Guild Wars 2

Every class in the game can alter their survivability by adjusting vitality and toughness.

But some classes get a distinct advantage due to the fact that they get better armor.

So why do light armor classes have WAY less burst then heavy armor classes that get a natural survivability advantage?

Where in your minds does it even make sense that warriors should do more burst then light armor classes??

Warriors?? They don’t any more. They are actually almost UP atm. Just roll a mesmer like everyone else. Best burst in the game and light armor. Or was it medium idk.. I do agree that class balance is horrible right now though. I played all stress tests and BWEs and it’s actually worse now than before..

cyrealkylla.7145:

So why do light armor classes have WAY less burst then heavy armor classes that get a natural survivability advantage?

First of all, all light armor classes are ranged. Which mean they do dmg while a warrior is running against them, thats why they got less armor but they got blink (mesmer) and that lightning jump thingy on elementalist.

And when it comes to dmg, Mesmer got the highest at this point without a doubt.

Sonho, all classes can use ranged weapons, and all classes melee based have a focking skill with 1200 range to “jump” into enemies.

What class are you referencing? Keep in mind a warrior it mostly melee whereas a ele for example is a ranged class, thus naturally a warrior will wear more armor. More prone to Aoe and control is a melee combatant then a ranged one. Survivability is much harder in the fray. But that being said the best “burst” warrior damage comes from a warrior who specs primarily in offensive capabilities and not as much defense (ie tough, vitality) but any glass cannon build can poor on serious pressure in the game.

Stadig.7325:

Warriors?? They don’t any more. They are actually almost UP atm. Just roll a mesmer like everyone else. Best burst in the game and light armor. Or was it medium idk.. I do agree that class balance is horrible right now though. I played all stress tests and BWEs and it’s actually worse now than before..

Do you play a Mesmer? I’m legitimately curious as to this magical burst you have seen. Please enlighten me with the rotation and build that provides such burst to a Mesmer, because as far as I’ve discovered, Mesmers don’t burst down enemies as much as out-live them.

Love, a Mesmer.

Temariah.9372:

Stadig.7325:

Warriors?? They don’t any more. They are actually almost UP atm. Just roll a mesmer like everyone else. Best burst in the game and light armor. Or was it medium idk.. I do agree that class balance is horrible right now though. I played all stress tests and BWEs and it’s actually worse now than before..

Do you play a Mesmer? I’m legitimately curious as to this magical burst you have seen. Please enlighten me with the rotation and build that provides such burst to a Mesmer, because as far as I’ve discovered, Mesmers don’t burst down enemies as much as out-live them.

Love, a Mesmer.

Ignore the trolls who have no idea what they are talking about. All they do is regurgitate mostly false info they read from other whiners on the forums.

Mesmer’s have virtually no burst, so I can’t even reply to that one, there most powerful ability burst-wise is Mind Wrack and even with everything dumped into the glassiest cannon build you could imagine it wouldn’t=1 Hundred Blades, P.Whip, Heartseeker, or Backstab. They do have great steady dmg, great survivability with the right spec but no burst and they shouldnt have any not their style.

Elementalist have prolly the worst burst in the game which is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard since in every other MMO we understand that light armor Wizards should outdmg all. Not burn people with dots and then not survive, that’s why there are Warlocks.

So we have a game where low survivability no armor classes get the lowest burst dmg and high evasion or high armor classes have the most burst. And Mage type classes do not play survive tactics(except necro/lock types) and warriors do not hit like Wizards. Which shows a general fail on the common sense meter for the developers, you have to understand the basic concept of PVP to design it.

When you consider armor as the only factor in survivability then your argument is true. However, that is not the case in GW2.

I think that a lot of the hate I see in this thread is really unnecessary.

