Guild Wars 2

Im really interested if anyone tested out elite specializations vs. non elite classes.
Post your 1v1 experineces and videos.

I can give 1 example that supports the argument that it’s p2w..

Ranger pets are the profession mechanic, they have nothing to do with druid. In pvp rangers are supposed to have access to all of their pets, including the GW1 HoM pets, to keep the playing field level.

In HoT the dev’s created new pets whose abilities allow them to work around the broken AI and land their hits. They are simply better pets because of this and anet locked them behind a pay wall.

You can argue the elite specs are simply a different way to play, but preventing rangers from having full access to their profession mechanic unless they pay money is p2w.

Well strictly 1v1, Burn Guard can beat DH without Hunter’s Fortification (4/6 or 6/4 with the trait)
Reapers, Chrono, Tempest, Daredevil, and Berserks

Zerks Guard can beat Chrono, Daredevil, Berserks, Tempest.

Can’t vouch how other core professions do in relation to other specializatiom classes.

Jim Hunter.6821:

I can give 1 example that supports the argument that it’s p2w..

Ranger pets are the profession mechanic, they have nothing to do with druid. In pvp rangers are supposed to have access to all of their pets, including the GW1 HoM pets, to keep the playing field level.

In HoT the dev’s created new pets whose abilities allow them to work around the broken AI and land their hits. They are simply better pets because of this and anet locked them behind a pay wall.

You can argue the elite specs are simply a different way to play, but preventing rangers from having full access to their profession mechanic unless they pay money is p2w.

Where, besides PvP, would you even use these pets without HoT? You still use cats in PvE.

Rym.1469:

Jim Hunter.6821:

I can give 1 example that supports the argument that it’s p2w..

Ranger pets are the profession mechanic, they have nothing to do with druid. In pvp rangers are supposed to have access to all of their pets, including the GW1 HoM pets, to keep the playing field level.

In HoT the dev’s created new pets whose abilities allow them to work around the broken AI and land their hits. They are simply better pets because of this and anet locked them behind a pay wall.

You can argue the elite specs are simply a different way to play, but preventing rangers from having full access to their profession mechanic unless they pay money is p2w.

Where, besides PvP, would you even use these pets without HoT? You still use cats in PvE.

Where else would I play besides pvp? Pve is atrocious and they killed WvW.

You can’t pay for skill, sorry.
/thread

Mightymealworm.8409:

You can’t pay for skill, sorry.
/thread

player 1
gw2 pvp skill: 100
plays: non elites

VS

player 2
gw2 pvp skill: 100
plays: elites

but … who cares? we paid this game… so … it’s not like we have to buy OP stuff with gems every week as a REAL p2w game to be good.

I wouldn’t count locking stuff behind expansion p2w.
The free to play model is really a trial. F2p is just more marketable than trial.

Boasteri.3162:

I wouldn’t count locking stuff behind expansion p2w.
The free to play model is really a trial. F2p is just more marketable than trial.

It’s like saying Rev is P2W because I can’t use the class. Well the same could be said with every other game expansion that adds a new character or PvP content.

I was just humoring the op, GW2 isn’t a true P2W game.

Calling HoT p2w is kind of absurd, it’s a full expansion, just because you don’t want to pay for the expansion or wanting to experience any of the Pve content does not mean you are entitled to options provided by HoT or invalidate it as an expansion. All Mmos have offered new content and perks for buying the expansions they offer, HoT is no different. And Anet could have made it so non-HoT players could not Play with HoT players in ranked/unranked, if they wanted to

A real P2W model would be the Gem store having gear otherwise not available that provided a huge improvement over other players that did not shell out the cash/gems for, which is not the case here.

I actually had thought about this yesterday and was going to post about it but it basically comes down to this:

Anyone who is serious about PvP will buy the game. eSports teams will buy it to make sure they stay competitive with current builds and strategies. They need to scrimmage with and against meta builds so having the full version is key. Also, people who care about their leaderboard or league status are not going to just play with base classes since that would handicap them.

The people who get hurt are people who thought they could play PvP casually as a free to play version but find that the entrance into PvP is very high. If you picked up the free version in October to try it out for PvP and then got hit with these new elites, you’re going to have a bad time. Part of being able to counter a class is knowing the abilities of the class and if you can’t have one, it makes it harder.

So I will just say that it’s not a true P2W but if they don’t balance it well enough, it’s going to cause people looking at GW2 PvP to think that they have to buy the game to be competitive. Although if they improved the tutorial and added good AI to the mist bots, it might not be so bad.

