Guild Wars 2

Hey guys

Just curious but :

Which class do you think has the highest skill ceiling?
Which has the lowest?

Which class has the highest skill floor?
Which has the lowest?

:)

Highest skill ceiling:
- Engineer
- Thief
- uhh mesmer?.. i guess

Lowest skill ceiling:
-Warrior
-Guardian

Lowest skill floor:
-Elementalist
-Warrior
-Guardian

Out of those 3 i think elementalist is the most forgiving and thus Lowest skill floor though.

I think all classes have around the same skill ceiling.

Skill floor, however is different:

Highest skill floor:
- Squishy burst builds – see thief, mesmer, scepter ele

Lowest skill floor:
- Tanky, high-sustain, high damage builds: cele ele, cele engie, turret engie, cele/soldier warrior

The LOWEST skill floor atm is probably engie thanks to turret engie and IP, which carries really hard in most fights for mid-level players.

@BlackBeard.

“I think all classes have around the same skill ceiling.” Are we playing the same game here?

Novuake.2691:

@BlackBeard.

“I think all classes have around the same skill ceiling.” Are we playing the same game here?

Yea, there are subtle nuances to playing every class that are only apparent in the best players. A large part of that, however, is an intimate knowledge of all your opponents and what THEY can do. That is really where the skill ceiling comes in, even if one class may be slightly less mechanically challenging.

@BlackBeard

Ah that made a lot more sense.
However interaction with other classes isn’t really what I meant, although it IS important to learn.

Each class has different skill ceilings in terms of where each one can do the most.
For team fights the highest skill ceiling imo is
mesmer and thief
because there is a lot they can do but not a lot of margin for error (in terms of dmg, interrupts, stealth saves, etc).
Followed by
Ele, Ranger, Guard
Because although these classes can do some clutch things in team fights, they don’t need to do much to be effective.
Lowest for team fight:
Necro and engineer because as long as you throw all your kitten at someone or something, you are doing alright.

1 v 1 skill cieling:
High: Mesmer and ranger
Followed by: thief and ele and engi
Then: guard necro thief.

The reason mesmer and ranger are on top of the 1 v 1 skill ceiling is because they have to deal with some HORRIBLE AI in order to fully maximize their efficiency, things like, summoning illusionary warden → temporal curtain → stand in it for condi clear off the whirl. Or skill cancelling a pet knock down because the pet does it automatically but you don’t want to play off of it atm, or want to save it for an interrupt.

Then we have thief and engi and ele because they can do a lot of clutch stuff in a 1 v 1, while guard, necro, and war don’t really have anything special they can do.

However, I think skill floors are different.
Team fight:
Highest skill floor:
Mesmer and thief
Then:
Guard and ele
Last:
Engi, necro, war, ranger

This is because mesmer and thief have no room for error in a team fight, guard has a lot to do but is helped out by tankiness and ele can be very usefull but can just be slaughtered when not done well. Engi, necro, war, ranger all make the low tier because all they have to do is press their buttons and things will probably die while they stay safe.

1 v 1 skill floor (on/around node)
lowest
war
engi
ele
guard
mesmer
ranger
thief
highest

Reason for this is war is very easy, you press your buttons and your heal is a passive. Engi is next because you never have cds and as long as you land your stuff, its an easy fight. Ele is supported by another passive heal and no cds while guardian can just fire away on node for low skilled players and get kills. Mesmer is next because it does have a lot of ways to survive and do dmg making it a decently easy pick up. Ranger (since the pet nerf) isn’t so easy because given the current meta builds power is not an easy build to 1 v 1 with on node and requires good pet control to be effective, although condi ranger is pretty low skill floor. Thief imo is the highest skill floor for beginners in terms of 1 v 1 given the lack of survivability.

My thoughts.

I would argue that (despite the common opinion) currently hambow warrior is one of the harder class to play: their skills are not only highly telegraphed (most of them takes at least 0.75 seconds to complete) but also their special feature (adrenaline burst) was weakened to a almost useless tool, negating the class signature. And that is without even taking in consideration lag spikes (which utterly destroys this kind of gameplay).

If you use a hambow warrior is really hard to beat competent players, because there’s too litle you can do to be impredictable.

On the other hand, the classes/builds with the lower floor are anyone based on conditions: passive damage + sustain/evasive gameplay = facerolling wins.