Firstly, the game has been out less than a month, so of course there are balance issues that weren’t even perceivable in the relatively lower player base that they were confined to determine metrics from pre-launch. I am very happy with how they’ve been listening to the playerbase as far as balance goes. There was an update a few nights ago that altered Heartseeker into what it was intended to be (a bursty finishing move, not a be-all-and-end-all spam attack) and also touched up a few skills (Rush for Warrior and Mind Stab for Mesmer being a few) that needed some lovin’. This work is on top of general bug fixes, performance issues, and hacked accounts! Give the game some time! You can see that they want the balance as much as we do! They’ve proven it by prioritizing PvP balance way above what would be expected.

Because the game is so new, and because it’s so easy for a new player to hop on a character and dive right into sPvP, it’s really difficult to say what’s OP and what’s UP. I mean, I’m rank 9 (I know it’s not that high) but almost all of my battles have been with my Mesmer. So when I rolled my thief the other day, I was tossed into matchups with the same types of players (~rank 9 players) that I was fighting on my Mesmer, and let’s just say life sucked for a few games. People who saw me during those games were probably thinking (Wow, this type of thief build is UP as hell), but that’s simply not true. The problem was that I just sucked at it. But don’t you guys see that we all suck at everything right now? We haven’t had enough bulk time to not suck yet.

I guess I’m preaching patience and courtesy. Don’t whine, don’t rage, don’t spam, and most certainly don’t demand.

Mesmers Blurred frenzy + mind wrack isnt burst? with Illusionary persona and 3 illusions out. You can do 3-4k from blurred frenzy + 8k mind wrack (if everything crits). So you can do anywhere from 7-12k. every 10 or so seconds.

uMad.5719:

Mesmers Blurred frenzy + mind wrack isnt burst? with Illusionary persona and 3 illusions out. You can do 3-4k from blurred frenzy + 8k mind wrack (if everything crits). So you can do anywhere from 7-12k. every 10 or so seconds.

Warriors can easily get that every 6 seconds with 100 Blades. I think this is an apt comparison because both tactics (shatter+blurred frenzy and 100 Blades) are relatively easy to dodge.

I agree that there are some balance issues, but I think people just prove how much they don’t know when they post while the game is so young.

Do not forget there are Warrior rifle builds that put out SERIOUS hurt. Don’t think just because it is called warrior, it is 100% melee

Sonho.3697:

And when it comes to dmg, Mesmer got the highest at this point without a doubt.

Erm, no, if you look above there is someone saying Mesmers can do 9-12k in 10 secs, my thief backstabs for 9k+ in one attack, warrior same thing with 100b, etc, Mesmers are not really high damage, they have sustained damage and are very good in other ways, but highest damage in the game, not even close.

Sustained dmg and burst are not the same thing, for a Mesmer to do high dmg via Mind Wrack they need to pull 2 illusions, swap a wep to grab another unless they waste mirror images decoy, etc etc(which are defensive abilities).

That is not BURST!

A warrior presses a button(hundred blades), a theif presses a button P.whip, backstab and does more dmg then any Mind Wrack that would need 3 seperate shatter crits to do the same dmg as one button click. IDK if your just ignorant to gameplay or trying to troll suggesting something so outlandish.

For those saying the game is new blah blah that is why there is beta and testing before a game if you went through all of that and still said

“Hell yea high armor classes should click a button and do 12-17k, now let’s make all squishy classes need to build sustained dps”

Then it’s not the game is new problem it is a general ignorance to the term “PVP” that is the problem, and time cannot fix a lack of common sense.

And YES 50-25 more armor per peice is a big difference to get just free from choosing a profession don’t pretend it isn’t, if it wasn’t that don’t use runes because the effect of those is around the same when specing survivability via rune.

Warriors and thieves have to also pop high cooldown utilities if they want to pump out huge damage. Noone is going to take the full hit of 100blades or pistolwhip without haste and some for of CC.

Just because warriors/thieves have stupid and easy burst because of quickness’s bullsh. mechanic doesn’t mean mesmer’s have absolutely no burst.

