Guild Wars 2

Sup guys,

Hows GW2 pvp balance compared to WoW?

I used to play wow (Cata) and there are some clearly overpowered classes/flavor of the month classes that made pvp kind of discouraging, unless you were those classes. Even worse, blizzard would take forever to balance those classes.

I think its cool how you can just make any class and pvp with it instantly without grinding to 80.

I recently bought MoP, and havent reached max level, if anyone has been playing it, how is your MoP lvl 90 pvp experience?

Thanks and happy new years

I’ve never really played WoW and don’t ever plan too, but the general balance is fairly good regardless of what some QQers say. Of course there are Fotm classes such as mesmer, guardian, ele, and thief… But they’re only very powerful when played by a skilled player (duh). But overall, if you play one class extremely well then you can beat some “OP” classes without problem in most cases

I’m a WoW pvp veteran (sadly) – I can confidently tell you that GW2 is a much more balanced game, especially since MoP hit. I don’t want to start a WoW pvp balance discussion, but a group of mildly mentally impaired Lemurs whose water source has been spiked with LSD could balance that game better than the dev team.

Basically, in GW2: no class can stun-lock nuke you to death; the CC durations are 1-2 seconds each, not 5-6 seconds each so you will never eat a 20second CC combo like in WoW; Stun-Breakers (“PvP trinkets”) are usually on a ~30second cooldown compared to 2minutes; no one skill can take 80%+ of your hp (chaos bolt pre-nerf anyone? maybe a 5 stack of TfB?)

Obviously, WoW has features GW2 doesn’t such as ranked arenas, ranked bgs, more choice of pvp maps, etc, and can still be a blast to play. The painful part for me is knowing that if only both games could take the better ideas of the other one & implement them the community would have a choice of two fantastic pvp experiences.

You cannot compare the PvP at all right now.

GW2 is about Capture&Hold and WoW is about 3v3 last man standing.
I sometimes watch reckfuls stream to get an idea about how the balance is, and although its really fun to watch GW2 is way more attracting.

The ability to dodge alone is soo rewarding !!

WoW is still all about Gear + Setup, GW2 despite is about Setup + tactic, as everybody has access to excatily the same things.

Also, if you read patchnotes / blueposts on sites like mmo-champion.com you will understand blizzards philsophy vs. anet philosophy.

In a Game like WoW there are often dmg tweaks where a skill gets 100% more dmg from one patch to the other, or cd reductions from 3min → 2mins.

Changes like this clearly show, that blizzard gives a kitten about balance.
Otherwise these changes would have been in the game long before.

Where Anets changes, are minor in most cases ( 50%dmg nerv on dancing dagger aside.. ).

The only positive in WoW PvP is the Arena imho.

If Anet would create a 4v4 or 3v3 last man standing mode, this would attract many
pvp players from other games.

Of course there would / could be some fotm setups then, but everything can be countered by setup. Even a 4 man Guardian Team for example.
They could perhaps also forbid to enter with the same professions, so a team must consist of 3/4 different classes.

I would love some other game mode than capture and hold, and i am confident in Anet.

They will give us a ladder-system shortly, and perhaps even the ability to rent private servers.

You will then see some comunit driven tournaments and even a 3v3 seems possible in the near future.

I hope that many of the WoW ArenaPros will then take a look in GW2 PVP, as this
would bring many many more players.

A big playerbase is needed for a game to be successfull in the long run.

arnoldswazngr.4936:

Sup guys,

Hows GW2 pvp balance compared to WoW?

I used to play wow (Cata) and there are some clearly overpowered classes/flavor of the month classes that made pvp kind of discouraging, unless you were those classes. Even worse, blizzard would take forever to balance those classes.

I think its cool how you can just make any class and pvp with it instantly without grinding to 80.

I recently bought MoP, and havent reached max level, if anyone has been playing it, how is your MoP lvl 90 pvp experience?

Thanks and happy new years

Depends on what you mean by “balance”, most players and designers use this term without really understanding what it means in relation to game design.

GW2’s combat system is more complex than WoW’s but the kinds of decisions you make while playing and interaction between players is pretty much the same as any other MMO on the market.

