Guild Wars 2

This thread will mainly be a list of the current state of all the 9 classes in PvP. As the season is near ending, a new balance patch will surely come out, so I have made this thread so that people can discuss things that can be nerfed/buffed. Hopefully, ArenaNet considers some of the ideas said in this thread.

PLEASE TRY TO KEEP THE SALT LEVEL TO LOW! TOO MUCH SODIUM IS BAD FOR YOU! Respect other people’s opinions on what they think should be buffed or nerfed and debate using facts, if possible that is.

I’ll start of with what I think is the current state of classes in PvP.

Warrior: Warrior is in a very good spot in PvP, a lot of people are running it right now. Honestly, my opinion on Warrior is that it has good sustain with double Endures, and Resistance stacks while doing insane damage. My personal opinion is to either nerf warrior’s damage, or nerf it’s sustain. (Mainly nerf it’s damage, as it’s sustain really is fine, but being immune to both power damage and condition damage (resistance) while being able to do a lot of damage is a tad bit overpowered)

Guardian: A lot of people always, ALWAYS complain about Guardian in PvP. In my complete honest unbiased opinion, Guardian needs absolutely no changes as of right now. Except for maybe reduce trap damage just a tiny bit, not too much maybe 5-8%. People always complain about Guardians because of traps that they put, but honestly if you are dumb enough to walk into mid and expecting there to not be traps with guardians on the other team, you really do deserve to get killed by traps. Guardian’s are not anywhere near the level of overpowered. Be smart and don’t walk in traps and bind dodge.

Revenant: Rest in peace. You will be remembered Revenant. In all seriousness, Revenant got hit pretty hard in the last balance patch. The nerf to PS and SoTM really set this class to the bottom of the meta. It can still do good damage and party boonshare, but these days Revenants die very fast and very easily. I have 2 suggestions on how to fix Revenant and put it back into the meta. Make the Mallyx/Glint version of Revenant great again (there has been a lack of condition damage builds in this meta so far. 6 metas are power damage, only Mesmer being Condition Damage.) or turn Revenant into a full support class by buffing/reworking Ventari heals and combo that with Glint. We’ll just have to wait and see what awaits Revenant, hopefully no more nerfs, as the class can use some buffs at this point in time.

Engineer: Don’t know about you guys, but Engineer has no problems with me at all, can’t think of anything that would be nerfed/buffed. In my honest opinion, it’s in a very great spot at the moment with high damage and high support with that amazing Rezz power.

Ranger: With Celestial Avatar getting nerfed and having that 15 second cooldown time, I really have found no problems with Rangers, they have an excellent spot in the meta. Well, except for one tiny thing. The Signet of the Wild glitch. If you don’t know, when you activate Signet of the Wild, it does unblockable damage for a time. It’s a bug/glitch because ArenaNet never officially put it in their balance patch notes, and it’s been a glitch for a while now. I’m hoping ArenaNet fixes that bug or glitch, unless they actually intended to implement that into the game.

Thief: Oh boy here comes the fun class to talk about balancing. There has been A LOT of salt and crying about thief. 99% of thief abilities are fine, except for the 1% that stood out this meta. Pulmonary Impact. Honestly, I don’t see what’s the point of crying about Pulmonary Impact, as in my honest opinion it’s not really that overpowered and Thief being squishy as all hell as it is already really don’t need another nerf, but if I don’t mention some kind of nerf to PI, this thread will become a salt mine in a second so here’s my 2 cents on how they should change Pulmonary. Impacting Disruption is the trait in the Daredevil tree that states “enemies suffer a pulmonary impact when interrupted.” Just give the trait a 10 second cooldown or something. If you guys don’t know, traits CAN HAVE cooldowns set on them. Why not do the same to Impacting Disruption so you can’t spam Headshot and expect to get Pulmonary every time

Necromancer: This is my master class. I’ve played Necromancer for a very long time in sPvP so I’m going to try my absolute best and hardest to be unbiased. Necromancer is the greatest team fighter in the game right now. Whenever you go into Reaper Shroud in team fights, it almost always guarantees a kill. Honestly, Necromancer right now needs absolutely 0 changes, as even though it has absolute insane damage, it doesn’t have any good sustain at all like Warrior. Or, it could use 1 change, and that change is nerfing Necromancer’s damage while buffing its sustain. That’s really the only change I can think of, as like I said Necromancer is in a very great spot at the moment, having the throne and title of being the best team fighter right now.

Mesmer: In a great spot right now in the meta in my honest opinion. Can provide massive team movement with Portal and can do high shatter damage and team plays with Moa. Can honestly think of 0 changes to Mesmer as of right now.

Elementalist: Another class that’s in a great spot right now in the meta. People thought it would die due to Cleric’s Amulet being taken out, but Elementalist is still the king of team support. Can think of 0 changes to Elementalist as well as of right now.

That’s my honest opinions on what should be changed in the new balance patch. Like I said, discuss your opinions on this thread on what should be changed and hopefully, just HOPEFULLY ArenaNet looks at this thread and receives the feedback we are trying to give them of the balance.