I’ve done greatsword burst builds that have fairly sustainable burst. It’s no, dump every cooldown and kill ANYONE in 1-2 seconds sort of burst, but you can do really heavy chunks of dmg on a low-ish cooldown.

Greatsword 2 skill + iZerker + Mind Stab + Mind Wrack, all nearly hit at the same time, and you can bounce your GS 2 skill off your phantasm to hit twice, plus double illusion mind wrack.

Anyway, regardless of the burst mesmers do or don’t have, mesmers are still quite broken, as someone who’s played mesmer alot.

Knote no you don’t play a mesmer you play a Warrior which is why you have a problem with Mesmer’s because there the strongest light armor class vs theif and warrior.

To even think a Mesmer dmg touches a theif or warriors shows how absolutely crazy players are nowadays. Elementalist and Warlocks need a VAST push in dmg, while most theives and warriors can kill someone in under 4 seconds with 2 button clicks you want the Memser to get nerfed lol OK sure a light armor class should have less dmg and high armor classes are OK having that much.

Show me a screenshot where a Mesmer killed somebody with two button clicks and I’ll agree with you

I play a mesmer, thief, and warrior. Thief is the most played of the bunch with about equal time on the other two.

If we are looking at glass cannon types of builds, warrior is the least survivable of the bunch.

I’d say warrior and thief are equal at pure burst against a stationary target. The thief has an easier time of keeping on target.

The mesmer is the most survivable. The burst isn’t as great in a single blow, but the ease of applying the burst and the interval of doing it is the greatest on the mesmer while having the most survival tools.

The problem with the warrior is that outside of a zerg, it is difficult to get the burst off. Also, they have to give up most of their survival tools to do so. Outside of the 100b, the warrior really only has a decent control build and it is why they are considered underpowered at the moment.

urdriel.8496:

Sonho, all classes can use ranged weapons, and all classes melee based have a focking skill with 1200 range to “jump” into enemies.

This. *

For all the nubs they think cloth classes are fine like ele. U need rly l2p and use more than one kitten buton smash, because you sux if u lose vs the most UP class i ever see in a game.
In every kitten mmorpg the lowest class in armor and hp compensate with high damage. Not here…
And for all the bunch of morons they say " u are raged" LOL, every kitten class can switch for range mode in gw2.

Except Guardians. But we’re still considered “OP”, except by the adept rangers, engineers, and mesmers who are laughing at the big ironic joke of calling us OP.

I’m sure you realize GW2 isn’t every other mmorpg. They have done away with alot of the things other MMOs have done.

Armor and hp, or the lack of it, isn’t compensated with high damage. It is compensated with other built in defenses.

@cyrealkylla.:
<<For those saying the game is new blah blah that is why there is beta and testing before a game if you went through all of that and still said>>

Like in WoW , not all the high rating players , rush in the beta ( even less in a newer game) to give valuable data to the devs .
That why in WoW , they have problems too for the first 1-3 months

I think the bottom line here is that the classes that are “supposed” to be melee, have way too much burst damage and a plethora of ways to close in on a ranged only character. Cast times are way too long to do anything efficiently. When someone can be invisible and drop 50% hp on a full toughness Ele, there is a problem. The only class that should have burst damage to that extent should be the casters. This kitten isn’t rocket science. How did this game mess it up so bad, so fast? Dunno.

You are forcing an Ele to be able to switch elements nonstop on the fly while melee can smash their faces on the keyboard and be just as effective. Poorly designed.

Warrior player:

to those of you asking about mesmer burst and saying it doesn’t exist. I recommend you check out www.twitch.tv/jhaxe. His shatter build will leave you speechless with the amount of burst it puts out along with the amount of survivability and utility he has.

Except Guardians. But we’re still considered “OP”, except by the adept rangers, engineers, and mesmers who are laughing at the big ironic joke of calling us OP.