Basically it’s more complicated, but not anymore interesting to play.

Boloth.6879:

arnoldswazngr.4936:

Sup guys,

Hows GW2 pvp balance compared to WoW?

I used to play wow (Cata) and there are some clearly overpowered classes/flavor of the month classes that made pvp kind of discouraging, unless you were those classes. Even worse, blizzard would take forever to balance those classes.

I think its cool how you can just make any class and pvp with it instantly without grinding to 80.

I recently bought MoP, and havent reached max level, if anyone has been playing it, how is your MoP lvl 90 pvp experience?

Thanks and happy new years

Depends on what you mean by “balance”, most players and designers use this term without really understanding what it means in relation to game design.

GW2’s combat system is more complex than WoW’s but the kinds of decisions you make while playing and interaction between players is pretty much the same as any other MMO on the market.

Basically it’s more complicated, but not anymore interesting to play.

I completely disagree. While the mechanics are slightly more complex because of dodge as well as the way aiming & projectiles work, GW2 is not more “complicated”. It may be harder to play but not because it’s complicated but because new players need to get used to the mechanics.

WoW on the other hand – the average class has 2 full action bars (10 keys each), with modifiers (SHIFT, CTRL, ALT), worth of skills. It is the definition of unnecessarily complicated.

As far as if it’s more interesting to play – “fun” and “interesting” are such subjective measures that it really is completely pointless to say one game has more of that quality than the other.

Swifty Battlegrounds 2200 Weapon ep 23 (gameplay/commentary) /shrug

Oh yeah, hit them for 25k, 50k over and over while permastun locking them, so skillful and fun

^The link.

It be kittened.

GW2 is much much more skill based than WoW, it’s amazing what you can do with class knowledge and well timed dodges.

Also because there is no trinity, the class balance is quite good in 1v1. Sure, it’s not perfect but by far better than in WoW, by a lot actually.

Walorx.5129:

I’ve never really played WoW and don’t ever plan too, but the general balance is fairly good regardless of what some QQers say. Of course there are Fotm classes such as mesmer, guardian, ele, and thief… But they’re only very powerful when played by a skilled player (duh). But overall, if you play one class extremely well then you can beat some “OP” classes without problem in most cases

Voz slick shoes is FOTM

Hahahahahaha <3

I like WoW pvp better , yes its imbalanced atm and there is too much emphasis on dps, but at least there i can see stealth player when he attacks me and unlike mesmer moa mage sheep breaks on attack and he cant spam his clones, he needs to use them tactically.At least in wow you can target nearest PLAYER not his turret or minion.At least in wow point capture is not only pvp mode, and you can duel people and there are no bugs.A-net needs to fix these things to even begin to create proper PvP system.
Compared to WoW GW2 feels like its still in beta.

Khyras.8021:

Compared to WoW GW2 feels like its still in beta.

it is ofc… WoW is 2004, GW2 is 2012… do you see the difference? if you dont count graphics etc, they had much more time to implement all those features and fix bugs and your money every month ofc

My Vanilla WoW pvp experience:

Ret paladins OP.

Rogues 1 or 2 shotting with ambush backstab.

Warlocks were pitiful.

Frost mages ruled with rank 1 snares with nil cost + near instant cast

8-10 second fears. 10+ sec stunlocks.

Tons of useless talents and very narrow build ranges across classes. Hence the term “cookie cutter build” that was so popular in threads. There was one build for each class, MAYBE two that was just for the fun aspect and 75% as effective at most.

Massively gear/spec-based. As a mage when I encountered a demo warlock later in the expansions I knew I had absolutely no chance to win. None. Got back on my newly 80 warrior and felt useless in a battleground compared to semi-geared people.

Now looking at GW2 with equal gear footing, and 2+ viable builds for each class + other differentiations via weapon choice/traits/runes/sigils and you can tell which one I’d vastly prefer. Plus each class has ways to “cleanse” conditions, whereas in WoW I depended on 1 or 2 classes to save my butt, at least in vanilla. Imagine if we had capture the flag or deathmatch modes now…

And look at the amount of changes in 4 months, most of which are in the right direction. Can’t say the same about WoW.

