Guild Wars 2

So it is balanced that you must build your character and your strategy around defeating guardians?

This is false logic. Really you could supplant guardians with any bunker class. And YES, you should have at least one bunker-buster character in an organized team build.

And yes, if you’re seeing a trend in the meta you should build to counter that trend if you want to play successfully.

Summary. If you play a thief or mesmer everything is cool, if not you need to l2p.

I want to physically injure you.

There’s a difference in what people are complaining and what is an actually valid feedback. Most problems, yes, it is ‘learn to play’. The number of bads in this game is suprising even among mesmers thieves and guardians. But given these classes are popular, the ease of how these classes can be counterered should already be well known now.

Thief is a glass cannon, stun him once in his rotation and he’s forced to try to reset. Get agressive with him, and not sit passive every time he goes invisible, and you’ll find yourself winning against thieves consistantly.

Guardian’s are buff-kittens. Lay on the condition and buff removal and watch him melt. If you think you’re going to win against him with a physically bursty combo, you’re going to have a bad time.

And mesmers are so reliant on their their phantasems these days it’s embarassing. Destroy them with AoEs, lock down the mesmer with cripple/chill/imobalize and they’re dead.

Every other thing in this game right now that makes these classes stand out, is a matter of bugs (Each profession is littered with them, they need to be fixed.) and general performance tweeks like AoE damage spells and the rarity of Boon Removal.

Using the Portal to speed up repairs for Trebuchets is the only thing that could use a hotfix, and even that can be countered by not being akittenand constantly ambush the enemy trebuchet whether it’s up or not. Stick a tanky up there same way you would a capture point and if the enemy team tries to gank the assaulter, you punish them on the points. It’s amazing why people can’t think of a simple countergame like that.

Kalar Meadia.8439:

So it is balanced that you must build your character and your strategy around defeating guardians?

This is false logic. Really you could supplant guardians with any bunker class. And YES, you should have at least one bunker-buster character in an organized team build.

And yes, if you’re seeing a trend in the meta you should build to counter that trend if you want to play successfully.

Summary. If you play a thief or mesmer everything is cool, if not you need to l2p.

I want to physically injure you.

There’s a difference in what people are complaining and what is an actually valid feedback. Most problems, yes, it is ‘learn to play’. The number of bads in this game is suprising even among mesmers thieves and guardians. But given these classes are popular, the ease of how these classes can be counterered should already be well known now.

Thief is a glass cannon, stun him once in his rotation and he’s forced to try to reset. Get agressive with him, and not sit passive every time he goes invisible, and you’ll find yourself winning against thieves consistantly.

Guardian’s are buff-kittens. Lay on the condition and buff removal and watch him melt. If you think you’re going to win against him with a physically bursty combo, you’re going to have a bad time.

And mesmers are so reliant on their their phantasems these days it’s embarassing. Destroy them with AoEs, lock down the mesmer with cripple/chill/imobalize and they’re dead.

Every other thing in this game right now that makes these classes stand out, is a matter of bugs (Each profession is littered with them, they need to be fixed.) and general performance tweeks like AoE damage spells and the rarity of Boon Removal.

Using the Portal to speed up repairs for Trebuchets is the only thing that could use a hotfix, and even that can be countered by not being akittenand constantly ambush the enemy trebuchet whether it’s up or not. Stick a tanky up there same way you would a capture point and if the enemy team tries to gank the assaulter, you punish them on the points. It’s amazing why people can’t think of a simple countergame like that.

We don’t need to know how to counter these professions, we already know that. The fact that they are counterable doesn’t mean they don’t need a nerf. In terms of Guild Wars experience, there were tons of builds that were overused like smite monks, seeping assassins, palm strike assassins, shattering assault, IWAY, bspike and so on. Of course they were counterable and people learned to do so, but they were nerfed anyways because they outperformed every other build and almost 60-70% of the players were running that.

“Overpowered” doesn’t means “Unbeatable”, it just means “Overpowered”.

@Malakree: Yes, when necromancers get turned into a moa all minions despawn. These minions are on long cooldowns, especially the Flesh Golem. Basically you get a free “I-Win” button because with 1 press you disable all utility plus elite ability of a heavy minion spec.

And even if you do not run a minion spec, lich form and pestilence cloud gets negated as well PLUS you get your 10 sec free go on the necro.

I cannot comprehend how anyone can call that moa morph spell balanced. Given the amount of mesmer no one with their right mind would use a heavy minion spec and as said above it cancels out necro’s elite spells.

Therefore I am fed-up to read from the spoilt mesmer players “we are fine l2p”. No, maybe YOU should roll a class like the necromancer. Spec heavily into minions to see the whole picture of the imbalance in this game.

A spell like moa morph is simply imbalanced and that you won’t even use it says much about Time Warp.

Lewk.8359:

[edit]<< People don’t seem to be getting the point of this thread and are going off on “L2P” and “I kill X class easy” tangents. The point of this thread is that if you aren’t playing one of these 3 classes, you are not reaching the same potential you would have by playing one of the three instead. Please actually read the OP before commenting, thanks!>>

Currently these three classes completely outperform any of the other classes by a large margin.