Daredevil.

I am now accepting counterarguments.

The term “p2w” has been so watered down that people try to apply it to anything. Name another MMO that gives you a shot at winning in PvP for not purchasing the expac. It’s an expac.

P2W would be if you could buy a 10% increased damage buff for sPvP with gems that lasted a week. Or pay more for a 20% increased damage buff. You pay regularly for some buff/unique gear/whatever in order to win. Needing an expansion for an optimal build that will win you tournaments isn’t P2W.

No.

NO.

No.

AND NO.

(would have just put the first one, but 15 chars you know)

Having an elite spec is obviously better than any of the old specs. How can anyone really argue it isn’t. That is why it is called elite.

Cogbyrn.7283:

The term “p2w” has been so watered down that people try to apply it to anything. Name another MMO that gives you a shot at winning in PvP for not purchasing the expac. It’s an expac.

P2W would be if you could buy a 10% increased damage buff for sPvP with gems that lasted a week. Or pay more for a 20% increased damage buff. You pay regularly for some buff/unique gear/whatever in order to win. Needing an expansion for an optimal build that will win you tournaments isn’t P2W.

I agree with this in the sense that people seem to be desperate to attribute their inadequacies at a video game to anything other than personal failings (and financial disparity is an excellent reason to claim that losses are not your fault)

but still.

Daredevil.

Watertight argument.

You cant even begin to tell me I’m wrong.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Cogbyrn.7283:

The term “p2w” has been so watered down that people try to apply it to anything. Name another MMO that gives you a shot at winning in PvP for not purchasing the expac. It’s an expac.

P2W would be if you could buy a 10% increased damage buff for sPvP with gems that lasted a week. Or pay more for a 20% increased damage buff. You pay regularly for some buff/unique gear/whatever in order to win. Needing an expansion for an optimal build that will win you tournaments isn’t P2W.

I agree with this in the sense that people seem to be desperate to attribute their inadequacies at a video game to anything other than personal failings (and financial disparity is an excellent reason to claim that losses are not your fault)

but still.

Daredevil.

Watertight argument.

You cant even begin to tell me I’m wrong.

Watertight, and bulletproof.

I recognize my failing and will be sure to correct it.

Most of the elite specs add an entirely new mechanic that the profession didn’t have before, and so unless the utility skills and/or traits are worse, the espec will by default be stronger. If the utilities/traits are worse however, the spec would feel kinda kitteny. Honestly epecs should just be admitted to be better and practically mandatory. The problem is that until they have more especs to choose from, that would kill the small amount of build diversity we have.

If raids are balanced around ascended gear (meaning that %5 extra performance over exotic might make a difference), and if combat boosts are allowed in said raids (like Strength/Armor), then yes it will be a P2W scenario.

(this has nothing to do with PvP p2w tho)

roamzero.9486:

If raids are balanced around ascended gear (meaning that %5 extra over exotic might make a difference), and if combat boosts are allowed in said raids (like Strenght/Armor), then yes it will be a P2W scenario.

If they design around the use of Boosters, then that’s exactly a P2W scenario, considering I think you can only get those from Black Lion Chests. That’s true. However, if they are simply allowed, then the only additional “winning” that a group would do is killing a boss faster than another group. Honestly, I hope ANet removes booster effects in raids. But that isn’t sPvP, either.

Ascended gear though? Don’t you just… earn that by playing?

roamzero.9486:

If raids are balanced around ascended gear (meaning that %5 extra performance over exotic might make a difference), and if combat boosts are allowed in said raids (like Strength/Armor), then yes it will be a P2W scenario.

(this has nothing to do with PvP p2w tho)

Ascended you can’t even buy directly.

Combat boosts like food?

?????

i’m kinda weirded out by where this p2w talk auddenly comes from. not being viable without the recent expansion (actually all of them, there’s just one for this game though) is something that always existed in every mmo and will always exist. there’s always this one stronger skill or trait or whatever that fits a specific builds just so well.
it wasn’t a thing back then, why is it now?
people would have had heart attacks from anger if they had played gw1 back in the day.
the fact that there are still specs that are viable without hot to me is kinda amazing.

ps: elites are not necessary stronger. hint: berserker

zaced.7948:

i’m kinda weirded out by where this p2w talk auddenly comes from. not being viable without the recent expansion (actually all of them, there’s just one for this game though) is something that always existed in every mmo and will ever exist. there’s always this one stronger skill or trait or whatever that fits a specific builds just so well.
it wasn’t a thing back then, why is it now?
people would have had heart attacks from anger if they had played gw1 back in the day.
the fact that there are still specs that are viable without hot to me is kinda amazing.

