It is obviously way too early to know what specs are strongest and definitely we can’t speak of a meta yet. However, anyone who watched the Go4GW2 tournaments on sunday could see that elite specs dominated the battlefields by far. I went through all the teams showed in the videos and simply counted how many of each professions. I counted only once per team, even if the team played more than 1 game, and I counted “half” if the team swapped.
0 mesmer, 2 chrono
0 necro, 4 reaper
6 ele, 3.5 tempest
0 engi, 8 scrapper
0 ranger, 5 druid
4 thief, 1 daredevil
3 warrior, 0 berserk
2.5 guard, 7.5 dragonhunter
0 rev, 6.5 glint
Now more than just numbers, here is what I felt watching:
chronomancers just don’t work anymore. We all agree they are stronger than mesmers, but everything else is even stronger. The only 2 chrono spent their time at respawn. Many of the old mesmers went to other things (revenant mostly). I believe the main problem for chronos is the insane amount of CC everyone is doing. All of you saying “chrono is OP”, please reconsider.
Reaper felt “comparatively” balanced.
D/D ele, OP in the previous meta, seems now almost underperforming. Tempest was doing fairly good, and most used neither water nor arcane!
scrapper was very strong, both high sustain and high damage
druid replaced many of the shout bow warriors and felt very strong in both defending and supporting
thief was killed further with this specs. This is probably because of the reveal from engineer (actually the few thieves didn’t take shadow refuge) and the increased damage combined with the change to vamp rune. Many thieves moved to revenant
warrior felt like more of a relic of the old meta than a competitive class
Guardian still felt “ok” as a support class. Dragonhunter felt extremely strong as a damage class, especially with the huge AOE damage from traps.
As expected, all revenants took glint. They felt strong in damage, though often comparatively “squishy”
In more general ways, the “rez” meta seems over with all the AOE damage (from DH especially).
So this Go4 clearly confirmed that a big power creep has taken place. Also I found it interesting that the elite specs most complained about (dragonhunter and tempest) actually seemed to be in a strong place.
- Chrono doesn’t seem to be as good as predicted by Lord Downseth.
- Druids overshine Bunker Guards and are even able to 1v1.
- Scrapper basically is D/D Ele 2.0, doesnt mean that D/D Ele is balanced though.
- Trap Guards probably won’t be a thing for long, they’re to gimmicky.
- Vanilla Thief became trash just as expected, Daredevil isn’t exactly great either.
- Warriors probably completly drop out of meta.
Balance reached an all time low. Specializations aren’t another playstyle just a vanilla class on steroids. Cash Money heroes, y0
So this Go4 clearly confirmed that a big power creep has taken place.
Disagree. Most builds were tankier than before HoT.
Maybe I used the wrong words. I meant power as “efficiency”. So the new builds are better than the old ones. That includes more damage, more tankiness and/or more support.
So this Go4 clearly confirmed that a big power creep has taken place.
Disagree. Most builds were tankier than before HoT.
Maybe I used the wrong words. I meant power as “efficiency”. So the new builds are better than the old ones. That includes more damage, more tankiness and/or more support.
I like how the OP lists and compares facts and then adds intelligent commentary. Most threads are written subjectively driven by opinion and/or emotion
I think there’s a big design flaw with revenant, as it’s almost a non functional class without Herald. The other legends are just too specialized while Herald is the solid " good “, and it shoudln”’t be that way with elite spec imo.
I like balance analysis from gathering info from high-level tournament. Much more persuasive than some random complaint from ppl from their 1-2 solo queue experience.
Very good thread with great info. As most of us predicted, elites are stronger than core, and thief is going to dwindle down. I predict that most thieves will switch to rev. Great mobility, great at +1ing, can team fight, and can 1v1.
I like balance analysis from gathering info from high-level tournament. Much more persuasive than some random complaint from ppl from their 1-2 solo queue experience.
I’m definitely not surprised to see so many people playing the elite specs. They’re the new shiny and even high end players are going to want to play with what’s new when it comes out. However, there’s definitely some balancing issues going on. Here’s my overall 2 copper:
1) AoE overall is a bit too strong. A lot of this comes back to Dragonhunter needing a damage decrease to traps, but Reaper also contributes to this quite a bit with the new DS.
2) Chronomancer will probably do much better once AoE is toned down, but I expect there to be a lot of calls for a nerf to them, simply because of how potentially aggravating it can be to fight against them.
3) Thieves will benefit from less AoE as well, but they still need more sustain for actively fighting. This shouldn’t be confused with being able to disengage from a fight to survive. The devs know the danger of putting too many evade frames on thieves from previous balance patches and I wouldn’t suggest that, but their base HP or toughness may need to be tweaked upwards.
