyone thinks either with them being ‘too weak’, i think the opposite.

I honestly think Necro’s are too strong and need a nerf.

The builds currently being used in Spvp by the majority are kitten easy to play. An incredibly lackluster player can pull off tremendous results just by pushing whatevers off cooldown.

They kitten out a ton of pressure for little effort while sitting on a health pool of about 40k+, if a non-brainless necro +1’s a fight, it’s pretty much won in the necro’s favour.

Aylpse.6280:

OP, you forget. you cant call out Thief or Ele on the forums, they are the highest skill cap classes! /scarasm

This is what map chat actually believes. Yes any class can be skillful in the right hands but to neglect every other class, call everything easy or bad and proceed to play the strongest FTOM specs and claim to be skillful is another.

Once D/D ele is nerfed, people will rave about how hard and skillful the next FOTM spec is.

Do you even play the game? People are even dropping d/d ele because they realized it’s not that good and that’s before the upcoming nerf.

Laraley.7695:

Aylpse.6280:

OP, you forget. you cant call out Thief or Ele on the forums, they are the highest skill cap classes! /scarasm

This is what map chat actually believes. Yes any class can be skillful in the right hands but to neglect every other class, call everything easy or bad and proceed to play the strongest FTOM specs and claim to be skillful is another.

Once D/D ele is nerfed, people will rave about how hard and skillful the next FOTM spec is.

Do you even play the game? People are even dropping d/d ele because they realized it’s not that good and that’s before the upcoming nerf.

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Laraley.7695:

Aylpse.6280:

OP, you forget. you cant call out Thief or Ele on the forums, they are the highest skill cap classes! /scarasm

This is what map chat actually believes. Yes any class can be skillful in the right hands but to neglect every other class, call everything easy or bad and proceed to play the strongest FTOM specs and claim to be skillful is another.

Once D/D ele is nerfed, people will rave about how hard and skillful the next FOTM spec is.

Do you even play the game? People are even dropping d/d ele because they realized it’s not that good and that’s before the upcoming nerf.

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

Wat.

Since when?

Wat.

Wat.

Laraley.7695:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Laraley.7695:

Aylpse.6280:

OP, you forget. you cant call out Thief or Ele on the forums, they are the highest skill cap classes! /scarasm

This is what map chat actually believes. Yes any class can be skillful in the right hands but to neglect every other class, call everything easy or bad and proceed to play the strongest FTOM specs and claim to be skillful is another.

Once D/D ele is nerfed, people will rave about how hard and skillful the next FOTM spec is.

Do you even play the game? People are even dropping d/d ele because they realized it’s not that good and that’s before the upcoming nerf.

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

Wat.

Since when?

Wakittens

ince the patch that nerfed might, scepter ele’s have been popping up all over the place.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

So, just because you see Shnicky play fresh air ele in tournaments automatically means everyone is playing Fresh Air? O.o

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Laraley.7695:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Laraley.7695:

Aylpse.6280:

OP, you forget. you cant call out Thief or Ele on the forums, they are the highest skill cap classes! /scarasm

This is what map chat actually believes. Yes any class can be skillful in the right hands but to neglect every other class, call everything easy or bad and proceed to play the strongest FTOM specs and claim to be skillful is another.

Once D/D ele is nerfed, people will rave about how hard and skillful the next FOTM spec is.

Do you even play the game? People are even dropping d/d ele because they realized it’s not that good and that’s before the upcoming nerf.

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

Wat.

Since when?

Wakittens

ince the patch that nerfed might, scepter ele’s have been popping up all over the place.

Okay, you’re actually serious.

There is way more dd eles than fresh air.
Fresh air is not really viable in high tier pvp and sort of in general.
People have been taking shoutbows over dd eles, because they’re not as good as people thought they were.
We clear now?
Kthx

Skullface.7293:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

So, just because you see Shnicky play fresh air ele in tournaments automatically means everyone is playing Fresh Air? O.o

No, i don’t watch the tournaments, I’d rather be playing the game than watching people play it.