Thief – Damage output and mobility far surpasses any other class.
Guardian – Defensive ability far surpasses any other class.
Mesmer – Utility (Pets/clones/illusions, stealth, teleports, confusion, debuffs) far surpasses any other class.

As it stands, unless you are playing one of these classes, you feel subpar in the role you have chosen above (or even in a hybrid of roles above). Yes you can still accomplish your role, but you would have been better off to pick one of the three classes above. That is simply how it is at the moment in TGM Wars 2.

Any word on when you will be looking at either buffing existing classes up to the same levels, or bringing these three classes back down to where everyone else is?

100% agree with everything stated.

All the people who side that Mesmers/Thief/Guardian are not more powerful than other classes are probably Mesmers/Thieves/Guardians themselves.

Defensive abilities from the Guardian do not surpass any class. We have two bubbles which are nullified with stability. What else do we have? Shouts are good, i’ll give you that. But honestly, there’s not much else left. A mesmer has better defensive skills with a spammable invulnerability(blurred frenzy). The only invul guardians have is on a 90 second cool down where you can’t even move and does nothing against conditions.

soysauce.1246:

Sargon.9132:

@OP’s edit. you say that these classes are far superior in comparison at everything but I fail to see the proof behind it. Stating something and supporting that statement are two different things. For instance I’m taking the opposing position on your argument because I’m certain that an Ele can have just as crazy burst and roam as a thief albeit with a higher skill cap. Like wise and Engineer can hold a point just like a guardian can the difference being a higher amounr of cond. dmg.

What other proofs do you need other than everyone and their mother on this forum section is complaining about the above three said classes. People posts screenshots and videos as well to show how op these classes are so you might want to look those up.

Just yesterday, I was playing with a group and we would lose every game probably because our composition didn’t have any mesmer/guardian/thief. So two of the members in the group decided to switch to their mesmer and thief see if we can improve the win ratio and behold, we won three out of the four games we played. It’s amazing how one mesmer and one thief can have such an impact on the win ratio…

To everyone who disagree that these classes don’t need a nerf, do this. Do about 10 tourney games BY YOURSELF and count how many of those games is win by the team with the most mesmer/guardian/thief. Then report back here and tell us why you still think these classes are fine as they are.

My mistake I should just agree with this vocal minority of people who spam QQ posts all day. There are quite a few names that I am becoming familiar with that spend hours on this forum complaining about the same stuff, It’s circlejerky and annoying.

Also it should be noted that w/o a MMR running your little test yields no useful results, Especially since you won’t be playing against the same teams(skill level, their comp, etc.) So again I ask based on what are these classes technically imbalanced in comparison to other classes. Aside from skill-cap there are very few imbalances in the game.

As for your 10 solo tourneys, there are so many variables in those games that you couldn’t possibly deduce an imbalance you may get something that appears as such but that would have more to be with class complexity or skill-cap then anything else.

But I’ll humor you; I played Engi
3 tourneys so I don’t have to be bored in solo que all day

(# of GTM on my team-# of GTM on opposing team- 1win,0loss)

(2-2-1)
(2-3-1)
(2-1-0)

(1-0-1)
(1-2-0)
(Didn’t advance to third round)

(2-3-0)
(Didn’t advance to second round)
(Didn’t advance to third round)

My advice is to stop sitting on these forums it won’t make you any better and go practice. Just because a class has a higher skill cap than another doesn’t mean that the class isn’t as effective at doing a specific role.

here’s a difference in what people are complaining and what is an actually valid feedback. Most problems, yes, it is ‘learn to play’. The number of bads in this game is suprising even among mesmers thieves and guardians. But given these classes are popular, the ease of how these classes can be counterered should already be well known now.

Oh this reasoning is frustrating. Yes, most of it is l2p… unless you are a thief, mesmer, or guardian… in which case magically you already know how to play.

Thief is a glass cannon, stun him once in his rotation and he’s forced to try to reset. Get agressive with him, and not sit passive every time he goes invisible, and you’ll find yourself winning against thieves consistantly.

This is not true at all. Thieves are glass cannon because they get to build glass cannon and get away with it due to the innate defensive nature of a stealth.

I run a stealth build thief and I feel like I can survive your average encounter far more easily than I can as a Necromancer.

Finally, I would like to give my most valuable piece of advice to those that complain about Guardian, Thief, Mesmer. The easiest counter to them is to roll one. I dropped my Necro for a Thief a week ago. Smartest thing I ever did. I now get to PvP with out being unreasonably annoyed when I am done.

You’re welcome.

Again, it isn’t about not being able to counter/kill thief/mesmer/guardian. The problem is they do EVERY ROLE BETTER. There is no class you can play outside these three that you wouldn’t inherently be BETTER OFF by playing a thief/mesmer or guardian.

Kalar Meadia.8439:

So it is balanced that you must build your character and your strategy around defeating guardians?

This is false logic. Really you could supplant guardians with any bunker class. And YES, you should have at least one bunker-buster character in an organized team build.

And yes, if you’re seeing a trend in the meta you should build to counter that trend if you want to play successfully.