4) Warriors need a more specific reason to be brought to a group. There’s a lot of potential to have warriors as the high-stability/high-CC brawler and I think this should be focused on with any buffs they receive.
Come on people are trying the new specs out you can’t extrapolate anything out of that. Some of the new specs are strong some are average and imo some are weak.
Come on people are trying the new specs out you can’t extrapolate anything out of that. Some of the new specs are strong some are average and imo some are weak.
These people are playing for prizes, they will use what they think gives them the best chance to win.
These people are playing for prizes, they will use what they think gives them the best chance to win.
But the real question is: Are they correct? They are certainly the most informed players, but most informed does not mean infallible.
I bring this up because there has been so little time passed since the HoT launched. Sure there was the betas, but those where incomplete and lacked the new runes and amulets, plus stuff was changed between them.
It’s simply too early for anyone to be to definitively claim they know what’s the strongest comp and class, since there simply hasn’t been enough time for the meta to settle.
Although useful info listing the classes individually in a comment about balance will always miss the point a little bit. It’s also how they combine with others as well – for example the ridiculous amount of death shroud Nos’s reaper got from the two Abjured Revenants. The high number of DragonHunters is more a reflection of it being an easy one to play.
I would agree though that Chronomancer was disastrous, two of the best mesmers in game and both were almost totally ineffective. It’s still early days, but doesn’t look promising.
Thief is weaker, but certainly wasn’t useless and it used to be the most meta class of all, so I’m not sad to see it become an option rather than a requirement.
Warrior was pretty disastrous, but then at least two of those were shoutbows which I would expect to be outdated. May need a bit more time to see what happens, still remember the last time people claimed Warrior was useless and then we saw thes likes of Shoutbow appear :p
These people are playing for prizes, they will use what they think gives them the best chance to win.
But the real question is: Are they correct? They are certainly the most informed players, but most informed does not mean infallible.
I bring this up because there has been so little time passed since the HoT launched. Sure there was the betas, but those where incomplete and lacked the new runes and amulets, plus stuff was changed between them.
It’s simply too early for anyone to be to definitively claim they know what’s the strongest comp and class, since there simply hasn’t been enough time for the meta to settle.
Maybe not so much “informed,” and “infallible,” but more, “during testing (practice), this combination was better than that.”
The strongest comp will be whatever the winning team plays. So let’s wait and see what abjured plays going foward.
No the comp that the winning team plays is the strongest comp of the comps played in that particular tourney. There is still potential for there to be better comps out there.
Maybe not so much “informed,” and “infallible,” but more, “during testing (practice), this combination was better than that.”
Do you really think that they managed to thoroughly test everything in the small amount of time since expac?
I’ve been PvP’ing in various games long enough to make the observation that what players/teams think is optimal immediately after expac rarely ends up being optimal in the long run.
Maybe not so much “informed,” and “infallible,” but more, “during testing (practice), this combination was better than that.”
Do you really think that they managed to thoroughly test everything in the small amount of time since expac?
I’ve been PvP’ing in various games long enough to make the observation that what players/teams think is optimal immediately after expac rarely ends up being optimal in the long run.
Except I didn’t say they tested everything and I didn’t say that they were definitely right. What I said was that in they used what they found was best in their testing. If you want to put more into that than necessary then go ahead, but you aren’t going to get anywhere.
Although useful info listing the classes individually in a comment about balance will always miss the point a little bit. It’s also how they combine with others as well – for example the ridiculous amount of death shroud Nos’s reaper got from the two Abjured Revenants.
Yes, while reaper on its own seemed fine, that combo seemed a bit too strong. To a large extent, I don’t want this trait nerfed, because a large problem of necros has always been that they cannot receive any healing while in shroud. I often play bunker guard with my necro gf, and this trait means I can finally give her as much support as I usually give to non-necro. But it works too well with the ticking boons from revenants…
I would agree though that Chronomancer was disastrous, two of the best mesmers in game and both were almost totally ineffective. It’s still early days, but doesn’t look promising.
That was painful to watch, especially for me as mesmer main. And then all the NA mesmer (for example Mime) switching to revenants…
Hmmm as far as chronomancer (and thief to an extent) the meta has shifted towards teamfight builds to an extent where most builds do some combination of AoE burst damage on a point (tempest/trogdorhunter) and cross-healing (tempest/Druid/support guard) while the roaming dps role has been usurped by revenant due to overall higher damage, support (especially this through boons) and survivability with shield and glint heal and whatnot and in some situations, (phase traversal) better mobility.