My experience is from playing the game, not from watching streams.

Laraley.7695:

There is way more dd eles than fresh air.

What i experience in games says otherwise.

The OP is either trolling, or this is a poorly disguised QQ about Thieves. Someone seems bitter…and obviously had no idea how to play a thief xD

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Skullface.7293:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

So, just because you see Shnicky play fresh air ele in tournaments automatically means everyone is playing Fresh Air? O.o

No, i don’t watch the tournaments, I’d rather be playing the game than watching people play it.

My experience is from playing the game, not from watching streams.

Laraley.7695:

There is way more dd eles than fresh air.

What i experience in games says otherwise.

Then you have some weird experience. Or can’t tell fresh air from dd.

Laraley.7695:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Skullface.7293:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

So, just because you see Shnicky play fresh air ele in tournaments automatically means everyone is playing Fresh Air? O.o

No, i don’t watch the tournaments, I’d rather be playing the game than watching people play it.

My experience is from playing the game, not from watching streams.

Laraley.7695:

There is way more dd eles than fresh air.

What i experience in games says otherwise.

Then you have some weird experience. Or can’t tell fresh air from dd.

My experience is pretty normal thanks. Oh, yes, because Scepter ele and D/D are so hard to differentiate between.

I’m also curious as to what these “upcoming nerfs” to ele’s are, and these buffs that you assume Thief and mesmers are getting.

If you’re talking about what we’ve seen with the new specilizations and the way traits are being handled in HoT, i’d hardly call them buffs when pretty much every class is being changed drastically.

best: Mesmer

Worst: ranger by far

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Laraley.7695:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Skullface.7293:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

So, just because you see Shnicky play fresh air ele in tournaments automatically means everyone is playing Fresh Air? O.o

No, i don’t watch the tournaments, I’d rather be playing the game than watching people play it.

My experience is from playing the game, not from watching streams.

Laraley.7695:

There is way more dd eles than fresh air.

What i experience in games says otherwise.

Then you have some weird experience. Or can’t tell fresh air from dd.

My experience is pretty normal thanks. Oh, yes, because Scepter ele and D/D are so hard to differentiate between.

I’m also curious as to what these “upcoming nerfs” to ele’s are, and these buffs that you assume Thief and mesmers are getting.

If you’re talking about what we’ve seen with the new specilizations and the way traits are being handled in HoT, i’d hardly call them buffs when pretty much every class is being changed drastically.

Seeing you can’t process the information they gave us, there is not point talking to you.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Laraley.7695:

Aylpse.6280:

OP, you forget. you cant call out Thief or Ele on the forums, they are the highest skill cap classes! /scarasm

This is what map chat actually believes. Yes any class can be skillful in the right hands but to neglect every other class, call everything easy or bad and proceed to play the strongest FTOM specs and claim to be skillful is another.

Once D/D ele is nerfed, people will rave about how hard and skillful the next FOTM spec is.

Do you even play the game? People are even dropping d/d ele because they realized it’s not that good and that’s before the upcoming nerf.

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

The only untelegraphated attack on fresh air ele is lightning strike( scepter air 2), the minor air trait does less dmg even on crit, on a full glass target( 926 toughness) that’s like 2-3k base dmg, should the sigil procs that’s another 2k dmg for a total of maybe 6k dmg on a glass cannon…..that’s not enough to even scare a thief….let alone kill any competent player

The rest of the dmg coming from a scepter ele is HUGELY announced, skills such as phoenix, dragon’s tooth…any average player can dodge those.

On a target with 1200 toughness onward, the dmg coming from a fresh air is already negligible, same can’t be said for d/p thieves, mesmer or power necros able to hit targets for over 7 dmg in one go…targets that have over 1700 toughness.