Would like to point out that this meta in my honest opinion has been one of the greatest we’ve had so far.

Divine.3279:

Would like to point out that this meta in my honest opinion has been one of the greatest we’ve had so far.

Unless you’re an elementalist and can only heal others with the 1 viable build while dodging like a monkey.

greatest meta was clearly the dhuum terror meta.

Short version
Nerf warriors
Buff revenants

Gw2 PvP in 2017 is like: “Guys if everyone is broken that means the game is balanced right?!?!”

I have to say overall OPs post was pretty surpising, was expecting some Q.Q thread. Here are my own thoughts:

About warrior, I think warrior is fine. It’s berserker. Berserkers burst skills bring so much damage compared to warriors, with minimal cast times and low cool downs. In all honesty I think warrior as a whole would be pretty balanced if they up’d the cool down on mace burst, and adjusted the radius on greatsword arc divider.

Agreed on trap damage for guards. I’d also like to see spear of justice have some costs regarding the pull. I think moving the target half way, and moving the guard half way on the pull would be a lot more interesting and give the opponent some counter play to this really strong cc.

Rev is in a crappy state atm. Personally I hope they do something with its weapons. Sword is the only weapon that makes the class playable.

Theif needs to have pulmn have an icd. Simple as that. I would also argue death blossom needs a rework as it promotes some really poor play.

Ranger and engineer have the same problem imo. They have way to much stealth in aoe format while being able to be a good bunker which is what allows them to have really good res and escape potential.

Mesmer I would like to see a small defense shave. Currently they have way to much invuln/block uptime. I see a lot of people play in pve rotation style and sadly have really high success because of limited windows of opportunity.

Celtus.8456:

Gw2 PvP in 2017 is like: “Guys if everyone is broken that means the game is balanced right?!?!”

Pretty much.

OP’s list is funny. Builds which “play themselves” like DH and warrior are fine, but revenant, which requires actual thought and decision making, is underpowered.

Exedore.6320:

Celtus.8456:

Gw2 PvP in 2017 is like: “Guys if everyone is broken that means the game is balanced right?!?!”

Pretty much.

OP’s list is funny. Builds which “play themselves” like DH and warrior are fine, but revenant, which requires actual thought and decision making, is underpowered.

Vitali.5039:

Exedore.6320:

Celtus.8456:

Gw2 PvP in 2017 is like: “Guys if everyone is broken that means the game is balanced right?!?!”

Pretty much.

OP’s list is funny. Builds which “play themselves” like DH and warrior are fine, but revenant, which requires actual thought and decision making, is underpowered.

Yeah I don’t know anymore with these devs.

10 sec cd a"small nerf " i dont now what to say…..

Menyus.4610:

10 sec cd a"small nerf " i dont now what to say…..

I mean, I don’t know what to tell you buddy. If you have a better a suggestion type it down because the entire Pulmonary Impact nerf discussion has been a salt mine for a very long time.

Xillllix.3485:

Divine.3279:

Would like to point out that this meta in my honest opinion has been one of the greatest we’ve had so far.

Unless you’re an elementalist and can only heal others with the 1 viable build while dodging like a monkey.

You know there’s other viable builds for elementalist? No one forces you to run meta. Meta just means the most popular and flavor of the month, and the elementalist meta is mainly run because IT IS THE BEST support as of right now. But no one absolutely forces you to run it.

Exedore.6320:

Celtus.8456:

Gw2 PvP in 2017 is like: “Guys if everyone is broken that means the game is balanced right?!?!”

Pretty much.

OP’s list is funny. Builds which “play themselves” like DH and warrior are fine, but revenant, which requires actual thought and decision making, is underpowered.

Rev is underpowered. Hopefully ArenaNet buffs it, because it’s pretty trash how it got destroyed by the nerf to PS and SoTm

Hah the original OP Divine, but don’t worry I’m a doctor. Anyway here’s my input on the classes:

Dragonhunter: Wayyyy too many options and tanky for something that can dish out that much damage while being able to deal with both power and condi specs alike

Berserker: Pretty decent spot, very high damage but also very frail and can be kited

Reaper: It’s fine, does good damage and chill to the bone is amazing, but also wears a bullseye and always gets focused due to poor disengage

Daredevil: Super frail but mobility and damage is good, it feels pretty fair

Scrapper: Amazing as a support bruiser, but again, I’ve never had a scrapper that was so impossibly broken it turned the game

Chronomancer: Similar to the daredevil, frail but good damage and mobility, in a good spot

Druid: Can be super annoying but it can be worn down by condis and cc

Tempest: Amazing healer but the class as a whole is very one note. It does one job extremely well but you will never venture outside of that support role, definitely needs more options

Herald: By far the worst profession right now, no identity, not very good as a power, condi or even support spec. Out of all the professions, this one desperately needs more options, I would argue and say it’s even worse than tempest because at least there it does one job better than anything else. There is no reason to play a herald.

akaCryptic.2389:

I don’t think any class is borderline OP or UP. I liked the balance this season, removing passive traits and minor nerfs to reduce powercreep should suffice.