MaXi.3642:

Khyras.8021:

Compared to WoW GW2 feels like its still in beta.

it is ofc… WoW is 2004, GW2 is 2012… do you see the difference? if you dont count graphics etc, they had much more time to implement all those features and fix bugs and your money every month ofc

GW2 however has years of “experience” from what worked in GW1…different games I know however…they didnt take a single good idea from GW1 and implement it… they even took one of the least liked game modes and made it the only one? other features like spectator, GvG etc etc…. dont tell me they have spent 5 years working on 4 maps only…>.> (the supposed PVP team that is)

They are very different and are unbalanced for different reasons.

Personally, if i had to choose, i’d say i enjoy the gw2 pvp style better (more action-y, faster fights, feels more like a fighting/action game), but dislike the game-type (capture the point) more. I wish there was also more active supporting in this game (not as much as wow though which causes most fights to be long kitten endurance matches)

I could never play WoW again after playing gw2.

In regards to death-match style arenas in gw2. If you really stop to think about it, it would be a pretty kittenty experience. As much as people enjoy this style of pvp, i don’t foresee it anytime in the near future. gw2 was not designed to support this type of gameplay….

Overall the pvp is greater in wow compared to gw2. Even though i cannot stand that game anymore. PvP in GW1 is actually better than both of them put together. For those of you saying well gw2 came out in 2012 guess what gw1 came out in 2005. They had amazing pvp in that game and if they would of just brought over the same pvp foundations i guarantee you the mists would not be dead……. Anet has no excuse for the poor effort they put into pvp except that they like the pve carebears now.

As a WoW player since 2.4.3 TBC to end of Cataclysm, I really like GW2. MoP balance compared to GW2 balance atm is total kitten. Regardless of many people whining about Cataclysm, IMHO it was most fun PvP expansion. Things weren’t acting soo fast and depending on RNG. Surely, last

And then if we go back to when WoW was 4 months old, we realize that GW2 is ridiculously well balanced.

Esplen.3940:

And then if we go back to when WoW was 4 months old, we realize that GW2 is ridiculously well balanced.

and then we realize WoW was launched in 2004, and now we’re in 2013.

And devs had 5 years to think about this game.

They introduced actual trait system some months ago ( april, IIRC) during alpha testing, and we all know how traits impact how a class performs.

This explains by itself why the balance is so off, altough you have only 20 skills available at best ( few exceptions aside).

Moreover, vanilla WoW was a PvE game for PvE carebears, where PvP was just an afterthought.

GW2 self claimed “E-Sport wannabe” or “bring the player, not the class”.

We should stop this silly comparison to justify this game failure launch: having played WoW beta and first vanilla ( altough i was very young), i can say that current balance in GW2 is not that better.

With some exceptions:

1. WoW never claimed to be a PvP-focused game / GW 2 did

2. WoW was launched eight years ago / GW2 is fresh new

3. WoW never cared about class balance, as long as there were problems in PvE: they started PvE balance very early, and infact, PvE was very balanced ( and got worse with expansions) / GW2 , altough being a “PvP focused game” started class balance in the last stage of game development, changing drastically past iterations of chars customization ( traits, 1 year ago , were a totally different matter), so they did with conditions, boons and similar, like if they were doing things at random.

The result is a very poor balance for the incredibly flexible system they have created.

Wake up, for someone who followed/played this game in its early stages, and knows how the situation changed and how this game has been developed, current situation is unacceptable, work of ridicolous lazyness and PvE abetting.

Could you please re-write your argument in a more… explanatory way? I couldn’t really understand what you meant when you said things like:

GW2 , altough being a “PvP focused game” started class balance in the last stage of game development, changing drastically past iterations of chars customization ( traits, 1 year ago , were a totally different matter), so they did with conditions, boons and similar, like if they were doing things at random.

And also add some explanations to things like:

We should stop this silly comparison to justify this game failure launch: having played WoW beta and first vanilla ( altough i was very young), i can say that current balance in GW2 is not that better.

Thanks!