Reaper on the other hand is in a strange spot. It’s essentially the ultimate point holder when it has revenants and tempests to feed it boons and overall well balanced otherwise. It has a lot of cleave on a point in shroud though and can hold that point extremely well.. The only caveat of blighters boon though is that it’s only conditionally strong based on teamfight based team composition. If the trait had a 1 second ICD but twice the heal value in shroud, it’s probably feel a bit more fair to fight against.
Necromancer Main
Taking a break from GW2 to play various
Nintendo games..
It seems like Revenant was crafted with many of the ideas which would have otherwise made warrior, thief, and mesmer elites more desirable. Instead these classes received lines which are primarily redundant (berserker), gimmicky (daredevil), and lack the disengage and sustain to escape coordinated pressure (chronomancer). It would seem that they had plenty of cool ideas but not enough for every class.
I didn’t read all the comments so it probably has been said, but there is a vast choice bias currently, people are wanting to toy with new things. I wouldn’t be too quick to say base classes are gone because of an abundance of elite specs being played. 3 years is a long time to wait for fresh class material, so people are living it up.
That said, there are some balance issues as always. Remember, GW2’s PTR is the live game 3 months following every patch. :P
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
It seems like Revenant was crafted with many of the ideas which would have otherwise made warrior, thief, and mesmer elites more desirable. Instead these classes received lines which are primarily redundant (berserker), gimmicky (daredevil), and lack the disengage and sustain to escape coordinated pressure (chronomancer). It would seem that they had plenty of cool ideas but not enough for every class.
I cannot speak for the other 2 that I barely play. But for chronomancer, it feels like the elite spec was designed for team fights. The wells offer good area denial, good support. Also chrono has higher pressure-sustain with the shield blocks (which are quite insane if you think about it) and the 3s blur from the well. From my experience, and somewhat confirmed by the Go4, the problem is CC. There is no built-in stability for the chronomancer, and the stability of core mesmer is quite bad (1 stack for a GM in chaos, 2s stab with a worthless mantra).
Because mesmer has good stunbreaks (decoy/blink) that was not a problem for the “roaming role” which could just disengage. But for a team fighter, that just won’t do, and it seems the focus of fights moved even more towards team fights.
Silverkey you are right to an extent, but the biggest problem I have faced hasn’t been singularly cc, condis, or power damage but rather all 3 at once. Because blink is 1 of 2 stunbreaks but also the biggest lifesavor in terms of disengauge, getting cced dosent instantly kitten you it kittens you over time. Mesmers as of now just dont have the utility slots or condi removal to adequetly survive, in part because they are required to take portal and a teamfighting elite to stay viable in terms of team utility. Mesmer needs more availabilty to clense and stability of they are going to keep going away from stealth reliance. As of now this could be possible although the defensive lines cannot be taken as the offensive lines are mandatory if the mesmer is to stay relevant in terms of damage
Achmed Afro Thunder ~ Six Ft Pole Achmed ~ Dharok The Ravenous
Long Live [ASAP] Zerg: The greatest guild that ever was or will be.
I feel the balance is fairly good among the elite specs. people just aren’t used to the DH, and some of its damage will probably get shaved down.
the biggest balance problem is probably the scrapper actually. those guys are insane brawlers with ridiculous sustain, and they hit just a tad too hard for that amount of tank.
but as you implied, these numbers point to the core professions being left in the dust. I mostly know ranger, so I will speak to that. right now there is absolutely no reason to use core ranger. the druid trait line basically solves our problems of survivability and group utility. so any power ranger should be going into druid, because the player only gains a bunch of utility and survivability, without losing dps. this just points to how poorly the core profession was designed. same goes for a few others.
I knew this would be an issue when they announced elite specs. I knew all of their resources would go into them, leaving the core profs almost completely neglected.
Well a big reason for which those specs are so strong compared to the core class is that we had the developers actively listening to us. And this is obviously a great thing. This means that there are very few “garbage traits” or “garbage skills” in the new specs, in strong contrast to the core professions. Also, most of the new specs include different traits covering both offense and defense, allowing the new line to be useful in most roles.
I have no problem with that, and I actually strongly believe that the devs will apply the same kind of treatment for the core specs (and I hope they won’t prevent themselves to completely redesign some skills, even if the result has nothing in common with the initial one). Fixing the useless traits and skills of the core class will bring the non-elite builds closer to the state of the new specs.