Warrior: Reduce adrenal health by 20%. Increase the healing power scaling by 30%. Make primal bursts trigger 2 bars of adrenaline instead of 3. Remove 1 condi from mace primal burst.

Guardian: Make F1 pull not pierce. Reduce passive and active burn duration from DH F1 by 15%.

Revenant: Make cleanse on legend swap remove 2 condis instead of 1. Reduce staff 4 cast time by half second. Increase damage on staff 2 chain skill by 20%. Reduce shiro heal cooldown from 30 to 25. Nerf sword autoattack by 5%. Reduce sword 2 cooldown by 1 second.

Thief: Make pulmonary impact blockable and dodgable.

Elementalist: Increase burning duration of dagger fire skills.

Engineer: Increase the cooldown of bunker down trait by 1 second. Not a balance change but add AoE circle to acid bomb.

Mesmer: Increase the cooldown of distortion by 5 seconds. Buff staff 3 by making it damage point blank aoe on target like engi pistol auto. Fix sword 2 stowing exploit.

Necro: Seems fine, maybe minor cooldown increases while adding some boons.

Ranger: Seems fine. Perhaps lower the boon duration on shouts.

Elementalist: Increase burning duration of dagger fire skills.

C’mon man! you didn’t even try, may as well not suggest anything XD

Supreme.3164:

akaCryptic.2389:

I don’t think any class is borderline OP or UP. I liked the balance this season, removing passive traits and minor nerfs to reduce powercreep should suffice.

Warrior: Reduce adrenal health by 20%. Increase the healing power scaling by 30%. Make primal bursts trigger 2 bars of adrenaline instead of 3. Remove 1 condi from mace primal burst.

Guardian: Make F1 pull not pierce. Reduce passive and active burn duration from DH F1 by 15%.

Revenant: Make cleanse on legend swap remove 2 condis instead of 1. Reduce staff 4 cast time by half second. Increase damage on staff 2 chain skill by 20%. Reduce shiro heal cooldown from 30 to 25. Nerf sword autoattack by 5%. Reduce sword 2 cooldown by 1 second.

Thief: Make pulmonary impact blockable and dodgable.

Elementalist: Increase burning duration of dagger fire skills.

Engineer: Increase the cooldown of bunker down trait by 1 second. Not a balance change but add AoE circle to acid bomb.

Mesmer: Increase the cooldown of distortion by 5 seconds. Buff staff 3 by making it damage point blank aoe on target like engi pistol auto. Fix sword 2 stowing exploit.

Necro: Seems fine, maybe minor cooldown increases while adding some boons.

Ranger: Seems fine. Perhaps lower the boon duration on shouts.

Elementalist: Increase burning duration of dagger fire skills.

C’mon man! you didn’t even try, may as well not suggest anything XD

I really like how things are except the passives. Anet is happy with powercreep spam meta as well. I’m just being realistic here. Anet wont make eles a DPS class all of a sudden, at least not until the next expansion.

akaCryptic.2389:

Supreme.3164:

akaCryptic.2389:

I don’t think any class is borderline OP or UP. I liked the balance this season, removing passive traits and minor nerfs to reduce powercreep should suffice.

Warrior: Reduce adrenal health by 20%. Increase the healing power scaling by 30%. Make primal bursts trigger 2 bars of adrenaline instead of 3. Remove 1 condi from mace primal burst.

Guardian: Make F1 pull not pierce. Reduce passive and active burn duration from DH F1 by 15%.

Revenant: Make cleanse on legend swap remove 2 condis instead of 1. Reduce staff 4 cast time by half second. Increase damage on staff 2 chain skill by 20%. Reduce shiro heal cooldown from 30 to 25. Nerf sword autoattack by 5%. Reduce sword 2 cooldown by 1 second.

Thief: Make pulmonary impact blockable and dodgable.

Elementalist: Increase burning duration of dagger fire skills.

Engineer: Increase the cooldown of bunker down trait by 1 second. Not a balance change but add AoE circle to acid bomb.

Mesmer: Increase the cooldown of distortion by 5 seconds. Buff staff 3 by making it damage point blank aoe on target like engi pistol auto. Fix sword 2 stowing exploit.

Necro: Seems fine, maybe minor cooldown increases while adding some boons.

Ranger: Seems fine. Perhaps lower the boon duration on shouts.

Elementalist: Increase burning duration of dagger fire skills.

C’mon man! you didn’t even try, may as well not suggest anything XD

I really like how things are except the passives. Anet is happy with powercreep spam meta as well. I’m just being realistic here. Anet wont make eles a DPS class all of a sudden, at least not until the next expansion.

After 4 months those are pitiful balance changes though. There is so much stuff which is either insanely good or insanely bad and must be changed. How has necro greatsword not been reworked? In addition how have some absurd traits remained op for so long?