This.

Expacs are essentially the The Game version 2, and they expect you to pay for it.
This isn’t pay2win, this is a “buy the expac and stop trying to freeload it.”

Seriously by this thread’s logic the core game is pay2win because you have to buy the game to get laurels, and therefore can’t access ascended gear without buying the core game.

This is the PvP forums and I’ll say that, in structured PvP, GW2 is not P2W. You sure have to “pay to win” for Elite Specs. But you have a lot of things available to play. You don’t have to grind gear, you don’t have to grind anything. You can get some gold, some skins, almost every rune, amulet and sigils are free.

Leaving aside that some Elite Specs might be more efficient than Core Specs, to put money into the game does not give you a real advantage over the enemy player on the same skill level. You can say “same level: elite spec vs core spec”. Just don’t fight directly. Do other roles, I don’t know. A “core spec vs core spec” will always be won by the guy with the core specs that has the most skill and not who payed more.

While HOT is still new and people are playing elites for the fun of it, if the meta continues to be elites in eSports tourneys then technically you have to “pay for HOT” to win in the eSports scene. Until you know, someone beats the Abjured with a completely normal group of classes. However, like I said above, anyone who is playing eSports is going to get the release anyway.

ofcourse its p2w , you don’t even need to use your brain for this

any game in which you can pay to have more skills in “equalized” pvp than your opponent is p2w lol, this is pure common sense how hard is it to comprehend it?

i’ve never seen a mmo expansion or patch that adds new content and skills and blocks them for people, you can block new content and areas and kitten but skills? in equalized pvp? please who the hell are you kidding? most ridiculous f2p model i’ve ever seen

i guess you could argue having the option to play with base game without having to buy expansion is good but its still equalized pvp and extra skills which you’re going to have to go against and that makes it p2w

the issue of how insanely overpowered these specs are is completely different
DH is broken as F
DDevil made thieves go from already pretty good in 1v1 against non-direct-counters to the most overpowered one button spamming kitten. It not only made them stronger but it also made them easier and dumber to play since your new dodges and skills do insane dmg and are permanent dodge animation, lowered the class skillcap even more
Revenant 1 does 3 times more dmg than any other class’s 1 and in general the class has so much mobility , survivability, dmg but they are more or less ok to deal with in comparison with all the cancer that was added

and so on and so forth

overall the way the pvp is evolving is also dumb, the new specs are overloaded of everything that was good and mattered from before hot

This is unprovable by the methods you are suggesting. We need more time to see what is run during leagues etc. And yes if those classes are the massively over-represented compared to the old ones it is basically p2w. X beating Y has never in some duel has never been a good gauge because of skill level differences bewtween players.

Incisorr, really? Let’s see there’s a few games that release expansions that say have new classes, that you could not get unless you bought the expansion, yet you can face them in pvp, one that pops off the top of my head is WoW, if you don’t buy the expansion depending on your level you can be faced with classes you have no way of creating. Say for the 50-70 Brackets the DK was only available to WotLk owners, so yes other Mmos have gated skills behind expansions. Hell that was a whole class that others did not have access to unless they bought the expac….
Best fix would be to stop people without the expac from competing with those that do and low and behold huge Qeue times till people buy the expac

Coming from someone who was pvping and wvwing with vanilla up until the other day. I can say yes vanilla classes can still plenty viable. Hell I was playing vanilla thief the first few days and doing great. There are new trait, amulet and skill changes though that need to be adapted to, the same old build may not work.

incisorr.9502:

ofcourse its p2w , you don’t even need to use your brain for this

any game in which you can pay to have more skills in “equalized” pvp than your opponent is p2w lol, this is pure common sense how hard is it to comprehend it?

i’ve never seen a mmo expansion or patch that adds new content and skills and blocks them for people, you can block new content and areas and kitten but skills? in equalized pvp? please who the hell are you kidding? most ridiculous f2p model i’ve ever seen

i guess you could argue having the option to play with base game without having to buy expansion is good but its still equalized pvp and extra skills which you’re going to have to go against and that makes it p2w

the issue of how insanely overpowered these specs are is completely different
DH is broken as F
DDevil made thieves go from already pretty good in 1v1 against non-direct-counters to the most overpowered one button spamming kitten. It not only made them stronger but it also made them easier and dumber to play since your new dodges and skills do insane dmg and are permanent dodge animation, lowered the class skillcap even more
Revenant 1 does 3 times more dmg than any other class’s 1 and in general the class has so much mobility , survivability, dmg but they are more or less ok to deal with in comparison with all the cancer that was added

and so on and so forth

overall the way the pvp is evolving is also dumb, the new specs are overloaded of everything that was good and mattered from before hot

No clearer truth has been spoken.