Summary. If you play a thief or mesmer everything is cool, if not you need to l2p.

I want to physically injure you.

There’s a difference in what people are complaining and what is an actually valid feedback. Most problems, yes, it is ‘learn to play’. The number of bads in this game is suprising even among mesmers thieves and guardians. But given these classes are popular, the ease of how these classes can be counterered should already be well known now.

Thief is a glass cannon, stun him once in his rotation and he’s forced to try to reset. Get agressive with him, and not sit passive every time he goes invisible, and you’ll find yourself winning against thieves consistantly.

Guardian’s are buff-kittens. Lay on the condition and buff removal and watch him melt. If you think you’re going to win against him with a physically bursty combo, you’re going to have a bad time.

And mesmers are so reliant on their their phantasems these days it’s embarassing. Destroy them with AoEs, lock down the mesmer with cripple/chill/imobalize and they’re dead.

Every other thing in this game right now that makes these classes stand out, is a matter of bugs (Each profession is littered with them, they need to be fixed.) and general performance tweeks like AoE damage spells and the rarity of Boon Removal.

Using the Portal to speed up repairs for Trebuchets is the only thing that could use a hotfix, and even that can be countered by not being akittenand constantly ambush the enemy trebuchet whether it’s up or not. Stick a tanky up there same way you would a capture point and if the enemy team tries to gank the assaulter, you punish them on the points. It’s amazing why people can’t think of a simple countergame like that.

Lol. The op is right. If its so balanced as you say good pvp’ers would have rolled all the classes basically equal. They havnt. Know why? Because the op is right. And no way I buying the arguement that its just a coincidence that so many who play rated just happen to like those classes. If ANet created a rat that could 1 shot people GW2 would be rat infested. They play them because they have to if they want to be competitive. They need a major patch and soon because it gets old fast. Look how fast SWtoR went down the crapper because they didnt fix PvP.

Now, to get it out of the way, I consistantly play a guardian in pvp, however, I tend to agree on several points raised by the OP regarding the guardian in particular.

On the guardian, I have to agree with a few points raised on both sides. Firstly, there is a difference between a class being overpowered and other classes being underpowered in their respective roles. Coming into the game, I did research on GW1 and classes in GW2, and decided I wanted that tough support character, so I chose the guardian. I came into the game knowing that the guardian would perform the best in the role I wanted, a tough, point holding machine. Even though the holy trinity is gone, for the most part, some classes will always, always, perform better then others in a given role. However, with this stated, I think other classes should get more efficient options to fill the role the guardian does. I do think though, that the reason that guardians are complained about so often is that since they have the lowest base hp pool in the game (shared with elementalists), they are given many abilites that will help them survive. Would I advocate an overall guardian nerf? No. Would I advocate other classes becoming more competent in filling the role of the guardian? Yes.

By the way, the reason I wouldn’t advocate a guardian nerf overall is I’m not sure what you could change without messing up how the class plays, because changes for the cause of pvp affect pve as well. For instance, you can’t really drop the vitality pool anymore, and the only reason a guardian can survive in melee in pve, specifically dungeons, is due to the defensive abilities of the class. Cut these defensive abilites out from pve, and a guardian can’t really melee at that point, and our ranged ability is limited to the scepter, which only serves as a gap filler in pve at the moment for when you need to heal up out of melee.

thejoshknight.4697:

Now, to get it out of the way, I consistantly play a guardian in pvp, however, I tend to agree on several points raised by the OP regarding the guardian in particular.

On the guardian, I have to agree with a few points raised on both sides. Firstly, there is a difference between a class being overpowered and other classes being underpowered in their respective roles. Coming into the game, I did research on GW1 and classes in GW2, and decided I wanted that tough support character, so I chose the guardian. I came into the game knowing that the guardian would perform the best in the role I wanted, a tough, point holding machine. Even though the holy trinity is gone, for the most part, some classes will always, always, perform better then others in a given role. However, with this stated, I think other classes should get more efficient options to fill the role the guardian does. I do think though, that the reason that guardians are complained about so often is that since they have the lowest base hp pool in the game (shared with elementalists), they are given many abilites that will help them survive. Would I advocate an overall guardian nerf? No. Would I advocate other classes becoming more competent in filling the role of the guardian? Yes.

By the way, the reason I wouldn’t advocate a guardian nerf overall is I’m not sure what you could change without messing up how the class plays, because changes for the cause of pvp affect pve as well. For instance, you can’t really drop the vitality pool anymore, and the only reason a guardian can survive in melee in pve, specifically dungeons, is due to the defensive abilities of the class. Cut these defensive abilites out from pve, and a guardian can’t really melee at that point, and our ranged ability is limited to the scepter, which only serves as a gap filler in pve at the moment for when you need to heal up out of melee.

Well, suggesting to powering up every other professions has the same result to nerfing the guardian, but it is way too messy to archieve.

why did you not mention warriors? they are king of pvp and have a way higher damage than guardians, also guardian have a long cd on heal skills. if you nerf the damage on theifs then there is no reason why anyone would play the class.
theif evolved from assassin which is basically a hitman killing things fast is what they do best. and ele is a jack of all trades class it has alot of skills but if they face a warrior in melee they will obviously loose. you cannot make them superior to a warrior and keep them in pair with the other classes its just not possible.