Also rev for sure should not be buffed. It is really strong, once thief is made less good rev will shine. The solution to rev being meh is thief, mesmer and warrior being nerfed.

Please everyone, I made this thread for everyone to discuss their own opinions on what should be buffed or nerfed for the next balance patch. I’m trying to make this thread a Suggestion Thread for ArenaNet to look at and hopefully get ideas from us for the next balance patch. If you are just going to Q.Q and put salt on this thread and complain how this meta is bad and not give actual opinions on how classes should be balanced please leave.

I think the current meta is fine compared to HoT in general (although I’ve been maining Rev which I’ve retired out of frustration now), but HoT kinda blew the game apart so that’s not saying much.

The reason I think that is that the elite speccs are a requirement, not a choice. Hence build diversity went out the window and you pretty much know exactly what you’re gonna be up against just by looking at classes.

Divine.3279:

Xillllix.3485:

Divine.3279:

Would like to point out that this meta in my honest opinion has been one of the greatest we’ve had so far.

Unless you’re an elementalist and can only heal others with the 1 viable build while dodging like a monkey.

You know there’s other viable builds for elementalist? No one forces you to run meta. Meta just means the most popular and flavor of the month, and the elementalist meta is mainly run because IT IS THE BEST support as of right now. But no one absolutely forces you to run it.

Why would you do this? You can just roll another class (like DH) and roll your face on the keyboard with more success.

something seriously needs to be done about Rev

Centaur, Dwarf and Demon are all trash. I think a major energy cost reduction is needed, perhaps rev needs to start with 100 energy also. a rework could be good too, but reducing costs and cast times would be a good initial move i think. also, un-nerfing the stability on dodge would be excellent.

I’ve had ventari almost working, but it’s not there.
with a little adjustment we could have a strong support and a strong condi build for Rev, which I would celebrate.

They need to undo the power nerfs on rev. It was a lesser mobile thief with more durability, and now it’s just a crappy version of a warrior with the massive costs to phase traversal, the nerf to autoattack and sword 2,3, and staff 5 damage.

Condi/support rev have always been trash, so those need buffs anyways. Everything to do with ventari, from the staff weapon to the utilities, has massive energy costs and large delays with impractical usage.

Mallyx rev with condis doesn’t have enough condi coverage, and most of the condi burst comes from massively energy expensive utilities.

Another problem:

Ventari and Mallyx revs have garbage stunbreak capacity.

Exedore.6320:

Celtus.8456:

Gw2 PvP in 2017 is like: “Guys if everyone is broken that means the game is balanced right?!?!”

Pretty much.

OP’s list is funny. Builds which “play themselves” like DH and warrior are fine, but revenant, which requires actual thought and decision making, is underpowered.

FrostDraco.8306:

Because getting stab on dodge and a dps rotation consisting of auto attack and precision strike whenever its up is hard to master how?

Lol XD

Divine.3279:

Xillllix.3485:

Divine.3279:

Would like to point out that this meta in my honest opinion has been one of the greatest we’ve had so far.

Unless you’re an elementalist and can only heal others with the 1 viable build while dodging like a monkey.

You know there’s other viable builds for elementalist? No one forces you to run meta. Meta just means the most popular and flavor of the month, and the elementalist meta is mainly run because IT IS THE BEST support as of right now. But no one absolutely forces you to run it.

Viable below gold/plat where you can fight bad players that dont know when to dodge. If you are playing anything besides healbot on ele, you’re a free kill to any player with a fraction of skill on any other class. Try getting to legendary on s/f fresh air ele, let me know how that goes for you.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Exedore.6320:

Celtus.8456:

Gw2 PvP in 2017 is like: “Guys if everyone is broken that means the game is balanced right?!?!”

Pretty much.

OP’s list is funny. Builds which “play themselves” like DH and warrior are fine, but revenant, which requires actual thought and decision making, is underpowered.

FrostDraco.8306:

Because getting stab on dodge and a dps rotation consisting of auto attack and precision strike whenever its up is hard to master how?

Lol XD

Yes so loool, so now why dont you plz get to Legendary with a Rev and show me how many more Revs than warriors (and to any other class really) are in it.

I just want to see every elite spec nerfed. I think the core specs are mostly fine, some of them may even need slight buffs, but all elite specs need straight nerfs and/or redesigns. Some need more nerfs than others, but they all need to be nerfed. And @Anet make the nerfs to the actual elite spec, not to the core class skills/traits that only become a problem when you are running the elite spec (cough RI healing nerf cough).

OriOri.8724:

I just want to see every elite spec nerfed.

That would be a problem due some classes (Revenant) lacks core class. I mean, you can literaly do 0 things without Glint in PvP. Nada. Jalis and Ventari are useless and Shiro and Mallyx paired is just weak.