Nerf thieves

Bazooka.3590:

Im really interested if anyone tested out elite specializations vs. non elite classes.
Are there any 1v1 videos which can prove GW2 is not “pay to win”? (or the oppsite of course)

You can grab some new elite specs and there great power and try it vs our latest old meta.

Me and a few PvP friends did and D/D ele is still the legit all around best still. My friend did lose to some of the new builds but overall it did better against all the new builds.

We did some 2 vs 2 and Pu dps mesmer with d/d ele from our old meta was better in most 2 vs 2.

In all honesty the new Specs brought some different play styles to druid, improved engy, made thief a little worse, gave guardians more options as well as ele and mesmer. We will see about warrior since the patch came today.

But for me nothing has changed and if the abjured decided to run there old pre HOT builds they could still win the NA scene against the new classes.

No, P2W means you can buy more advantages the more money you sink into the game.

At worst, GW2 is still p2p, but nowhere near p2w.

ya’ll dumb.

Hot is b2p not p2w.

It’s just like how back at launch you had to buy the core game to play the core game.
HoT is the exact same, you have to buy HoT to play HoT.

By ya’ll definition of p2w, every single MMO on the market is currently p2w.

Crinn.7864:

ya’ll dumb.

Hot is b2p not p2w.

It’s just like how back at launch you had to buy the core game to play the core game.
HoT is the exact same, you have to buy HoT to play HoT.

By ya’ll definition of p2w, every single MMO on the market is currently p2w.

P2w:

“If someone can give a company money and get something good for it, then the game is pay to win.”

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Crinn.7864:

ya’ll dumb.

Hot is b2p not p2w.

It’s just like how back at launch you had to buy the core game to play the core game.
HoT is the exact same, you have to buy HoT to play HoT.

By ya’ll definition of p2w, every single MMO on the market is currently p2w.

P2w:

“If someone can give a company money and get something good for it, then the game is pay to win.”

Lol, then every game in existance is pay 2 win, including single player rpgs…

Daharahj.1325:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Crinn.7864:

ya’ll dumb.

Hot is b2p not p2w.

It’s just like how back at launch you had to buy the core game to play the core game.
HoT is the exact same, you have to buy HoT to play HoT.

By ya’ll definition of p2w, every single MMO on the market is currently p2w.

P2w:

“If someone can give a company money and get something good for it, then the game is pay to win.”

Lol, then every game in existance is pay 2 win, including single player rpgs…

Of course.

Anything to blame something but myself for my dissatisfaction with these mmos.

Very true, you can’t win the game unless you buy the game…

yes it’s pay to win tough. Elite specs seem to genereally add on the previous established meta, parts of some meta. Or certain combinations of traitlines that favour dps, Burst AOE and now a bit more frequently PbAOE. I think that people that argue that elite specs aren’t as strong as the old build. Are mainly arguing from a 1 v 1 scenario. And even that is in my opinion a bit exagarated. Put 5 elite specs vs 5 non elite specs. And have them duke it out in Mid.. Chances are the non elite specs get nuked out of existence to the point that even Grenth and Balthazar will say: ‘’kittenn!!! That’s a bit too much. ’’

Just a quick list of builds that are still totally viable in pvp and can beat their elite spec equivalent:
Cele necro
Any warrior build > berserker build
Condi mesmer
Cele ele (maybe)
Bunker and burn guard (when DH gets a nerf)
D/P thief

Ranger and engineer seem to favour their elite specs/HoT content (pets). I don’t play them but I’d agree that their HoT content only helps and is superior to the core content in every way.

(If you want to beat a rev without HoT just run a condi build, there are plenty)

regular engineer is better than scrapper for condi and hybrid. I’m still playing stock engi for wvw roaming and it rocks.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Incisorr, really? Let’s see there’s a few games that release expansions that say have new classes, that you could not get unless you bought the expansion, yet you can face them in pvp, one that pops off the top of my head is WoW, if you don’t buy the expansion depending on your level you can be faced with classes you have no way of creating. Say for the 50-70 Brackets the DK was only available to WotLk owners, so yes other Mmos have gated skills behind expansions. Hell that was a whole class that others did not have access to unless they bought the expac….