This so much Oh, you forgot to mention condition thieves. In fact pretty much anything that isn’t burst. But hey, we are op because most of the players are glass cannon thieves trying to burst us down but can’t.

Whoever says a mesmer has more burst than a warrior doesnt have a clue… seriously…

In order for a mesmer to do a good burst he’s got to use about 5-8 spells/attacks in combination with eachother, and it most likely requires setup time (spawning clones for the bursting on mindwrack/cry). Then leap so his blurred frenzy won’t completely fail and immobilize his target. There’s a lot of skills that have to be used to do a nice burst.

For a warrior and other classes they got to use one, one skill.

The mesmer can get one really strong burst, and if that first one fails or he messes up his combo, even if it was successful, every single one after that in the same battle will be significantly weaker.

If people just stand there and let me hit them, they are in trouble with my very first burst. The first target is almost guaranteed to die. However, the first one which is the one that kills, is the one that misses the most, and it requires me to use every skill i have on one weapon set, one or two skills from the other set, and the three utility skills, along with two out of four shatter skills, just not my elite.

So my initial burst takes, about 13 skills, and its really about 16 including the secondary skills being casted from the same skill that come after the other one is casted.

I’m basically throwing everything possible that I can throw at you in one big burst. Other bursts are nothing like that.

to those of you asking about mesmer burst and saying it doesn’t exist. I recommend you check out www.twitch.tv/jhaxe. His shatter build will leave you speechless with the amount of burst it puts out along with the amount of survivability and utility he has.

He actually dosen’t have that much utility. Everything’s thrown into clone production and damage. Which means no protection, no regen, one stun, and he’s wasting his deocy on damage output.

And it’s a seven step damage burst combo. Powerful ,but it’s far more complex to pull off than some of the other burst combos.

Granted, if he gets the latter half of that combo into a group, that’s going to be some pretty impressive spread damage.

But his survivability and Utility both take a huge hit when going for a shatter build. It’s the reason why most Mesmers won’t do a shatter build.

It’s probably close to the same burst I posted months ago that got deleted.
In which case, I’ve made a stronger one that pretty much one combos anything dead without buffs, without dodges.

Like I said if someone just stands there and lets me hit them thier whole hp in one burst is almost a guaranteed thing. Armor type doesn’t even matter.

Aside from the couple second setup time, the burst takes as long as one blurred frenzy. Within that time period, you die.

Mesmer DPS isn’t that awesome or bursty, but it can feel that way on the receiving end because of a quirk with how illusions deal damage. The problem is that it’s too spiky because illusions only attack every 4-5 seconds.

The dps isn’t that great at all.

However using powerspike/decoy/mirrored images

Along with greatswords throw + illusionary duelist + the illusion from leap.

Yous tart off with gsword, throw the illusion, weapon swap, summon a duelist, leap, blurred frenzy (while powerspiking and mindwracking at the same time) as soon as you shatter summon 3 more clones (decoy + mirror at the same time, should be done during the blurred frenzy right at the end) and cry of frustration.

This burst is almost guaranteed death, as long as you do not miss. Also use (Gain might on weapon swap) on your sword/pistol set. It takes the amount of time to kill as it does to do one blurred frenzy, but it has setup times.

You do two full shatters, get duelists full shots, blurred frenzy, and powerspikes all at once.

This burst in complete takes a long recharge time, which is why when it fails, all the other bursts will be significantly weaker.

That burst is also done on a glass cannon mesmer to kill efficiently. The same mesmer that easily gets one hit without survivability.

Temariah.9372:

Stadig.7325:

Warriors?? They don’t any more. They are actually almost UP atm. Just roll a mesmer like everyone else. Best burst in the game and light armor. Or was it medium idk.. I do agree that class balance is horrible right now though. I played all stress tests and BWEs and it’s actually worse now than before..

Do you play a Mesmer? I’m legitimately curious as to this magical burst you have seen. Please enlighten me with the rotation and build that provides such burst to a Mesmer, because as far as I’ve discovered, Mesmers don’t burst down enemies as much as out-live them.