Seen that not even in the academy award tournament[amateur level] you can see a single fresh air ele…it’s safe to assume that those complaining about fresh air are simple hotjoin or low MMR soloQ players

To all the people that said necro LOL, so much. You don’t play the class if you think DS is well designed. Anyway here is my list
Good: Mesmer, thief, ele, engi, guardian (don’t think these need explanation they all feel unique and fun)

Bad:
Warrior: simply boring, it doesn’t add enough to the class
Ranger: Having good pet management helps, but 30% of your damage being tied to something that doesn’t dodge and whose abilities are super telegraphed isn’t good design.
Necro: All the things necros give up for DS in my sig, no healing in DS, natural degen (everyone keeps calling it a second health bar make it act like one or don’t call it that), everything is balanced around flashing it, has far too much counterplay (you can burst through it or just disengage as someone said, which literally means do what you want and you have countered it), can’t remove conditions in it, no stun break in it. The list goes on and on and on and on. Again if you think DS is a good design you don’t play the class, and have no idea.

Laraley.7695:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Laraley.7695:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Skullface.7293:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

So, just because you see Shnicky play fresh air ele in tournaments automatically means everyone is playing Fresh Air? O.o

No, i don’t watch the tournaments, I’d rather be playing the game than watching people play it.

My experience is from playing the game, not from watching streams.

Laraley.7695:

There is way more dd eles than fresh air.

What i experience in games says otherwise.

Then you have some weird experience. Or can’t tell fresh air from dd.

My experience is pretty normal thanks. Oh, yes, because Scepter ele and D/D are so hard to differentiate between.

I’m also curious as to what these “upcoming nerfs” to ele’s are, and these buffs that you assume Thief and mesmers are getting.

If you’re talking about what we’ve seen with the new specilizations and the way traits are being handled in HoT, i’d hardly call them buffs when pretty much every class is being changed drastically.

Seeing you can’t process the information they gave us, there is not point talking to you.

No, i just know it’s all subject to change.

zapv.8051:

To all the people that said necro LOL, so much. You don’t play the class if you think DS is well designed. Anyway here is my list
Good: Mesmer, thief, ele, engi, guardian (don’t think these need explanation they all feel unique and fun)

Bad:
Warrior: simply boring, it doesn’t add enough to the class
Ranger: Having good pet management helps, but 30% of your damage being tied to something that doesn’t dodge and whose abilities are super telegraphed isn’t good design.
Necro: All the things necros give up for DS in my sig, no healing in DS, natural degen (everyone keeps calling it a second health bar make it act like one or don’t call it that), everything is balanced around flashing it, has far too much counterplay (you can burst through it or just disengage as someone said, which literally means do what you want and you have countered it), can’t remove conditions in it, no stun break in it. The list goes on and on and on and on. Again if you think DS is a good design you don’t play the class, and have no idea.

Necro is pretty much only class where the main mechanic prevents all healing. You can argue it’s a invulnerability and it kind of is. But other classes have invulns and blocks I’m not gonna say vigor but evades that don’t prevent healing.

Best: Mesmer, Engi
Worst: Thief, Necro

Supreme.3164:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Laraley.7695:

Aylpse.6280:

OP, you forget. you cant call out Thief or Ele on the forums, they are the highest skill cap classes! /scarasm

This is what map chat actually believes. Yes any class can be skillful in the right hands but to neglect every other class, call everything easy or bad and proceed to play the strongest FTOM specs and claim to be skillful is another.

Once D/D ele is nerfed, people will rave about how hard and skillful the next FOTM spec is.

Do you even play the game? People are even dropping d/d ele because they realized it’s not that good and that’s before the upcoming nerf.

D/D ele is good, people are just favouring scepter ele because it destroys people with barely any telegraphed attacks.

The only untelegraphated attack on fresh air ele is lightning strike( scepter air 2), the minor air trait does less dmg even on crit, on a full glass target( 926 toughness) that’s like 2-3k base dmg, should the sigil procs that’s another 2k dmg for a total of maybe 6k dmg on a glass cannon…..that’s not enough to even scare a thief….let alone kill any competent player

The rest of the dmg coming from a scepter ele is HUGELY announced, skills such as phoenix, dragon’s tooth…any average player can dodge those.

On a target with 1200 toughness onward, the dmg coming from a fresh air is already negligible, same can’t be said for d/p thieves, mesmer or power necros able to hit targets for over 7 dmg in one go…targets that have over 1700 toughness.