Krustydog.1043:

Lol. The op is right. If its so balanced as you say good pvp’ers would have rolled all the classes basically equal. They havnt. Know why? Because the op is right. And no way I buying the arguement that its just a coincidence that so many who play rated just happen to like those classes. If ANet created a rat that could 1 shot people GW2 would be rat infested. They play them because they have to if they want to be competitive. They need a major patch and soon because it gets old fast. Look how fast SWtoR went down the crapper because they didnt fix PvP.

The reason why many, not all, of the complaints are literally a learn to play issue is because many of these builds are flatly hard countered by taking the time to think beyond the easiest method of doing things.

Again, 2/3s of a mesmers damage is phantasms, you destroy them, consistently, and they become a non element.

Safest way of doing that while still pressuring/damaging the mesmer? AoE damage.

Best way to counter a bunker player? Condition damage.

It’s players who refuse to take the step away from shiny numbers for the sake of a team that are dragging entire groups down, and then they cry nerf when tactics that top the performance ratings in a specific meta outshine them.

It’s more like there needs to be some mechanic improvements to the builds that serve as counters to these builds so that they’re not so unpopular. Again, I’ll reiterate, aside from obvious exploits like carrying bundles across portals, and fixing the long list of class bugs that plague everyone. There shouldn’t be any real nerfing that needs to be done. More like buffing of Condition and AoE Builds and a rise in buff removal.

Beyond that, sPvP needs to be segregated along skill lines like most other eSports before any major adjustments should be made, just like any other eSport. Quality of life adjustments should be made on confirmed high skill and low skill play individually, not based on the wailing masses of baddies who cant think beyond their first skill rotation.

Bumping in agreement. I’m so tired of seeing those three classes dominating PvP that I’m about ready to … go back to WoW… shudder… Never would have thought I’d ever be thinking that WoW would have more balanced PvP than this game…

And they wanted to make it an Esport. lol.

The reason why many, not all, of the complaints are literally a learn to play issue is because many of these builds are flatly hard countered by taking the time to think beyond the easiest method of doing things.
Again, 2/3s of a mesmers damage is phantasms, you destroy them, consistently, and they become a non element.
Safest way of doing that while still pressuring/damaging the mesmer? AoE damage.
Best way to counter a bunker player? Condition damage.
It’s players who refuse to take the step away from shiny numbers for the sake of a team that are dragging entire groups down, and then they cry nerf when tactics that top the performance ratings in a specific meta outshine them.
It’s more like there needs to be some mechanic improvements to the builds that serve as counters to these builds so that they’re not so unpopular. Again, I’ll reiterate, aside from obvious exploits like carrying bundles across portals, and fixing the long list of class bugs that plague everyone. There shouldn’t be any real nerfing that needs to be done. More like buffing of Condition and AoE Builds and a rise in buff removal.
Beyond that, sPvP needs to be segregated along skill lines like most other eSports before any major adjustments should be made, just like any other eSport. Quality of life adjustments should be made on confirmed high skill and low skill play individually, not based on the wailing masses of baddies who cant think beyond their first skill rotation.

key Kalar, stop coming here telling people how to pvp and calling us baddies. Everyone here already know that so you’re not telling us anything we don’t know. You’re just being an annoying nonfactor who probably playing one of these classes as your main and pretending to be a pro. Talk is cheap, why don’t you message me in game, I bet you I can beat you 1v1 on any class that you play on my eles then we’ll see who the baddie is.

Talk is cheap, why don’t you message me in game, I bet you I can beat you 1v1 on any class that you play on my eles then we’ll see who the baddie is.

Sure, but what would that prove? That you’re a spiteful player that just because you can 1v1 someone that all of your arguments must be right? Grow up.

My point stands. You learn the classes you play against, most people believe they don’t have to, and that if they have to use half a brain to bother to win a battle, that suddenly the game is utterly broken and they need to destroy the core mechanics of a class so the game appeals to their personal playstyle, even if that playstyle is innately bad and flawed.

Beating me in 1 v 1, would just prove my point further: Skill is more important here than the game mechanics. So stop griping that a class appeals to a simpler playstyle and beat them.

Oh, and how’s your sunday looking? Win or loss I’d love to see an Elementalist that knows what they’re doing.

Kalar Meadia.8439:

Talk is cheap, why don’t you message me in game, I bet you I can beat you 1v1 on any class that you play on my eles then we’ll see who the baddie is.

Sure, but what would that prove? That you’re a spiteful player that just because you can 1v1 someone that all of your arguments must be right? Grow up.

My point stands. You learn the classes you play against, most people believe they don’t have to, and that if they have to use half a brain to bother to win a battle, that suddenly the game is utterly broken and they need to destroy the core mechanics of a class so the game appeals to their personal playstyle, even if that playstyle is innately bad and flawed.

Beating me in 1 v 1, would just prove my point further: Skill is more important here than the game mechanics. So stop griping that a class appeals to a simpler playstyle and beat them.