Esplen.3940:

Could you please re-write your argument in a more… explanatory way? I couldn’t really understand what you meant when you said things like:

GW2 , altough being a “PvP focused game” started class balance in the last stage of game development, changing drastically past iterations of chars customization ( traits, 1 year ago , were a totally different matter), so they did with conditions, boons and similar, like if they were doing things at random.

And also add some explanations to things like:

We should stop this silly comparison to justify this game failure launch: having played WoW beta and first vanilla ( altough i was very young), i can say that current balance in GW2 is not that better.

Thanks!

1. GW2 changed drastically during the last year of development.

Trait system before was totally different, and you had cerrtain tratis related to your weapon choice ( 2 or 3 per weapon, can’t reaally remember that well) plus 3 traitlines per proffs, where you could pick a certain amount of traits.

Traits were limited ( much less than 12) and basically didn’t change that much your proff.

GW 2 had more stats, then those were reduced, then they were increased again, then they put a “proff exclusive” stat with the new trait system.

Boons and conditions were different: retaliation didn’t exist, protection stacked in intensity ( IIRC) and so did other conditions ( like burning).

DOn’t quote me on the boons and condi parts, i don’t remember it very well, but you can go to GW2guru and take a look at gw2 development progression.

The game changed DRAMATICALLY in the 6 months before release, like if it was a totally different game ( at least on the balance part).

Like if they deleted any balance achieved and started off again.

No wonder why balance is such crap, altough they have very few skills to balance and a great customization system which SHOULD allow great build variety.

In fact you can have multiple builds, but some traits are so misplaced or buggy ornot working or totally useless that there are effectively only 1-2 builds per proff, aside the most versatile ones ( guess what ? ele and guardian, and the enge also has tons of build diversity, but numbers are a bit off for them: other classes are basically forced into 1-2 viable builds), and overall, the trait system feels very cluncky.

Basically, they’re doing balance live with us: this game, at least the PvP part, is still in beta.

This goes to the other point

2. WoW never tought about PvP, they did their balancing attempts by looking at how their game was played by players. Like a live beta.
With GW2 is happening the exact same thing.

But WoW had some justifications: it was never meant to be a PvP game, PvP was an afterthought.

GW2 on the other side was advertised like “future E-Sport”, with a promised “great balance and build diversity”. 8 years after WoW.

So we can’t justify aNet for their mistakes, because it’s not competiting with 2004 WoW, but with 2012-13 MMO market.

And at least its PvP part, is a big fail, at least for those who followed them from start and are not blinded by fanboysm.

The game is great,PvE is great, WvW is great and the combat is the best ever seen.

But the rest ( PvP features, balance and e-sport stuff) is crap.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The fanboyism term is a cop-out way of saying “you should whine as hard as we do”.

WoW was not designed with PvP in mind originally, GW2 was. GW2 skill design and combat mechanics are brilliant. At a higher level, GW2 is still at a very fragile bootstrapping stage; it’s incentive structure and tournament system are not working. We’ll just have to wait and see how things play out.

Aspen Tie.5084:

I could never play WoW again after playing gw2.

In regards to death-match style arenas in gw2. If you really stop to think about it, it would be a pretty kittenty experience. As much as people enjoy this style of pvp, i don’t foresee it anytime in the near future. gw2 was not designed to support this type of gameplay….

That is what worries me. I don’t think that PvP will mature properly without the death-match style. Warcraft arena was also a kitten-y experience when it was introduced (with many relapses), but arena pushed players to innovate in ways that battlegrounds never could have, which pushed developers to design the game around those innovations.

Battlegrounds in WoW only encourage gimmicks, much like the game type in GW2 currently.

Could GW2 be more balanced?

Yes, definitely, a lot more – some things are still out of whack.

But the balancing continues and unlike the see-saw merry-go-round of FOTM balance that WoW is, we’re seeing good evolution towards an overall more balanced meta.

GW2 is already more balanced than WoW has ever been, and that includes TBC s3 and WOTLK s6 – but well comparing them current state to current state, MOP is just a disaster PVP-balance wise (worse than cata), so it’s quite unfair as GW2 is far, far more balanced right now.