Seen that not even in the academy award tournament[amateur level] you can see a single fresh air ele…it’s safe to assume that those complaining about fresh air are simple hotjoin or low MMR soloQ players

It isn’t very strong in my opinion (except vs some), but it is still not fun to fight to me. Based heavily on sigil procs and air minor.

Best: mesmer/engi/ele/warrior
worst: necro
hang in there buddies.

Best to worst:
1. Mesmer (Skills unique and well implemented, Utilities good and portal amazing, Traits great, Profession skills great)
2. Elementalist (Skills great synergy, Utilities nice, Some traits are too essential forcing pretty much the same trait setup for each build, Profession skills great)
3. Thief (Skills great, Utilities great, Traits ok some great some bad some just plain cheesey, Profession skills lacking)
4. Engineer (Skills ok, Utilities good and creative, Traits good, Profession mechanic suitable basically just extra utilities)
5. Necromancer (Skills lacking synergy, Utilities good, Traits good, Profession mechanic great but skills thereof not well designed)
6. Guardian (Skills define the roles too much instead of the traits, Utilities ok, Traits for offense are dreadful, Profession skills good)
7. Ranger (Skills lack skill and just get facerolled, Utilities ok, Traits seem poorly placed given the stats in each line, Profession mechanic allows for some abilities to be used randomly instead of at the player’s direction which is bad)
8. Warrior (Skills lack skill and just get facerolled, Utilities need work some overpowered some underpowered, Traits are really strong in every tier which is good or bad depending on your perspective since not all classes have this, Profession skill is lame)

Impact.2780:

Best to worst:
1. Mesmer (Skills unique and well implemented, Utilities good and portal amazing, Traits great, Profession skills great)
2. Elementalist (Skills great synergy, Utilities nice, Some traits are too essential forcing pretty much the same trait setup for each build, Profession skills great)
3. Thief (Skills great, Utilities great, Traits ok some great some bad some just plain cheesey, Profession skills lacking)
4. Engineer (Skills ok, Utilities good and creative, Traits good, Profession mechanic suitable basically just extra utilities)
5. Necromancer (Skills lacking synergy, Utilities good, Traits good, Profession mechanic great but skills thereof not well designed)
6. Guardian (Skills define the roles too much instead of the traits, Utilities ok, Traits for offense are dreadful, Profession skills good)
7. Ranger (Skills lack skill and just get facerolled, Utilities ok, Traits seem poorly placed given the stats in each line, Profession mechanic allows for some abilities to be used randomly instead of at the player’s direction which is bad)
8. Warrior (Skills lack skill and just get facerolled, Utilities need work some overpowered some underpowered, Traits are really strong in every tier which is good or bad depending on your perspective since not all classes have this, Profession skill is lame)

Necro profession mechanic great? If great is being locked out of all healing we should make it so any profession using their prof mechanic can’t be healed. Sounds fair to Me. Traits are good? Have you played necro?

I know I sound pessimistic but cmon.

Some traits being awkwardly placed and therefore difficult to utilize in a build where they might be useful doesn’t make the traits themselves bad. Why is most people’s immediate reaction when there is an opposing view about a class "this guy obviously hasn’t played it!" I’ve played every class (and mained three); I would not comment on my experience on aspects of a class had I not played it first.

Impact.2780:

Some traits being awkwardly placed and therefore difficult to utilize in a build where they might be useful doesn’t make the traits themselves bad. Why is most people’s immediate reaction when there is an opposing view about a class “this guy obviously hasn’t played it!” I’ve played every class (and mained three); I would not comment on my experience on aspects of a class had I not played it first.

It’s not awkward placing that makes those traits bad it’s the fact that a 30min consumable that out performs said traits that shows there bad.

Sorry but the worst designed class is Engi! The class is balanced in a way that if you decide to use a build without kits, it will fail! Also all Engis are pigeonholed into the Explosives and Alchemy tree! When the standard trait setup is 30/x/x/20/10 with only 10 free trait points to choose from, that’s extremely bad!