I wouldn’t count on them nerfing elite specs. They need you to buy more expansions, and elite specs are the only reason for pvp and wvw players to buy the expansion. If core specs were equal with elites, we would have no reason to buy the expansion when we can just play core for free and still be competative. Its a deliberate marketing decision. The next expansion will have more elite specs which will be just as op, but equal to other expansion elite specs. So you have to keep buying expansions for variety. All elite specs will be equal to eachother, but blow core specs out the water. It wouldnt make sense for them from a financial standpoint to make elites weaker.

Meanwhile, this is probably the most balanced the game has ever been.

I think people should be required to play a class for 100 ranked matches before complaining about it. Like, for real ANET. This would be a cool little thing to do for your forums. Maybe this would be the first good pvp forum in mmo history?

Crowley.8761:

I think the current meta is fine compared to HoT in general (although I’ve been maining Rev which I’ve retired out of frustration now), but HoT kinda blew the game apart so that’s not saying much.

The reason I think that is that the elite speccs are a requirement, not a choice. Hence build diversity went out the window and you pretty much know exactly what you’re gonna be up against just by looking at classes.

Elite specs aren’t a requirement for some builds and some classes actually can be played without elite spec. It truly depends on the person behind the screen though to make them work.

Also, you have to remember they made Elite Specs powerful because if they were the same as core specs, no one would buy the expansion. It was a marketing standpoint.

Nikkinella.8254:

Divine.3279:

Xillllix.3485:

Divine.3279:

Would like to point out that this meta in my honest opinion has been one of the greatest we’ve had so far.

Unless you’re an elementalist and can only heal others with the 1 viable build while dodging like a monkey.

You know there’s other viable builds for elementalist? No one forces you to run meta. Meta just means the most popular and flavor of the month, and the elementalist meta is mainly run because IT IS THE BEST support as of right now. But no one absolutely forces you to run it.

Viable below gold/plat where you can fight bad players that dont know when to dodge. If you are playing anything besides healbot on ele, you’re a free kill to any player with a fraction of skill on any other class. Try getting to legendary on s/f fresh air ele, let me know how that goes for you.

People have actually got on legendary on s/f fresh air ele or some other weird builds. You have to remember about 45% of winning is your build, the other 55% is the person behind the screen’s skill.

Buran.3796:

OriOri.8724:

I just want to see every elite spec nerfed.

That would be a problem due some classes (Revenant) lacks core class. I mean, you can literaly do 0 things without Glint in PvP. Nada. Jalis and Ventari are useless and Shiro and Mallyx paired is just weak.

Rev is its own problem. The class is designed very poorly, and needs to be redone almost entirely. But that doesn’t mean that elite specs in general don’t need to be nerfed.

@Nikkinella – I disagree that elite specs have to be more powerful than core specs to still be an incentive so buy expansions. Elite specs offer a new weapon, new utility, new type of skills, and if they were designed properly would also offer an entirely new way to play your base class (see ranger taking on uber support/healing role with Druid and CA). Even in terms of WvW and PvP, the ability to take a new set of skills, have new class mechanics to use, and be able to fundamentally change how your class plays should be more than enough incentive to buy the expansion for the elite specs.

OriOri.8724:

Buran.3796:

OriOri.8724:

I just want to see every elite spec nerfed.

That would be a problem due some classes (Revenant) lacks core class. I mean, you can literaly do 0 things without Glint in PvP. Nada. Jalis and Ventari are useless and Shiro and Mallyx paired is just weak.

Rev is its own problem. The class is designed very poorly, and needs to be redone almost entirely. But that doesn’t mean that elite specs in general don’t need to be nerfed.

@Nikkinella – I disagree that elite specs have to be more powerful than core specs to still be an incentive so buy expansions. Elite specs offer a new weapon, new utility, new type of skills, and if they were designed properly would also offer an entirely new way to play your base class (see ranger taking on uber support/healing role with Druid and CA). Even in terms of WvW and PvP, the ability to take a new set of skills, have new class mechanics to use, and be able to fundamentally change how your class plays should be more than enough incentive to buy the expansion for the elite specs.

That’s how it SHOULD be. But you and I both know that won’t happen. Something new and OP sells easier. It’s just better strategy from a marketing standpoint to make all the new stuff blatantly overpowered to entice people to buy it to stay competitive, then gradually nerf it later on. The new Elite specs will definitely be OP, you could pretty much guarantee that. That’s certainly what I would do if I were in charge of it. Its just human nature in gaming to go for the new OP stuff. If its OP, people are going to be more likely to buy it. If its just an alternate way of playing, you wont get as many people guaranteed to buy it.

Divine.3279:

Nikkinella.8254:

Divine.3279:

Xillllix.3485:

Divine.3279:

Would like to point out that this meta in my honest opinion has been one of the greatest we’ve had so far.

Unless you’re an elementalist and can only heal others with the 1 viable build while dodging like a monkey.

You know there’s other viable builds for elementalist? No one forces you to run meta. Meta just means the most popular and flavor of the month, and the elementalist meta is mainly run because IT IS THE BEST support as of right now. But no one absolutely forces you to run it.