Oh, and how’s your sunday looking? Win or loss I’d love to see an Elementalist that knows what they’re doing.

No it doesn’t. I just want to stomp you just to prove that you’re a baddie who come on forum to talk kitten but got nothing to back it up. That doesn’t mean the classes are fine. Don’t play dumb and try to mix those two together. The whole point of this thread is not about skill level but how imbalance these classes are compare to others. Let me put it this way so you understand. Assuming both side have equal skills, the team with the most mesmer/thief/guardian always win. Go and do some tourney games then keep the score, I am not making this up.

Kalar, sorry, but good luck killing mesmer pets consistingly. They pop up so quickly that the low necro dps has problems to do it quick enough to threaten the source: the mesmer.

Yup, you can go into DS and aoe them (if the mesmer hasn’t moved and spread them out) but then your aoe is on cooldown and you have to use your staff. If you are cond. build, then your DS aoe will do pathetic damage anyway and it is not even sure that you killed all phantasms.

And in the meantime you get shot by the mesmer’s other stuff … and you haven’t done any meaningful damage to the mesmer yet.

It is a race which you cannot win. Especially when you use your elite skill and he just pops moa morph…or time warp (then you have some other problems).

The necro has not much going for him at the moment apart from soaking up conditions and spreading them. A kind of one trick pony.

@oxbaker, i currently play both wow and guildwars 2, i mean currently, active subscription. wow is way less balanced, tho animations are done a bit more recognizeable

VincentCross.6954:

Mesmer: They specialize in confusing the enemy and debuffing them to hell. So the class is working as intended.

Thief: They wear medium armor not heavy and they fight in melee combat. They need large spike damage to make up for their lack of armor. So the class is working as intended.

Guardian: Its right there in the name. The guardians job is to play meat shield and protect everyone else. They wouldn’t be much of a guardian if they couldn’t take the damage thrown at them. So the class is working as intended.

…and an earth elementalist works as intended because he is mostly stomped into the ground

…the necromancer also works because he is that associated with death, that he is mostly in said state

Point is: Your logic is soooooo sharp, really.

I think Guardians are balanced. Here is why.

We have the lowest base hp, 10k. This is naturally offset by armor and we can use skills to blind, retaliate and block. However conditions like bleeding, poison and burning can eat through our hp quickly.

We have minimal range. Scepter gives us some weak range and stuns but it’s not going to kill anyone. With sword we have a teleport but it is short ranged. Good ele, ranger and engi have all been able to outrange me and pew pew me down.

In summary against guardians use conditions from afar. Or if you are a thief get behind us and press 2

Props to the OP for speaking the truth. We have a list of Necromancer bugs stickied on the necro forum. It’s reached over 100 bugs at the moment.

The balancing in GW2 is SO sad. I really hope necros don’t get the Paragon treatment from GW1….

A hundred bugs dman, talk about a rushed game.

I play a support "heal / tanky " Guardian and I don’t think we’re overpowered. We can put out a lot of healing and have a lot of defensive cooldowns to outlast most people 1v1, but in mass PvP I always flop over against coordinated CC’s back to back.

Guardians have the lowest HP (I only have 13.5k hp in PvP gear) which means they’re more susceptible to burst damage and CC’s if they aren’t able to use their defensive cooldowns.

If Guardians had like 18k hp with their defensiveness than hell yeah they would be overpowered!

Judges.4527:

Props to the OP for speaking the truth. We have a list of Necromancer bugs stickied on the necro forum. It’s reached over 100 bugs at the moment.

The balancing in GW2 is SO sad. I really hope necros don’t get the Paragon treatment from GW1….

Thanks. Honestly, i just have no desire to play GW2 right now. Either i feel slighted because of the class imbalance with THE HOLY TRINITY, or i feel pushed to roll one of these classes because they are inherently better. Either way i may just give up the game until something is worked out.

I believe Elementalists can easily surpass thieve’s in Mobility.. if they set it up right. Ride the Lightning is a ridiculous one itself, and they have more than a few speed boosts and godly condition removal.

auhfel.4129:

I believe Elementalists can easily surpass thieve’s in Mobility.. if they set it up right. Ride the Lightning is a ridiculous one itself, and they have more than a few speed boosts and godly condition removal.

That is if RTL didn’t bug out 99% of the time and leave them floating like a piñata…

auhfel.4129

I believe Elementalists can easily surpass thieve’s in Mobility.. if they set it up right. Ride the Lightning is a ridiculous one itself, and they have more than a few speed boosts and godly condition removal.

Infiltrator’s Arrow >>> Ride the Lightning with regards to roaming mobility. And both classes have high uptime on swiftness if they spec for it.

I think the OP is off a little here, I haven’t read all the comments, just the first page. I see a complaint that classes designed to do something well are acting as they are supposed to where the classes that are designed to be more multipurpose don’t do something specifically well? Play the engi for WvW for example, same with ele. The best wall suppression out there. Where I find as a thief I am the least useful. Your point is moot. All classes have areas they excel in.

Decided to add that you can’t base every class potential on just one aspect of this game. Tourney place limitations so certain classes aren’t going to shine.

Kalar Meadia.8439:

So it is balanced that you must build your character and your strategy around defeating guardians?