However, the new specs don’t shine only because there is nothing bad in them. They are also a few things simply stronger, either on purpose to increase the selling of the expansion or because the devs inadvertently gave a bit too much to ease people’s complains. Now it may not be a big deal: if everyone’s offensive and defensive capabilities are increased, we may just reach another equilibrium.
It seems like Revenant was crafted with many of the ideas which would have otherwise made warrior, thief, and mesmer elites more desirable. Instead these classes received lines which are primarily redundant (berserker), gimmicky (daredevil), and lack the disengage and sustain to escape coordinated pressure (chronomancer). It would seem that they had plenty of cool ideas but not enough for every class.
I cannot speak for the other 2 that I barely play. But for chronomancer, it feels like the elite spec was designed for team fights. The wells offer good area denial, good support. Also chrono has higher pressure-sustain with the shield blocks (which are quite insane if you think about it) and the 3s blur from the well. From my experience, and somewhat confirmed by the Go4, the problem is CC. There is no built-in stability for the chronomancer, and the stability of core mesmer is quite bad (1 stack for a GM in chaos, 2s stab with a worthless mantra).
Because mesmer has good stunbreaks (decoy/blink) that was not a problem for the “roaming role” which could just disengage. But for a team fighter, that just won’t do, and it seems the focus of fights moved even more towards team fights.
So far, i personally believe its more that you basically can’t stay outside the point and help nearly as well when there are dragonhunters with range pressure, daredevils, revenant with shiro. You get chased down or just die from pressure. This is the reason i believe mesmers will switch back to stealth fairly soon- you need it to get away, since most classes are faster than you. (Reaper is one exception).
We still don’t have enough information to go off of. Balancing is definitely incoming but as I’ve said before just because a major league gamer can squeeze more out of a class then was intended doesn’t mean most or even a significant number can or that it reflects balance as a whole.
I defended D/D Elementalist on this reasoning and I defend the current specs on this reasoning. Even Chronomancer has turned out to be less of a game changer then I think most of us were expecting as on paper it did seem like a no-brainer no trade-off upgrade.
I think this kind of analysis would be much more valuable a week or two from now once stuff has settled down. There is definitely some valuable info here, but in a few weeks it will all be more clear.
Necros don’t have reflects, invulns, vigor, blocks,
extra dodges, real stability, mobility skills,
burst skills, sustain, or good support. GG ANET.
I do not want to sound rude to the participants, but you also got to remember that there were 3 years prior of having the same professions with the same weapons/utilities. It is really easy to spot certain animations considering the time that went over to learn them, and I think this is also evident within a tournament that allows new specs.
In due time, it will become clearer as to what the overpowering skills are, and people will be able to dodge it (or it will be gutted).
One thing that I personally hadfor instance is that I feel as if the AoE spam became even more unreal, and I actually had a really hart time distinguishing skills from say a Tempest to a Scrapper – though I think that in time I will get used to it. And well, if I will, then I am certain others will.
Give it a week or two and we will see more I guess.
Still, a great analysis, and I hope this trend can persist coming weeks.
- Druids overshine Bunker Guards and are even able to 1v1.
I do not agree. A DH bunk/heal with appropriate spells and traits can keep a point in 1v1 forever, stay 2v1 on a point for a moment, and carry the orb versus 3 players without too much problems.
With minstrel stuff and monk rune, sigil +10% heal and outgoing heals sigil, it’s 20khp, 1400 healpower, 3200 armor and 52% boonduration. The new F2 heal for 8k with this. 20% more outgoing heal with Force Of Will. And with Hunter Fortification it’s really easy to purge condis, even without the shouts trait.
co-founder of Grand Cross Alliance
General of Grand Cross Knights [GCK]
www.grandcross.fr/codex-gck
An actual objective and statistical analysis pointing out very serious concerns on how elite specializations are outshining their predecessors completely.
Expect nothing to be done about it. Its just too logical and constructive for Anet to listen to. Now if it was about PvE……. everyone in Anet office would drop their coffees to look into it.
- Druids overshine Bunker Guards and are even able to 1v1.
I do not agree. A DH bunk/heal with appropriate spells and traits can keep a point in 1v1 forever, stay 2v1 on a point for a moment, and carry the orb versus 3 players without too much problems.
A druid simply outperforms a bunkerguard like an ele and a shoutbow did in the last meta.
Bunkerguard has still the same problems which they had before – no mobility and no dmg to pressure some classes in a 1v1/ 2v1.
A druid is like the old shoutbow but with much better dps and even with small bursts
( pet f1+ both glyphs +geomancy/doom + torch), druid has as twice as much heal/support and has incredible good mobility to rotate from point to point. He can pressure other classes in 2v1/3v2 situations and will win every 1v1 against marauder-classes.