Viable below gold/plat where you can fight bad players that dont know when to dodge. If you are playing anything besides healbot on ele, you’re a free kill to any player with a fraction of skill on any other class. Try getting to legendary on s/f fresh air ele, let me know how that goes for you.

People have actually got on legendary on s/f fresh air ele or some other weird builds. You have to remember about 45% of winning is your build, the other 55% is the person behind the screen’s skill.

Yeah I dont doubt it. I made it to plat just playing weird non-meta builds before i got bored, stopped giving a crap and havent played for like a month now. I’m just saying, its not something normal that you could count on happening. Player skill factors into it alot. A good player can beat a trash player playing a suboptimal build. That doesnt mean the crappy build he’s using is good. A good player can make anything work. I’m just saying s/f is nowhere near as good as any of the other builds any other class could use reliably. A good player can make it work, but they have to work 100 times harder than if they just played something else instead. Anything is viable if you’re good enough, that doesnt make it good.

Guardian traps covering small points makes it a go to since it’s easy mode. It’s a passive way of taking over a point in any scenario. Yet you see multiple guards so no shti you see people evading away while they cap. Guard is the best class in pvp for this reason. Let’s not forget we all run shield to know you off point and crit for 5k through test of faith

XxsdgxX.8109:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Exedore.6320:

Celtus.8456:

Gw2 PvP in 2017 is like: “Guys if everyone is broken that means the game is balanced right?!?!”

Pretty much.

OP’s list is funny. Builds which “play themselves” like DH and warrior are fine, but revenant, which requires actual thought and decision making, is underpowered.

FrostDraco.8306:

Because getting stab on dodge and a dps rotation consisting of auto attack and precision strike whenever its up is hard to master how?

Lol XD

Yes so loool, so now why dont you plz get to Legendary with a Rev and show me how many more Revs than warriors (and to any other class really) are in it.

What, like the last few seasons when everybody and their dog was playing them because of how broken and faceroll they are?

Interesting that, the moment they dont have their full bag of bullkitten to make them an easy spam one button do it all class with a super easy ride over every bodies grave they evaporate, hmm. Nothing’s changed about Rev’s design. It’s simply been neutered for the moment to take it from the scene.

This has actually been healthy for the game this season.

I disagree with almost everything the OP says. In his opinion most classes are in a great position. I’ll comment on a few.

Warr. Yes way over the top at the moment, I often see a lot of players just trying to get away from them because of ridiculous high damage, blocks, invulns, condi negation, and more importantly extreme mobility in combat which means they travel faster than most of of your skill cast times. When people say the way to beat warrior is to kite them, I think that is a strong indication that they don’t have many effective counters to their skills. This is akin to breaking LoS, another indication of class strength or class weakness depending on whether you are the one doing this or not.

Herald needs too little skill for too much reward. Traps have no cast time and can be laid instantly all in one go. On a key macro guards can teleport to you and burst you down with traps and burns instantly. They need to give cast times to the traps, so that they are used tactically and can be interrupted. Cap domination with traps is an unfair advantage as most classes cannot fight on cap with them for too long without dying.

Reaper shroud is a cheap low skill I win button.

Mesmer is not in a good place. About 95% of mes play condi builds, not because it is so good, but because compared to other classes power builds are so relatively bad at damage, condi removal with virtually no access to stability.

Some of the problems are not inherent in the classes, but to do with skills that require little skill for a lot of effect (damage, healing, cc – or even worse combinations of these in one skill) or need no skill at all such as passive effects. Very large damage aoe fields should be reduced in diameter so you have to use skill to be rewarded and also be non-spammable. No class should hard counter another (that is is just terrible PvP design). Stop balancing classes around Esports when virtually no one is interested in it and will never be playing at that level.

Warrior: Reduce the range on arcing slice. Getting randomly hit for 50% of your damage form someone not even on the screen (and no reasonable animation on the skill) is just dumb. Also, make the cast time 3/4s. Headbutt cast time should also be 3/4s. Big effects should have big cast times.

DH: Put a cast time on shield knocback (1/2 s) and a proper cast time/travel time for spear throw (3/4 s) and they are perfect. Instant/unavoidable CC’s are stupid.

Rev: Pretty good, just adjust some of the other stuff and these guys will be fine. Swapping legends shouldn’t proc on-swap sigils (this was an issue in the past, will be again some time on the future).

Engie: Fine in comparing its role as support vs. other options, but probably needs its sustain brought down a little if reducing some of the “free” damage on other classes. Good choices are: less stability from “evading an attack” (too much reward for something so easy). Also, bunker down is bad design….it so insanely passive/mindless.

Ranger: Put a proper cast time on staff 3 (~18-20s). I would also like to add a short windup to point-blank shot. Again, CC should have some kind of windup. Ancient seeds needs a nerf…probably reduce the duration a little bit, as it promotes pretty mindless gameplay (Just CC the guy, then he is a sitting duck for free!).