This is false logic. Really you could supplant guardians with any bunker class. And YES, you should have at least one bunker-buster character in an organized team build.

And yes, if you’re seeing a trend in the meta you should build to counter that trend if you want to play successfully.

My point was you can’t supplant guardians as the bunker class, because they are the superior bunker, and also within the same spec can provide solid support with retal/stability for when it is a team fight. I don’t find having to take a guardian counter (not a bunker counter) to be fun gameplay or an interesting meta, particularly when the counter-class/build to guardians (Condi Necro) has many problems and weaknesses, that you are not getting a lot of return in bringing it, granted we shall see how Necros do with the bug fixes.

Yes, you should have to have a bunker, and your should have to have a bunker-buster. But it should be able to be done equally as well with other classes, but it isn’t. It is just easier, more effective, and less damage/support is given up on a guardian than the other bunkers.

aydenunited.5729:

I would have preferred you left like you promised.

No worries, uninstalled tonight. Would love to reinstall at the first sign of a balance patch. Until then, enjoy!

Oma Overdose.2069:

I think Guardians are balanced. Here is why.

We have the lowest base hp, 10k. This is naturally offset by armor and we can use skills to blind, retaliate and block. However conditions like bleeding, poison and burning can eat through our hp quickly.

We have minimal range. Scepter gives us some weak range and stuns but it’s not going to kill anyone. With sword we have a teleport but it is short ranged. Good ele, ranger and engi have all been able to outrange me and pew pew me down.

In summary against guardians use conditions from afar. Or if you are a thief get behind us and press 2

Use a soldier’s amulet, suddenly your Guardian will become that much more tankier.
Conditions are still the bane of Guardians though.

I find mesmers more and more OP as they become more “not terrible” every day.

Same process happens every time.

Guy approaches mesmer
Mesmer spawns 3 clones
Mesmer stealths
Guy waits for mesmer to come back
Clones move around and mesmer eventually comes back
Guy already at 75% health
Guy attempts to find real one while blasting through clones
Guy finds real one while at 35-50% health
Mesmer swaps spots with another clone
Mesmer spawns new clones
Guy confused and dead while mesmer still at 90% HP.

Bloodtau.4672:

Lewk.8359:

Mr. Big, where does a necro fall into this? Who should play a necro and for what purpose that isnt achieved BETTER by playing one of the top three classes? Who should play a warrior when they can play Guardian? Who should play any dps class when thief will outperform their dps and mobility?

Exactly. Why play the other classes when these 3 do the roles much better.

That’s why 90% of sPVP is made up of these classes right now.

Lewk.8359:

Mesmer – Utility (Pets/clones/illusions, stealth, teleports, confusion, debuffs) far surpasses any other class.

This is not utility, with exception of teleport and debuffs (which mesmer does not have).
Mesmer is the class with the fewest debuffs in the game.

Illusions are displaced DoT.
Stealth is a defensive skill, not an utility.
Confusion is DoT with a twist.

Oma Overdose.2069:

I think Guardians are balanced. Here is why.

We have the lowest base hp, 10k. This is naturally offset by armor and we can use skills to blind, retaliate and block. However conditions like bleeding, poison and burning can eat through our hp quickly.

We have minimal range. Scepter gives us some weak range and stuns but it’s not going to kill anyone. With sword we have a teleport but it is short ranged. Good ele, ranger and engi have all been able to outrange me and pew pew me down.

In summary against guardians use conditions from afar. Or if you are a thief get behind us and press 2

900 range is not small (both sword teleport and scepter). Scepter deals pretty good damage (much better than mesmer one).

I just created a thief for PvP. And like Op said, I have achieved my potential. First time playing thief, I was able to get more kills and less deaths pretty much in every match than with my warrior which I have played since I got this game. I don’t have much trouble with the other two classes OP mentioned mostly because my tanky warrior can last almost just as long as a Guardian with more damage, and also have a chance in lasting long enough to identify the real mesmer and kill it before getting killed.

Nerf Guardian healing, and tweak retaliation.

Nerf Moa.

Fixed professions. Bam.

Rika.7249:

Nerf Guardian healing, and tweak retaliation.

Nerf Moa.

Fixed professions. Bam.

Do NOT nerf a healing skill with 40s cd
do NOT nerf a boon which already hit for only 250~~ damage
do NOT nerf a 2min cd blackout skill.
bad ideas in my opinion.

Moa should be changed to:
Transforms target into invulnerable mist for 10 seconds, 150 recharge.
Now you cant use it to beat up people 1v1, but it’s still useful for 2v1 to cc one opponent.

Well I don’t use it anyways because it’s too lame.

Also remove all the mesmer’s Phantasm damage traits.

When during BWE2 Anet said they will fix mesmers I was eagerly awaiting them to fix the weird mixed bag of the traits we had.

Instead their fix was to buff the most braindead, low skill mechanic we had, phantasms. I was pretty mad at that. Summoner classes are always the most braindead, low skill ceiling ones.