> WoW
> Western MMORPG
> Western, lol, as in American, lol, have you even seen these people? also western mmos are kitten and imbalanced as hell , their style is also bad. The only reason i play gw2 is because a friend made me ages ago, i learned the game and it looks like an asian mmorpg more or less (Way better than wow) and because its low maintenance game.. unlike other games in where if you stop playing you forget/your head gets dizzy etc – gw2 is kitten easy and all you do is log and sign for pvp. Im only playing it inbetween games because its imbalanced and bad, and western.

also world of warcraft itself is a kittening horrible mmorpg

Best fix would be to stop people without the expac from competing with those that do and low and behold huge Qeue times till people buy the expac

they dont wanna do that because it’ll slow down queues and thats bad for everyone so maybe they should suck it up, give a bunch of more skins and stories and areas to go to hot people and make skills available for everyone

Daharahj.1325:

No, P2W means you can buy more advantages the more money you sink into the game.

At worst, GW2 is still p2p, but nowhere near p2w.

having skills that others don’t have is suddenly not an advantage

Crinn.7864:

ya’ll dumb.

Hot is b2p not p2w.

It’s just like how back at launch you had to buy the core game to play the core game.
HoT is the exact same, you have to buy HoT to play HoT.

By ya’ll definition of p2w, every single MMO on the market is currently p2w.

theres no mmorpg in which you can buy skills that others can’t and isnt considered p2w. also i dont know a mmorpg in which you can buy skills while others can’t because it would normally get flamed like hell

The whole definition of P2w = pay to win = is exactly what Gw2 is right now. Buying overpowered skills which cannot be obtained without spending real life currency is what p2w is

if a guy buys 50 armor skins and sells them and makes more gold than you, its lame and it is a variation of p2w but you can catch up to him with nolifing or skill or good trades or luck or whatever so in his case its Pay 2 progress faster which can be interpreted as p2w but its not as real p2w as gw2 is right now.

Guy having skills because he paid RL $ and no other way to get em = p2w,

how is common sense so hard for you guys is beyond me

Expansion or not , their pvp is considered and advertised as equalized and right now its not equalized.

Skill blocking is a lame “mechanic” or plan or f2p method or whatever it is you wanna put it , their expansion could contain other kitten and leave the pvp equalized and if people wanted more content they would eventually buy the HoT anyway. Skills are not content.

You aren’t buying skills, you’re buying an Expansion.

Name another MMO where you don’t have to buy the Expansion in order to be competitive in PvP. I’ll wait.

incisorr.9502:

Seriously? WoW and SW:TOR (the two biggest grossing MMORPGs on the western market.) Both include level cap increases with new skills in their expacs, and also require you to pay for said expac. Or in other words, to get the new skills and passives you have to buy their expacs.

And don’t even bring up Asian mmos. Asia is like the motherland of p2w gaming since their culture doesn’t see anything wrong with putting up money to be competitive. The reason you’re ignorant of this is that most Asian games never make it to NA or EU because they would get flamed out if they tried.

You need to stop taking the pay2win literally. The rational definition of pay2win is games where your effectiveness increases with the amount of money you spend on it. Buying expac content is buying expac content, nothing more nothing less.

Buy2play != pay2win

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

yes it’s pay to win tough. Elite specs seem to genereally add on the previous established meta, parts of some meta. Or certain combinations of traitlines that favour dps, Burst AOE and now a bit more frequently PbAOE. I think that people that argue that elite specs aren’t as strong as the old build. Are mainly arguing from a 1 v 1 scenario. And even that is in my opinion a bit exagarated. Put 5 elite specs vs 5 non elite specs. And have them duke it out in Mid.. Chances are the non elite specs get nuked out of existence to the point that even Grenth and Balthazar will say: ‘’kittenn!!! That’s a bit too much. ’’

No match should ever have a 5 vs 5

also bunker guard with the old meta dps warrior and d/d ele still can beat any of the new spec 3 v s 3. Better yet 2 d/d ele and 1 dps longbow ranger since the new dh all seem to be using traps, scrappers are using hammer for the most part. So if you want to pick 3 and i pick 3 the old meta still works.