Thief: Reign in the power of pulmonary impact, which is just suffocating for many classes. Also, reduce the mobility a tad by reducing unhindered combatant – it doesn’t need 10s of swiftness AND 450 range AND remove all cc condis with no ICD. Maybe that last effect should have a 10s CD, or the swiftness should be removed/reduced to 3s. Also, panic strike immob is stupid and undodgeable…change that.

Necro: Remove chill of death, replace with something that has counterplay. Please, add a reasonable animation to scepter and axe attacks, so you aren’t just randomly being hit with no indication from what angle it is coming from (bad design that is a personal pet peeve). Necro damage should come more from landing skills/combos and less from procs.

Mesmer: While the damage is stupid, the amount of sustain/kiting that it can pull off is the worst. Increase the CD of signet of illusions, put an ICD on chronophantasm, increase the GCD of all shatters (again, so people don’t just spam them all when they are in cont. split once again), and probably modify how cont. split works with moa/elite skills.

Ele: reduce some the tempest sustain, starting first with the free frost aura from ele. bastion. Perhaps reduce the total healing a little bit more (esp. if you take damage away from every other class). Perhaps get rid of the “improved protection,” and instead rework tempest/the class to be able to do something other than be an enabler of other builds in pvp.

Great thread, and lots of good comments. I currently main a chrono but play ele, guard, war and occasionally necro. My opinions are from playing them, but mostly playing against them.

Tempest is in an OK spot. It takes some good skill rotation to stay alive, and 1v1 you don’t die but also don’t kill anything. Need a little more damage, a little less heal.

I don’t play necro a lot, but if we have more than 1 or 2 on a team, we almost always lose. They do great damage, but have no sustain and I keep looking up at the health bars bars and they are always dead. 1v1 I just kite them and spam shatter. They have no pull or shadowstep. I think necro is in a crappy spot, but has been for the last few seasons.

War is in a good spot finally. Great in a team fight, 1v1 you can just kite them.

Guards are super annoying. I’m terrible playing them, but playing against them they seem to stack their traps on top of each other. Instant death. Just freaking add mark on the ground, just like a necro. If I see 6 circles I stay away.

Thief death blossom is stupid. Most thieves I play just spam it and then stealth. Then spam it and stealth. So I try to focus them because they die quickly. Team that with the occasional pistol unload thief and it is just annoying. Unload is great when I play my war with a ton of reflect, but mesmer doesn’t have much. They still aren’t difficult to kill. More thought needs to go into thief skills because of the spamming ability. Make playing well more rewarding.

Chrono is amazing. We have way too much block with scepter. When traited, Sc2 on 4.75 CD and Sh4 has 2 blocks on 40 sec CD. Block and shatter is about all I have to do. No worries about a change because it’s not meta. It’s great. Win 90% of 1v1, but not great in group play.

@BlackBeard – I agree that chrono shatter spam is real and is a problem, but I disagree with your solution to that. Instead of increasing the CD of SoIllusions, I would change the active effect to just decrease shatter CD by 50% of their base CD. So if you aren’t running the Illusions line it would cut 25 sec off of Distortion’s CD, 6 sec off of MW’s CD. If you just increase the CD of the skill, it doesn’t stop anyone from using it in CS, and it doesn’t stop anyone from using all of their shatters twice or even 3 times in a row. Decreasing the active effect however does stop people from using all of their shatters twice in a row on core mesmer, or 3 times in a row on chrono. So this is a larger nerf to the optimal utility you can gain from the signet without just increasing the CD of it.

OriOri.8724:

@BlackBeard – I agree that chrono shatter spam is real and is a problem, but I disagree with your solution to that. Instead of increasing the CD of SoIllusions, I would change the active effect to just decrease shatter CD by 50% of their base CD. So if you aren’t running the Illusions line it would cut 25 sec off of Distortion’s CD, 6 sec off of MW’s CD. If you just increase the CD of the skill, it doesn’t stop anyone from using it in CS, and it doesn’t stop anyone from using all of their shatters twice or even 3 times in a row. Decreasing the active effect however does stop people from using all of their shatters twice in a row on core mesmer, or 3 times in a row on chrono. So this is a larger nerf to the optimal utility you can gain from the signet without just increasing the CD of it.

Yeah I support Ori on this, it’s nice when skills can be used more frequently but have weaker effects, instead of longer CDs but stronger effects. The latter just causes 1v1s to be decided based on who was fighting most recently, that’s not fair or fun.

The problem with Guardians is trap stacking by multiple Guardians. One trapper by himself is fine when you get 2 or more its too easy to insta gib/sand bag people. Thats what needs to be addressed there needs to be diminishing returns if you get hit by 2 of the same kind of trap in a very short time frame the second trap should do substantially less damage. Its skill-less the way it is. Every game I have ever played had diminishing returns like that for stacking powerful aoe skills from different players in pvp eventually.

Nikkinella.8254:

Divine.3279:

Xillllix.3485:

Divine.3279:

Would like to point out that this meta in my honest opinion has been one of the greatest we’ve had so far.

Unless you’re an elementalist and can only heal others with the 1 viable build while dodging like a monkey.