The best designed class… Guardian? No other class has been in every single meta since launch!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

For PvP?

Worst designed ones would be ranger and necro.

Power ranger = Spam 2 to win from 1500+ range.
Condi ranger = Faceroll all your conditions and spam 1 for bleeds when they’re on cooldown.

Power necro = Spam 1 and get carried by your high dps auto in DS/Lich form and a boat-load of passives that have no counterplay.
Condi necro I can sort of live with, but the power side of necro is bad enough.

When discussing design, you have to distinguish between concept and execution.

While the concept behind the necromancer is really great, the execution is just bad.
Death shroud as a way to stay in battle, attrition, soft cc, etc… All of this sounds great on paper. Then you realize, that the necro doesn’t have a lot of attrition and also not enough staying power. This comes as a shock, when all the skills literally provide staying power, but the problem is, that necros just don’t have sustainable staying power. They can pop some reserves, throw everything, they got into the fight. If they outmatch the opponent, they will stay ahead, if they are outmatched, they will slowly run out of resources and options.
The nature of their defense makes them incredibly tanky against weak bursts, but vulnerable to concentrated fire. Unkillable to weak pressure and victims to strong pressure. There is no counterplay and no room for skilled play at all. It’s all pure mathematics: Do the incoming attacks outmatch the necro’s defenses or not? Nothing to it.

Which classes have good design in concept and execution? It’s hard to say. Conceptual flaws:
-The Elementalist being unable to “favor” single attunements. Maybe some day we will get an elite specialization, which gives the ele a weapon swap but removes attunement swapping during combat. Until then, they will lack that little bit of extra freedom towards build construction.
-Rangers are a mashup of a couple of leftover concepts, which were shoehorned into a single class. We have the druidic/shamanistic side with nature magic, we have archery and beastmastery. To make it work thematically, we have the survivalist/explorer theme to tie the three together. We are left with a class, which fails to make either of those roles/archetypes truly work.

Flawed executions:
-Warrior. They had a great concept, but they just missed it totally. Instead of fast-paced brawling with random burst skills as game changers, at some point of the development process, it shifted to turning the warrior into this juggernaut and burst skills into center pieces of entire play styles…
-Necro, as mentioned above.
-Thief. Too many ways to pop in and out of the action. There should be more risk involved but also a higher reward. You should be forced to commit to fights, you open.

Unfortunate accidents:
Mesmer. Great concept, great execution, insanely good design overall, but no matter where you look, the mesmer just can’t find a good place. It almost feels like the mesmer was designed for a different game.

This leaves:
Engineer and Guardian: These classes have solid design through and through.

Best designed class – Guardian as it has undergone the fewest changes, and yet still is needed in almost every aspect of the game (pvp, pve, wvw)

Worst – Necro. On paper, the necro look so good. In practice, it is not that good. It is good enough to get you over the hump, surive some difficult situations in pve, etc but it pvp or wvw, it is nothing special, as you can be shut down so easily. Spam some cc, necro gets stun locked and its bye bye. Necro’s mechanic, DS, also blocks an entire trait line, and does not interact well with necro skills, abilities, etc. We literally are blocked out of a lot of our skills emplying our only defensive mechanic, DS.

Warriors, are solid, Engiers are solid, mesmers, are amaing in 1 v 1, but have problems vs, thieves, and there are eles. I don’ thave a problem with eles, as they can do amazing things and are also needed in every game aspect. They can do everything. I don’ tsee why people are upset about thieves? They are good in all apsects, amazing in roaming, and good in pvp. In wvw, they are less needed in zerg warfare, but who cares, that gets boring anyways, and I would rather roam anyday than follow a zerg/karma train.

I think necros and rangers are worst designed, even though rangers are becoming quite good with the constant buffs. and when the new specs hit, rangers will be in a really good shape. but currently, 3 of our utility lines still make no sense and are horrible.

likewise, engies were in a similar place but they’ve become more intuitive and new specs will make them even better. necros remain the worst design and spec revamp wont help them much, in fact might hinder.

best designed: eles and warriors; mesmers, thieves and guards middle of the pack.

