Guild Wars 2

GankSinatra.2653:

Rogacz.9865:

@GankSinatra One class being better then another task is not called being overpowered. Its called asymmetric design. Always in that kind of design, one setup is better then another in some specific situation.

Thats what i’d like. But it doesnt really play out like this atm, does it? Or do you think guardians are only effective in certain specific situations right now? Would you pick a point defend ele or necro because it would fit better against the enemies line up? Or still rather always take the Guardian because it performs best in most situations?

I guess we agree on your statement, but disagree on what point the game is at now.

Pretty much this. I’m also curious to know in which situation exactly any other class bunkers better than the guardian. Can anyone step up and give such an example?

Sure. Phantasm mesmer with portal is much better defender of short point due to being able to defend point that is not constantly contested, while contributing to fight at another point or objective.

The biggest problem in this game is the obscene burst damage. It causes those problems:

1. Specs
Some specs are simply too fragile and need to be in a support role (read: they need to be babysitted) while ironically this burst glasscannon spec is on a class which can get away with having such fragility

2. Burst vs Damage over Time
Heck, a necro conditions’ spec tick about 130ish dmg….while some classes have a move or can spam a move which causes 3000-20000 damage. It takes ages to set up your dots…which get cleansed anyway.

3. Class Imbalance
It is simply not balanced that you are nearly dead when this one move (or in other cases the high burst spam of one ability) lands and your stunbreaker is on cd while they do not have the same problems when they encounter you.

Guardians are best at central points where a lot of fighting happens. On points just occasionally assaulted by a lone thief or something, you want someone who can actually win the fights instead of just not losing. Mesmers are popular because they also have the portal, but generally anything good at 1v1s goes.

Another thing is that when you need to have more than one defender on a single point, two guardians doesn’t seem to be the best answer at all.

The relation of burst vs defense seems mostly fine, DoT conditions are just toothless against burst. The solution would be to somehow make condition specs more reliable, less counterable.

Retaliation needs to be dealt with too but even if it is the Guardian is unquestioningly very powerful. Maybe not too powerful though.

Xeph.4513:

Quick question, apart from having retaliation toned down (which I completely agree with.) What other things do you want nerfed/removed, because as far as I’m concerned many classes have several ways to stop a stomp; as a mesmer I have 2 stuns, a daze, chaos storm (with some rng luck) and moa.
Engineer has (Flamethrower and Big bomb)
Elementalists (Updraft, Earthquake and Tornado)

The full hp aoe heal, is very easy to counter and the guardian can be cc’d to stop it; if he has popped stability than remove the condition using several different boon removals.

Guardians are strong, but they are not a god class and by no means do I find them overpowered; the only thing I wish for is a nerf to retal and everything else is currently in line.

I think this sums it up pretty well but I’d take issue with your characterization of stopping the AE heal as easy. A full AE heal in this game has to be one of the highest potential game changers in terms of a single ability. From your perspective as a Mesmer, boon stripping stability might seem trivial but I can assure you that a Ranger wont agree.

That’s really the essence of balance. Not just a class in a vacuum, it’s the power relative to the other classes. Now you can argue to tweak X and Y up rather than bring Z down and I’d agree depending on the details. I’d also say none of this is really over the top game breaking, but it’s also clear there are classes more equal than others.

If all classes could strip boons efficiently you’d have a big step towards fair and skillful balance I think. You’d still need to deal with the power or ease of uptime of Retaliation though.

all the classes are balanced. everyone say elementalist is bad in pvp so i tried it and was thinking how bad can it be? and i tried it i used scepter and dagger and full krait insignias. i didn’t need any defence insignias since they already have 1860 tough/vit in base twice as much as guardian. then i did 1,4k bleeding dmg by the first hits then steadily stacks in intensity. aswell as arcane shield,cleansing fire ice golem. i was able to get ok survivability and damage. so tell me how was it underpowered again?

Wow I’ve been reading these forums and there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about balance as well as some people not playing there class enough or quite understanding it yet. Let me start with the facts from my perspective. I play a roaming ele and currently have about 13.8k health. I have about 400-500 games on my ele and am a level 23 in spvp. I dont pvp and I have 236 hours of playtime. From my personal experience this games balance is great, I can beat every class 1v1 except a mesmer a retal guardian and rangers (havent learned to fight them yet). Currently in my opinion the elementalist could use some quality of life changes such as making dragons tooth and ice spike a ground target, as well as a bit better minor traits, decrease the cooldown on fire grab a bit to 30 or increase damage on it and make it have a longer channel (does about a 5k crit every 45 sec when thiefs can heartseeker for that ammount and its spammable). As far as nerfs go on things that are op Moa could use a duration change. I understand its on a 3 min cd but its a 10 sec stun and is to long, maybe decrease it to 7 sec. Also on the mesmer the shatter damage is a tad steep and needs to be looked at. The only other change in my opinion that needs to be done is decrease retaliation damage. other then that the classes are fine and the game is fine. Classes since the beginning of MMO’s have been made to fill roles and be better at roles then other classes. this game is not different.