You see… if you go berserker gear then Phantasmal Warlock hits for 1200 on noncrit.
But then you slot two traits for phantasm damage and suddenly you’re hitting for 2000 on non-crit (don’t ask me how 2x +15% makes for +50%). Which makes mesmer extremely braindead to play at least somewhat effectively.

People here are complaining about mesmer’s defensive rotations, when they should have been complaining about how easy it is to summon phantasms then just run away, hide behind objects, go invis, while phantasms deal 3200 each on their recharge.
People say: I can’t pin down mesmer and kill him but he kills me. Without his phantasms, how much damage is mesmer dealing to you by rotating invuls and stunbreakers? Close to none. When some other class dodges, that means 2 sec of neither you or him dealing damage to each other. When mesmer dodges that means neither you or him dealing damage to each other, but now his Phantasmal Duellist has 3 sec left to next Unload instead of 5 sec. This is why being evasive works for well for mesmer.

This is bad. I want mesmer to have a high skill ceiling and this phantasm buffing that happened around BWE3 runs contrary to that. I guess when ANet tried to buff mesmers they went with the simplest solution they could find: fiddle with the numbers on summons. Instead of fixing the class mechanic (i.e. how having illusion up vs shatters and all the traits that affect that interact) because that was way harder.
For instance against ranger I can spawn phantasms then use LOS breaking to defend against his attacks while he takes damage. A lot of people have a problem with the fact that I can go invis for 3 sec and, unlike the thief who does no damage while invis(not entirely true, see P.S.), I am still doing really high damage through my summons.

The right thing to do would be to have phantasms do much much weaker damage but have each phantasm have some utility like Phantasmsal warden. Then buff the damage on mesmer’s own abilities (buff, which someone who keeps invising, running and evading damage, while his summons do the dirty work, doesn’t profit from). Mesmer also lacks a viable condition build, debuffs (poison, chilled, weakness), and boons. It’s pretty bad, but people can’t see it because they are too busy dying to summons.

That would fix a lot of the problems with mesmers being easy to duel with.

P.S. thief still does damage while being invis through conditions. But there one bug that’s really annoying. When I invis with mesmer and someone walks over my Temporal Curtain and gets crippled (but takes no damage) I drop out of invis. But somehow, the thief can spam his caltrops, all over control point, applying cripple and 10+ bleed stacks while rotating his invis abilities and staying invis pretty much the whole time. They should get popped out of invis when someone walks over their aoe just like everyone else does.

People are still missing the point. You have to look at the context of how these classes are being used and then compare them with the rest. If you want a damage dealer, you don’t care about how much hp/toughness a thief has you just want them to deal damage and have a nice defensive move (stealth) so they can avoid getting focused. There is no better profession for quickly dispatching another player in a short amount of time than a thief. Thief damage output is the best in the game and hardest to counter, there is no easy way to avoid getting teleported on and backstabbed for 12k+ damage in a span of ~1 second. You either have the amount of life/toughness to survive that or you die. If you are in a 2v2 ect, and you aren’t at max life and don’t have a move that literally makes you invulnerable, stealths you or teleports you away you will simply just die almost instantly.

Guardians are simply the best bunker class, the entire point of a defensive character is to stand on/contest a point. They have multiple ways to blow people off the points and the way their defensive abilities are set up they can “stand their ground” so to speak right on the point. Now an ele is hard to kill and has great survivability but an ele is highly mobile and can’t stand in one spot when being focused down. That is a huge caveat in SPvP when the objective of the game is to capture and hold points.

Don’t confuse tankiness with survivability. A necromancer is tanky, but a mesmer has higher survivability because they can avoid damage all together with stealth/distortion. It’s no coincidence that mesmers and thieves are hard to kill, and you know why? Stealth that’s why. No other mechanic in the game lets you escape combat like that. If kitten hits the fan you can activate a stealth and run in any direction, hopefully around a wall or something and leave the fight. This is why rangers suck so badly as a damage dealer, sure you can pop some cd’s and tank up for a brief time period but once that’s over you can’t deal with the damage you are taking anymore and you can’t escape the fight. Ele’s can escape the fights via huge mobility/invun but they hit for some of the crappiest damage in the game in those specs. Necros have no way to avoid damage, they are the only profession that can’t avoid or block damage with a skill. The only thing that keeps them up is high life and death shroud, which frankly is not enough in the current state of things. Engineer’s have above average survivability and good utility usually not much damage unless you make some hardcore hipshot build but why do any of that when you can just play a mesmer. You sacrifice nothing as a mesmer, you get high damage and high survivability and strong utility all in one spec. Mesmers can drop combat, deal high dps, bring good teamfight skills like chaos storm/null field and can instant spike any downed players thanks to distortion which is just a class mechanic. Not to mention mesmers tend to be one of the strongest 1v1 professions if not the strongest, so any 1v1 you should probably win. Mesmers have the highest number of stun break skills, a class mechanic that gives them invun, stealth, teleports, two separate utilities that deal with conditions and they are the only profession besides necro that can strip boons.

Thief.. Meh, not OP.. Guardian.. Meh,not OP

Mesmer.. Well urgg problem is i have an single target condition build so Mesmers are my counterproff… For me they are really really strong.. BUT if i were to make an build more focussed on direct dmg and some areadmg i think people will be able to counter Mesmers
Een though i have to admit Mesmers will always be hard to beat if it stays like this.