Love, a Mesmer.

Having burst and bursting down is different.

If specced right this is good burst
Pistol offhand – Illusionary unload
Sword mainhand #3
Sword mainhand #2
then mind wrack
So 4—→3—>3—→2—→F1.

Love, A Necromancer

That burst is like half of the one I described.

Detahmaio.2014:

Having burst and bursting down is different.

If specced right this is good burst
Pistol offhand – Illusionary unload
Sword mainhand #3
Sword mainhand #2
then mind wrack
So 4—->3—>3—->2—->F1.

Love, A Necromancer

No, that’s not good burst. He just shattered with 2 illusions., that’s poor play.

1. Pistol Offhand, Illusionary Unload.
2. Stun
3. Sword 3 (once)
4. Dodge
5. Sword 3 (second time)
6. Sword 2 + Mind Wrack
7. Decoy and Mirror Immages
8. Cry of Frustration.

That is a Mesmer’s burst down, note how many steps that is. It takes a lot of preparation and things have to land just right for the full damage on it. But boy does it burst.

However, agian, you sacrifice a lot be able to use the full of it. So I typically just use a phantasem build as it tends to be more versatile.

i didn’t list dodge silly me….

well mesmer is a dps that can burst, so the list is not needed.

As Kalar mentioned this is a good example of Mesmer Burst(Which is actually more Wind-Up dmg then burst)

1. Pistol Offhand, Illusionary Unload.
2. Stun
3. Sword 3 (once)
4. Dodge
5. Sword 3 (second time)
6. Sword 2 + Mind Wrack
7. Decoy and Mirror Immages
8. Cry of Frustration.

This is an Example of Theif Burst that does far MORE dmg then that

1. Steal
2. Pistol Whip

See the difference there, see the skill curve!

There are rules to MMO’s that exist like gravity, and when you break them you wreck class balance.

Low Armor, low survivability classes need to compensate with High Burst Dmg as they cannot endure fight longevity.

Classes like the Warlock need to have high sustained dmg(Dot) mixed with spammable lifetap abilities and CC utility giving them time to get that sustained dmg rolling. They forgo burst by having higher utility and heal ability.

Classes with High Mobility and High Evasion need to have a high skill curve or they they make up for over 40% of the player base due to the innate appeal of the class design.

I get that some players don’t understand this but it is a formula 2+2= balance. It’s not that it’s a “the game is new thing” or “it takes time to balance thing” NO! It’s a simple formula that must be adhered to in order for an MMO to work in PvP. And when you break it you get Suck PvP game(Rift, Swtor, AoC etc etc)

You keep saying mesmers are a low survivability class, that is just plain out false.

Never said that Zin I said low Armor, Low Survivability, and was refering to Elementalist and Necro.

And technically Mesmer’s do have low survivability they can’t take alot of shots even with high toughness. They have high evasion, due to clones and invis skills but this does not allow them to survive large amounts of raw dps.

Even with everything tossed into survivability a rooted or frozen Mesmer can be killed in 3 secs by a terrible theif clicking 3 buttons.

I personally have played an Elementalist, Necro, Guardian, Thief, and a tiny amount of Ranger in sPVP and tPVP, and from my personal experience the class balance is pretty good. I main my elementalist and have over 50% of my games played on it so I know what its like to feel like a class is kittened and when a class is over powered. The thief WAS very op however the nerf to heartseeker made the class a lot more manageable. As far as the pistol whip hundred blade arguments go there not impossible to get out of or avoid. When I see a thief immobilize me or a warrior charge me I will hit my Mist form to dodge the skill if its up or I will dodge out of it as soon as possible. Once you’ve played against these classes enough there not impossible to beat. On another note both these classes excel at 1v1 but there team fight presence is not near as high as an elementalist or a necro’s so its balanced in that sense too. The only thing that I’ve noticed right now that is WAYYY out of hand is the guardians Retaliation build. Two of my guildmates run this build and at 14k ish health can sit on a point while around 3 people from the enemy team try to kill them. The best part about this is that the guildmate who designed this spec did it so that he could hold a point ant pretty much never move which he does. What happens is that he heals for a lot has tons of protection and on top of that the retaliation on him will kill you before you get him to less then half health without his heal up.