ArrDee.2573:

Sorry but the worst designed class is Engi! The class is balanced in a way that if you decide to use a build without kits, it will fail! Also all Engis are pigeonholed into the Explosives and Alchemy tree! When the standard trait setup is 30/x/x/20/10 with only 10 free trait points to choose from, that’s extremely bad!

The best designed class… Guardian? No other class has been in every single meta since launch!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

You are right about engi. But just because a class has been in the meta doesn’t mean it is the best designed class. It needs to be active, fun to play against and with, and such.

necrofail.7439:

Impact.2780:

Best to worst:
1. Mesmer (Skills unique and well implemented, Utilities good and portal amazing, Traits great, Profession skills great)
2. Elementalist (Skills great synergy, Utilities nice, Some traits are too essential forcing pretty much the same trait setup for each build, Profession skills great)
3. Thief (Skills great, Utilities great, Traits ok some great some bad some just plain cheesey, Profession skills lacking)
4. Engineer (Skills ok, Utilities good and creative, Traits good, Profession mechanic suitable basically just extra utilities)
5. Necromancer (Skills lacking synergy, Utilities good, Traits good, Profession mechanic great but skills thereof not well designed)
6. Guardian (Skills define the roles too much instead of the traits, Utilities ok, Traits for offense are dreadful, Profession skills good)
7. Ranger (Skills lack skill and just get facerolled, Utilities ok, Traits seem poorly placed given the stats in each line, Profession mechanic allows for some abilities to be used randomly instead of at the player’s direction which is bad)
8. Warrior (Skills lack skill and just get facerolled, Utilities need work some overpowered some underpowered, Traits are really strong in every tier which is good or bad depending on your perspective since not all classes have this, Profession skill is lame)

Necro profession mechanic great? If great is being locked out of all healing we should make it so any profession using their prof mechanic can’t be healed. Sounds fair to Me. Traits are good? Have you played necro?

I know I sound pessimistic but cmon.

If you read for example his opinion on mesmer, it says “traits are great”. By that reference, i think necro traits qualify as “good”. The profession mechanic is fun and requires skill as well, but the healing thing is pretty dumb. A profession with advantages and weaknesses that has been strong and weak at different points in time isn’t too bad. However, some thing (look at you, spinal shivers) are pretty terrible. This can be said about almost all classes, however (Panic strike, PU and so on).

Random Weird Guy.3528:

For PvP?

Worst designed ones would be ranger and necro.

Power ranger = Spam 2 to win from 1500+ range.
Condi ranger = Faceroll all your conditions and spam 1 for bleeds when they’re on cooldown.

Power necro = Spam 1 and get carried by your high dps auto in DS/Lich form and a boat-load of passives that have no counterplay.
Condi necro I can sort of live with, but the power side of necro is bad enough.

What passive do power necro have besides cod? Don’t day ctd or dp. DP needs to be in ds. Ctd needs to have your opponents health get low. Lich is an elite, and no matter how much people whine about it having no counterplay it has counterplay. DS auto attacks are literally the easiest attack to dodge in game and has the most ridiculous wind up.

NeXeD.3042:

DS auto attacks are literally the easiest attack to dodge in game and has the most ridiculous wind up.

So your suggestion is to somehow dodge every single DS auto-attack while also having to dodge anything else of importance within a fight?

As for passives, perhaps passive was the wrong word to use but a berserker class can be taken from 75% to 0% in a couple of seconds by fire/air proc followed by CoD proc and 1-2 auto attacks with CTD active – it doesn’t really require any skill at all to make this happen.

Yes you can argue that fire/air is global and not just a necro thing, but the synergy with these sigils makes the build ridiculous.