You know there’s other viable builds for elementalist? No one forces you to run meta. Meta just means the most popular and flavor of the month, and the elementalist meta is mainly run because IT IS THE BEST support as of right now. But no one absolutely forces you to run it.

Viable below gold/plat where you can fight bad players that dont know when to dodge. If you are playing anything besides healbot on ele, you’re a free kill to any player with a fraction of skill on any other class. Try getting to legendary on s/f fresh air ele, let me know how that goes for you.

Yeah F/A ele isn’t worth playing atm. It really just needs a higher burst to keep up, and Dragon’s tooth needs to fall very soon after it’s cast. Idk why the cast time is 1s yet it still hangs in the air for another second before falling. Between your weapon skills and utilities there’s enough to do well in most 1v1s, but right now it’s just not competitive with staff thief for its 1v1 and groupfight potential. Probs sounds like an odd comparison but staff thief is just preferable for the same role.

Vague Memory.2817:

I disagree with almost everything the OP says. In his opinion most classes are in a great position. I’ll comment on a few.

Warr. Yes way over the top at the moment, I often see a lot of players just trying to get away from them because of ridiculous high damage, blocks, invulns, condi negation, and more importantly extreme mobility in combat which means they travel faster than most of of your skill cast times. When people say the way to beat warrior is to kite them, I think that is a strong indication that they don’t have many effective counters to their skills. This is akin to breaking LoS, another indication of class strength or class weakness depending on whether you are the one doing this or not.

Herald needs too little skill for too much reward. Traps have no cast time and can be laid instantly all in one go. On a key macro guards can teleport to you and burst you down with traps and burns instantly. They need to give cast times to the traps, so that they are used tactically and can be interrupted. Cap domination with traps is an unfair advantage as most classes cannot fight on cap with them for too long without dying.

Reaper shroud is a cheap low skill I win button.

Mesmer is not in a good place. About 95% of mes play condi builds, not because it is so good, but because compared to other classes power builds are so relatively bad at damage, condi removal with virtually no access to stability.

Some of the problems are not inherent in the classes, but to do with skills that require little skill for a lot of effect (damage, healing, cc – or even worse combinations of these in one skill) or need no skill at all such as passive effects. Very large damage aoe fields should be reduced in diameter so you have to use skill to be rewarded and also be non-spammable. No class should hard counter another (that is is just terrible PvP design). Stop balancing classes around Esports when virtually no one is interested in it and will never be playing at that level.

So let me get this straight. You consider Herald aka Revenant needs little skill for too much reward? This absolutely makes no sense whatsoever as Revenant already got nerfed both on its Boon sharing and its damage, and Revenant requires mechanical skill to play the class correctly. Reaper Shroud a cheap button to win? Without Reaper Shroud necro would be unplayable and would be in the downstate 99% of the time so there’s a 2nd thing you got wrong. Mesmer not being in a good place because people run the meta build for it? This absolutely makes no sense whatsoever so that’s the 3rd thing you got wrong. Also, no mmo has ever gotten balance right, there will always be classes that hard counter other classes because of they’re builds and roles. Of course a roamer like thief are going to get hard countered by a bunker like druid/guardian.

The history of Tempest in 2 sentences:

Concept artists make a epic image of an elementalist summoning a huge storm.

Developer takes that concept and turns it into a heal-bot profession, ruining the class gameplay variety and betraying the no-trinity element of the launch manifesto in the process.

Ross Biddle.2367:

XxsdgxX.8109:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Exedore.6320:

Celtus.8456:

Gw2 PvP in 2017 is like: “Guys if everyone is broken that means the game is balanced right?!?!”

Pretty much.

OP’s list is funny. Builds which “play themselves” like DH and warrior are fine, but revenant, which requires actual thought and decision making, is underpowered.

FrostDraco.8306:

Because getting stab on dodge and a dps rotation consisting of auto attack and precision strike whenever its up is hard to master how?

Lol XD

Yes so loool, so now why dont you plz get to Legendary with a Rev and show me how many more Revs than warriors (and to any other class really) are in it.

What, like the last few seasons when everybody and their dog was playing them because of how broken and faceroll they are?

Interesting that, the moment they dont have their full bag of bullkitten to make them an easy spam one button do it all class with a super easy ride over every bodies grave they evaporate, hmm. Nothing’s changed about Rev’s design. It’s simply been neutered for the moment to take it from the scene.

This has actually been healthy for the game this season.

That is a blatant lie, Revenants were never overplayed among the total player population(kittening read, no one ever said they weren’t a popular choice among the top players [ESL] which is still less than 1% of the total population). And nice try on diverting attention from Warrior which is obviously overtuned, best example of a low risk/high reward class. And hypocrisy at its finest, saying Revenants were/are easy? Coming from a Warrior? Wow haha

Divine.3279:

So let me get this straight. You consider Herald aka Revenant needs little skill for too much reward?

I’m 90% sure he meant Dragonhunter and not Herald. Unless Anet ninja added Traps to Revenants recently.