TL;DR: Nothing is overpowered from my experience (Rank 21 and rank 20 in the first 2ish weeks) except the guardian retaliation spec that makes them 99% invincible

I dare all of you to play as a longbow warrior in sPvP and report how many times you get owned vs. how many times you own someone else.

Then play a mesmer, or maybe a pistolwhip thief and then report your findings for those classes.

It’s not hard to understand or acknowledge. There are some ridiculously OP classes right now, and as a fan of the warrior class… it doesn’t feel good being laughed at and called useless by everyone in Heart of the Mists. Eviscerate/crit axe warriors were OP as hell in the beta, and now I feel like axes and greatsword warriors, while still considered overpowered within the class’ builds, are still weak in comparison to other professions.

In none of those bursts mentioned are you guys using powerspike in combination with the blurred frenzy it can be used at the same time while casting other skills like blurred frenzy and makes the burst so much greater (on crits it can add 3-4.5k to your burst damage, if you spec for three of them add in 1.3-2.4k more for the crit if it crits all three).

Also, if you lead with a greatsword phantasm/illusion you get 3 stacks of might when you swap weapons (using that rune on the gun). Then on shatter before cry you shatter the greatsword illusion the leap illusion and the duelist from the gun.

Zin.6170:

You keep saying mesmers are a low survivability class, that is just plain out false.

You spec for a big burst with high cooldown for the full thing with no survivability or you sacrifice some burst traits for survivability. It’s also very easy to miss this burst, as sometimes you leap too soon, sometimes they dodge out on your leap, etc.

thief burst damage:
1_ infiltrator’s
2_ pistol whip
2a_ did he dodged?yes
3a_ steal
4a_pistol whip
5a_ devourer venom
6a_pistol whip
7a_pistol whip
all hoping he never stunbeak or dodge again after steal
2b_ did he dodge?no
3b_ pistol whip
4b_devourer venom
5b_steal
6b_pistol whip
7b_pistol whip
all hoping he never stunbeak or dodge again after steal

this is some kind of thief burst
as u can see it is not 2 keys combo, as u can see u are not informed about thief burst combo, as u can see thief has to hope opponent is dumb to complete his own build.
ofc i didn’t wrote haste, so the combo would be longer, and i put devourer because usually it is used.
mesmer dps and burst is less difficult because of the hunting illusions while shattering , and ofc if some dps want to survive to mesmer dps sometimes he has to dodge.

actually i think it goes, precast PW, then infiltrators strike. honestly the precast ability is what makes things like pistol whip and CnD (for landing stealth) useful.

also ive never managed 2 unhasted pistol whips on a target even when specced into poisons using devourer.

Wolfe.3097:

actually i think it goes, precast PW, then infiltrators strike. honestly the precast ability is what makes things like pistol whip and CnD (for landing stealth) useful.

also ive never managed 2 unhasted pistol whips on a target even when specced into poisons using devourer.

CnD doesn’t have infiltrator’s strike. as i wrote it is just to make an easy combo, often i don’t use haste to try some new utility build and because of good players, i think haste is too risky. but w.e. also, i wrote the list just to show how it works, changing the list order doesn’t change his number

CnD does have infiltrators strike, just not with pistol whip, i was taling about 2 diff weapon sets there mate, they just both use the same strat to nail there casted ability.

but either way it was a minor nitpick.

For days i can’t see anything on this post thread until I reply i guess everyone else is seeing a blank thread like I am when they click on this. Way to bury a thread Mod, booo cheap tactics