Your singling out necro for things alot of other classes have. If necro could build for sustain we would. Our attacks are slow, and they require alot of things to be going right for us to even work. If it doesn’t take skill to get an evade spamming theif low, a block spamming guard low, a regen spamming dodge spamming ele low, a dodge spamming ranger or a 1200 range lb spamming ranger while we have zero leaps low, a stealth spamming theif (ok this one isn’t too hard) low, a clone spamming dodge spamming mesmer z axis teleport ing mesmer low, a cc spamming regen spamming block spamming kiting engi low, a warrior with a million condi clears and the ability to disengage whenever they feel like it low…. I think I’ve made my point. We are pigeonholed into that spec as it is right now and I would argue that it’s not cod or ctd that is op about the spec it’s the downstate which I am in full agreement needs to be nerfed into oblivion even if it has counters.

Also theives, mediguards, mesmers, and eles are all capable of the same type of burst and I would argue theirs is harder to counter. you have no clue when there’s is coming. When your fighting a necro you know exactly when it’s coming.

Also as far as dodging ds 1… if your fighting a zerk necro yes dodge and Los when you see them in ds. Because once that kitten is done and the necro was stupid and used all his lf chasing you to land a hit he is so screwed. Now if it’s in a group fight no you can’t be expected to dodge everything but I’m not sure that’s relevant.

any thing that has teleportation

Random Weird Guy.3528:

NeXeD.3042:

DS auto attacks are literally the easiest attack to dodge in game and has the most ridiculous wind up.

So your suggestion is to somehow dodge every single DS auto-attack while also having to dodge anything else of importance within a fight?

You don’t even have to dodge wells just walk our there are very few skills on necro that need to be dodged most of the time just blind or CC him etc. I mean come on we do have the slowest cast times some wonder why the meta spec is mainly pressing 1 lol not even on your weapon lol. If you think team fights then it’s unpredictable.

best designed: probably warrior, simple but effective
worst: rangers, ai based classes are never good thing and never will be any fun imo (neither for enemy nor for the user)

In terms of pure game design, the most poorly designed class right now is obviously Thief.

All the classes in this game have issues, compounded upon by stuff like Sigils and broken runesets.

You can’t say Warrior is well designed when it has been pidgeonholed entirely into Longbow + Cleansing Ire for the past 2 years. Healing Signet remains one of the most braindead things I’ve seen in the game, even if it’s not overpowered sustain anymore.

Engineer is currently designed around endless button spam through kits, instant CC, and passives like Incendiary Powder. It’s also had some of the most passive/broken meta builds similarly to Ranger such as turrets, decap w/ condi immunity under 25%.

Elementalist has suffered issues with oversustain and boon/dodge spam for most of the game’s history.

Necromancer has problems with telegraphing of animations. It also has never lived up to its feeling of a tanky attrition class. It has always been one of the burstiest meta-inclusions either as a power based Lich-lord or as a condition spike with no sustain. It’s probably Arenanet’s biggest failure if you take into account what they say they want the class to be.

Ranger has had numerous overpowered builds throughout the conquest meta, although right now it’s mainly just longbow 2 is overtuned. The pet mechanic has remained in a dumbed down state forever, and a lot of the weapons need a higher risk reward (more telegraphed animations, but with better effects). Both of the Ranger bows are frustrating to fight against.

Mesmer is decently designed. It has a clear list of strengths and weaknesses, as well as counters.

Guardian would probably be my vote for overall best design. The attacks are for the most part well telegraphed. It makes use of generally skillful mechanics and has a reasonable skillcap. It lacks stealth or endless dodge spam like Thief. The self healing is a bit overtuned at the moment but that’s it. Also if Guardians spec tanky, they can’t kill things while being mega-bunkers.

I laughed out loud when reading the Necro description in the OP. I knew it would cause some robble robble, and I’m only expecting more.

Though I honestly do believe that fundamentally, DS is a cool idea. A couple mechanical changes and it would be much more synergistic with the class, but the idea behind it I’m a very big fan of.

Worst design for me is Thief, and it isn’t close. I don’t like how the Initiative system works out, and the Thief’s interaction with Stealth has always felt broken (as a career solo roamer who had to actually deal with it, opposed to sPvP where it’s a non-issue).