An MMO pvp is not P2W if you buy the expansion. However I have yet to see WoW try to be eSports or Star Wars or any other MMO. Dota2, LoL, and Hearthstone are fairly competitive and they allow you to use your in game rewards to upgrade your account. There is no way, in either gold or reward tracks, to upgrade to HoT content.

So if balance patches aren’t made to bring Elites in line with the base classes prior to the major tournaments beginning, there will be a reasonable belief that HoT is pay to win. My advice to Anet would be to create elite reward tracks or gold unlocks for Elite lines for free players but only in PvP since their idea about PvP was that you could jump in and start being competitive at the start.

Why don’t you just pay for it if you think it will suddenly give you the skill to win???

Stop being cheap. Either buy the expansion to get new things or stop playing/whining.

I personally do best on the non-elite specs, but it doesn’t matter. Some people just want an excuse to whine, complain, make excuses for not being good.

kdaddy.5431:

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

yes it’s pay to win tough. Elite specs seem to genereally add on the previous established meta, parts of some meta. Or certain combinations of traitlines that favour dps, Burst AOE and now a bit more frequently PbAOE. I think that people that argue that elite specs aren’t as strong as the old build. Are mainly arguing from a 1 v 1 scenario. And even that is in my opinion a bit exagarated. Put 5 elite specs vs 5 non elite specs. And have them duke it out in Mid.. Chances are the non elite specs get nuked out of existence to the point that even Grenth and Balthazar will say: ‘’kittenn!!! That’s a bit too much. ’’

No match should ever have a 5 vs 5

also bunker guard with the old meta dps warrior and d/d ele still can beat any of the new spec 3 v s 3. Better yet 2 d/d ele and 1 dps longbow ranger since the new dh all seem to be using traps, scrappers are using hammer for the most part. So if you want to pick 3 and i pick 3 the old meta still works.

it happens more often then you think mate.

But no. I don’t see your set up beating the following elite specs, Dragonhunter, Reaper Chronomancer..

The standard dps lonbow ranger get ussually focused down first. And that is something any of the 3 elte specs can do easily, no sweat.The DPS lonbowranger is can’t do much here really aside from spamming 2 2 2 2 and 1 1 1 1 1 1. the moment it get’s focused down it’s death Also the chronomancer with it’s tides of time or echo of memory can easily block the initial burst. And at the same time apply slow in the initial combo. Assuming the phantasm cannot reach the ranger. It will go for the 2 dagger/Dagger ele.

Reapers have tons of chill and in death shroud they can hit for an average of 5 to 6 k cleave. on average. A single dragonhunter trap can hit for 8 k and procession of blades only has a 25 sec cd. dragonsmaw. and an average cleave of a reaper when focused can kill a single dagger/dagger ele just like that. Also it’s not uncommon to run DH with medi guards specs here. Neither is it uncommon to run signet reapers as well. thier boon corruption is pretty much what they need to get rid of a traditional cantrip dagger/dagger ele. the thing is here. Dagger/dagger fight close ranged against a medi DH with an 8 to 10 k trap in 25 sec cd. a reaper with an average of 5 to 6 cleave with signets. And a chronomancer that would have no trouble whatsoever stomping a longbow ranger.

As I said before. I wager very good players can maby rack up builds that allow them to beat the elite specs in 1 on 1. Or use a meta build to beat an elite spec 1 v 1. But the moment you fight them ing rooups it will show you how much lacking your dps is. The reason you beat an elite spec is pretty much due to skill level. it’s because you are so good that you can master them and know them in depth most of the time. Or have a build that fundamentally hardcounters a certain build.

Don’t take this too litterally. But your powerlevels are basically to low here. whatever dps you can dish out singelhandily is completel meaningless in a teamfight. Heck more often then not strategy and skill sometimes even take a backseat. You simply are that friggishly powerfull.

Heck how many people here still continue to get baited in an 8 k to 10 k procession of blades trap?

Or get cleaved by an reaper in reaper shrowd? Or get CC’ed to hell by a an scrapper?

Whatever situation you could describe here. Is not really how it really goes here.The average player is not going to analyse the elite specs in full. And look for counter. they often go to mid with like 3 to 4 guys. And simply get nuked. Countless threads prove it here.

The exception proves the rule. not the other way around.

Ranger : Both pets and druid spec is VAY BETTER than normal ranger.

Other classes: I do not give a single rock.

For rangers it is pay to win. I can say that without any hesitation.

This Game has always been buy to play. When they release the expansion you don’t lose any previous content. Stop complaining. Some games force you to pay memberships or into the cash shop to be successful.