Mesmer.. Well urgg problem is i have an single target condition build so Mesmers are my counterproff… For me they are really really strong.. BUT if i were to make an build more focussed on direct dmg and some areadmg i think people will be able to counter Mesmers
Een though i have to admit Mesmers will always be hard to beat if it stays like this.No matter how good people think they already are, i think everyone is still learnig and adjusting. Sure Arenanet can start making small changes, but the big ones will have to wait till everything found its place.

Well for mesmer, each phantasm deals almost as much damage as mesmer himself.
People on forums whine about mainhand sword etc… but they clearly have no idea whatsoever about the class. Mesmer mainhand sword deals extremely low damage. It’s the least damaging melee weapon in the game (even if we include dagger necro).
Scepter deals 60% the damage of guardian one. Etc… none of the mesmer weapons deal any real amount of damage, with the sole exception of GreatSword if you can maintain range.

All mesmer’s damage comes from Phantasms and bleeds from illusions’ crits. So I see 2 futures for the class:
In the next 12 months anet will either nerf defenses or nerf phantasms.
The first variant will make it even more imperative to go for phantasm damage and to try to hide to survive. The second one will leave mesmer with just his own damage which, as I mentioned, is laughable.
Both will make prof unplayable for 6 months after that.

my 2 cents….

I Spvp primarily on a ranger.

thieves and mesmers have their place in pvp and in the first few weeks it was fun to pvp against groups that had them. The last few days it has not been fun pvp’ing against entire groups of thieves and mesmers. Last night I had 3 matches in a row where 90% of my team and the opposing team were mesmers or thieves. I logged out shortly after. I’d like to think we can get back to the type of Spvp that occurred in the first few weeks but I fear that we are headed down a path littered with thieves and mesmers.

Conditions are still the bane of Guardians though.

How come ? you can remove conditions with smite condition, virtue of resolve and some other tools permit to convert them into boons. Conditions are a bane for everyone if they are stacked kinda fast in a large number (more than at least 3 different one at the same time)

Lately, it’s getting to the point where everyone and their mother is running with thief/mesmer/guardian in their setup in order to win in tpvp. There’s not one game that I’ve seen in tpvp who won round 2 or 3 without any of these three classes. If this is how its going to be, things are going to get old pretty fast unless ArenaNet do something about it.

I don’t know what game you guys are playing. As a bunker engineer I can hold out better than a guardian in most cases. It takes two well coordinated glass cannons to take me down generally. Even against 3 I’m going to put up a really solid fight.

Did I mention that I’m also loads better at actually disputing and capturing points than just about any class. With all my KB’s and immobilizes it’s a piece of cake to knock enemies off points and cap them. Guardians are decent at this, but can’t come close to competing with the engineer.

Then again, I can’t really say I’ve fought many decent engineers either. Most are awful. It’s a class that takes a lot of dedication and training. Now, I’m hearing a lot of people crying about how unfair it is that some classes take more effort and skill than others. THAT’S ABSURD. You think that in games like DotA all of the characters have the exact same learning curve? Not at all. It’s great, it provides those who are looking for a challenging and engaging class something to enjoy.

In the past couple days I’ve also fought some very competent ele’s. And I’d say that is is another class that has a high skill cap.

Now, Necros need some tweaks and fixes to give them more viable options… but, again, keep in mind that Jon Peters did state that it was the hardest class to master just before release.

Yes, Balancing is going to be a never ending ordeal— but let’s be serious; we’ve got some drama queens around here.

This needs to be said.

People dont play mesmer / thief / guardian because they are over powered, They play those classes because they THINK its overpowered.

Mesmer was my first character, long before people started to cry. Im now rank 30 70%+ Mesmer. Its not often i find a great mesmer.

MOST MESMER’S ARE GARBAGE, The problem is when 2 bad people fight the bad mesmer will win, because it is a very strong class when the opponent doesn’t know whats going on. So that bad player roles a mesmer and starts owning other bad players, then we get a huge amount of complaint threads.

It may be hard to hear, but please learn to play, this is not a game where you can press all your skills and do fine. you need a strategy that matches a fine crafted build. you need tactics, need to know what to expect and to anticipate your opponents moves.

This game plays more like a fighting game than an mmo. IT IS ABOUT SKILL.
Nerfs are not the answer, looking at yourself and making yourself a better player is.

Ps: Moa is not anywhere close to op, if your getting own by this skill its YOUR Fault.
I do agree that moa taking away a necros pets is ridicules, Besides that its ok. I dont use moa its not that good.

There are a few different topics here. The one I am most concerned with is not the blah blah blah soandso is overpowered. Yes , all you thieves and mesmers have incredible skills compared to the rest and they are all crybabies (sarcasm)…doesn’t take away from the fact that the spvp experience has become diminished because the spvp games have become overrun with thieves and mesmers so the fights become predictable and stale and frankly boring. And yes Chaos you hit the nail on the head with your first paragraph. For me that fact alone makes the rest of the “skill” arguments a moot point.