I would always take a druid over a bunkerguard in the current state of the game.
@others who were talking about chrono:
imo the main problem the chronomancer has is that he basically needs a thief and a thief is at the moment clearly underperforming.Additionally, the current “meta” is so sustainable and tanky that high risk zerk classes who provides burst are inferior to zerk classes with a lot of selfsustain and constant dmg like reaper/scrapper for example.
The mobility with 30+ sec of speed (with Minstrel), F2 wings and merciful is very good too. The healing of a guard with current spvp items is colossal : 2k6-7 dodges, 5k staff, 8k F2, 12k healing shout, 4k merciful, etc. And there is no downtime as you can roll abilitys and pure of heart aegis on others, it’s a good advantage versus the druid when he has to build some astral force. You can heal for 2k5 minimum per sec, with 20k+ burst possible (healing shout + merciful for example, or F2 + staff, etc).
I played this all weekend, and i was able to heal and protect the team like never before.
If you want, i can support you in a game just to show you the possibilitys. The mitigation with F3, new shield absorption and tons of aegis is colossal too.
co-founder of Grand Cross Alliance
General of Grand Cross Knights [GCK]
www.grandcross.fr/codex-gck
I know the possibilities.
The fact that you can not pressure enemies in a 1v1 so that even a thief could hold the point decapped against you, that you don’t offer any pressure in a 2v1/2v2- situation against a tanky class makes you just inferior to a druid, tho.
Druid can + 1 people, provides pressure in a 2v2,wins 1v1s against zerk classes and has huge heal as well. The amount of healing the druid provides is more than enough.
In the last meta the bunkerguard also healed way more than a shoutbow and an ele but was inferior,tho.
A druid simply outperforms a bunkerguard like an ele and a shoutbow did in the last meta.
running a minstrel bunker druid atm, and it's super strong. u can also go celestial. u can go MoC for huge daze duration, or just go for more tank. u can go 2, 3 or 5 glyphs if you want. there are so many options for the support druid right now. as you said, it's mobile and can hit hard with the smokescale.
I’m also running a marauder staff druid that can still supports with Lingering Light and avatar, while putting out huge deeps.
The strongest comp will be whatever the winning team plays. So let’s wait and see what abjured plays going foward.
No the comp that the winning team plays is the strongest comp of the comps played in that particular tourney. There is still potential for there to be better comps out there.
Maybe not so much “informed,” and “infallible,” but more, “during testing (practice), this combination was better than that.”
Do you really think that they managed to thoroughly test everything in the small amount of time since expac?
I’ve been PvP’ing in various games long enough to make the observation that what players/teams think is optimal immediately after expac rarely ends up being optimal in the long run.
it’s pretty easy to select from the poll what’s good for pvp and whats not by reading, then test the selected ones, sure you may not get perfect build.
but you would already get a big picture, then it’s up for time to refine the build, unless there are new top build coming out, which happens rarely.
most of the most op builds after specialization patch came out in a few days, then they are nerfed
A druid simply outperforms a bunkerguard like an ele and a shoutbow did in the last meta.
running a minstrel bunker druid atm, and it's super strong. u can also go celestial. u can go MoC for huge daze duration, or just go for more tank. u can go 2, 3 or 5 glyphs if you want. there are so many options for the support druid right now. as you said, it's mobile and can hit hard with the smokescale.
I’m also running a marauder staff druid that can still supports with Lingering Light and avatar, while putting out huge deeps.
A minstrel bunker druid has the same disadvantages like a bunker guard.
Celestial druid is so much better. The heal is enough – way more heal than an ele/shoutbow could ever provide while you also deal decent damage.
A druid simply outperforms a bunkerguard like an ele and a shoutbow did in the last meta.
running a minstrel bunker druid atm, and it's super strong. u can also go celestial. u can go MoC for huge daze duration, or just go for more tank. u can go 2, 3 or 5 glyphs if you want. there are so many options for the support druid right now. as you said, it's mobile and can hit hard with the smokescale.
I’m also running a marauder staff druid that can still supports with Lingering Light and avatar, while putting out huge deeps.
A minstrel bunker druid has the same disadvantages like a bunker guard.
Celestial druid is so much better. The heal is enough – way more heal than an ele/shoutbow could ever provide while you also deal decent damage.
i’ll look into it =)
My main problem with cele is that my marauder might stacking build, easily does 30% more damage (at least), while still supporting my team with heals, CC, and lingering light. and I haven’t yet felt it lacked survivability, even while on point. but i’ll test to make sure I’m not missing anything =P
