Guild Wars 2

The title is not perfectly worded, but..either way it should be clear enough to understand the meaning.

The following list is my personal take on the stacking of professions in gw2 since last year, from most severe to almost non existant, after that I will give my reason on why professions get stacked in the first place.

1) Dragon Hunter Ever present more than 2 for match

2) Berseker

3) Reaper

4) Thief

5) Druid

6) Tempest

7) Scrapper

8) Chronomancer

9) Herald Almost non existent, a very rare sight

The worst offenders are dragon hunters, no much surprise there, even the devs talked about the saturation of dragon hunters in PvP and I really hope something will be done about them before season 6 starts.

There are different version of dh, I have experienced them all from full trapper to symbolic bunker , the idea that dh are found only at lower rankings is an obvious and frivolous lie . You won’t find full trap dh at high ranking as they’re easy to kill if you’re experienced enough…instead you will find their symbolic cousins which are much much harder to kill.

Some of these symbolic dh will run sanctuary +shield and smaller variation but will be anyway extremely hard to bring down as they lack a direct counter which takes just as much skill to play.

The main reason why certain builds get stacked to hell is because their direct “counter” will most likely require 2-3x the effort and skill to play effectively and this makes running dh an extremely safe bet as you’re less likely to find somebody able to counter you every match

The second worst offenders Bersekers share similarities with dragon hunters in that their direct “counter” again requires 2-3x the effort and skill to utilise .
A massive amount of passive sustain which is more less required for the role they try to play, although it does become a problem when this sustain is paired with incredible dmg and the best access to stability in game. We end up with a build that has: mobility- low CD stunbreakers – pulsating stability – great condi removal – huge dmg on low-medium CD plus the passive sustain that requires no healing power investment.

Not much else to say really , after Berseker the professions that get stacked the most are well know but so are their direct counters which at the contrary of the first two entries are readily accessible to average player.

Particularly we have Scrapper which is hard to kill, but it’s more an annoyance than an actual threat; Chronomancer on the other hand can be a threat, but they pay that threat level with their personal sustain which while can be considered great in 1vs1, it becomes almost null when heavily focused in an aoe battle.

Finally we have Heralds…nothing much to say..poor guys; the latest set of nerfs were completely unnecessary, really shortsighted balance ( once again ). They were in a good spot before the latest nerfs…which to me seems more “revenge nerfs” than necessary changes

Once again we go back to the idea of ESL balance for the whole game which is starting to greatly irritate the community ( and for a bloody good reason ), Anet in their pursuit of the Ezport dream will once again dissociates themselves from the rest of the game…only to cater to their “favourite sons”, in no other way I can see the reason why revs were nerfed..while guardians and warrior were left to rule the whole soloq scene.

so first off id like to start with my main. warriors. warriors have recieved no buffs recently. nothing. they were almost non existent last season. while the passive sustain might be too much when paired with tons of cc other classes need much more attention first.
DH, DH might not have a direct counter but unlike skills like endure pain paired with berserkers stance all of their skills besides their elite can be countered. dont walk onto their heals avoid tanking traps just get behind them for f3
heralds/revenants. they arent bad. people just think they are bad. they take skill to use sure but in decent hands they still provide amazing cleave. people are jumping ship over nothing. the only nerf i would reverse on them is the sword 2. that one was just stupid.

sophiewhite.3149:

heralds/revenants. they arent bad. people just think they are bad. they take skill to use sure but in decent hands they still provide amazing cleave. people are jumping ship over nothing. the only nerf i would reverse on them is the sword 2. that one was just stupid.

You just said it. In decent hands. But when I see all the Rev mains (prev season legend ranked) that I follow on twitch switch to DH/War/Thief then you know something is wrong. Simple a legend skill level player will still perform MUCH MUCH better on DH or War in solo/duo queue than if he stay on Rev. So why would he/she bother to stay on Rev if he wants to crack top 20 leaderboards.

I really wish ANET will publish stats of the TOP 50 on leaderboards showing the classes they played the most in Season 5. I doubt Rev will be represented much in Top 50.

That’s more because Rev is underpowered, it never was that great, i mean even in PvE Revenant is kind of a one trick pony. Like most things HoT it was a big Flop.
Although i’ll concede that Guard and Warrior are plenty effective even at low skill ratings, i’d like to point out, that’s how they were designed.
Anet said it themselves, there’s a gradient of required skill to play all classes, and Warrior and Guardian are on the low end, while Mesmer and Ele are at the high end.

I’d like to point out that in the hands of a Top player, a Mesmer, Elementalist or Thieves are WAY more powerful than a Warrior or a Guard. The only reason you see them stack less is because they’re HARDER to play.

The issue is less about those two classes being overpowered, which, honestly it’s not the case, DH, especially trap DH are easy to kill, just shove a Ele with obsidian skin on that fray and watch them fall. As for warrior, especially the meta mace/gs, any ranged character wins if you’re smart, just kite him around with autos, wait out the invulnerability, feint the block, and wail on him. Sure it’s not a one shot spot, like other more squishy classes, but Eles and Mesmers are just as tanky, if not more.

Reaper is way to high. It is not stacked nearly as much as that. Tempest and Druid both stacked more for sure. I don’t know what it is with the subtle Reaper hate but really they aren’t in that great of a spot and are very hard to play since they are targeted first and have very little defense. Reaper is down at the bottom with Scrapper and Mesmer (which is dumb because Mesmer may be the best class for mostly solo queue) for stacking but above Herald. Full discolsure I play Reaper and rarely have to swap out to the other classes I play because of stacking. Stacking rarely works well btw except for maybe DH and even then only at certain levels of play. Most of the time it happens because of popularity of the class or in case of more supportish builds like tempest and druid are popular because people are afraid to die. The moral of the story is really you should be mastering more then one class and stacking is more often then not a weakness not a benefit. You should be swapping into another class/build in those situations.

1)DH
2)Berzerker
3)Thief
4)Tempest
5)Druid
6)Scrapper
7)Reaper
8)Mesmer
9)Herald

I’m not too sure on what OP is trying to say other than which classes are played the most in each game, for example there is like 6 Dh per game or 4 warriors per game… you get what I’m pointing at, if I’m right then I wouldn’t really think eles would be stacked at all and really only 1 ele on each team per match if your lucky so really Eles should be nearer the bottom?

Spartacus.3192:

sophiewhite.3149:

heralds/revenants. they arent bad. people just think they are bad. they take skill to use sure but in decent hands they still provide amazing cleave. people are jumping ship over nothing. the only nerf i would reverse on them is the sword 2. that one was just stupid.

You just said it. In decent hands. But when I see all the Rev mains (prev season legend ranked) that I follow on twitch switch to DH/War/Thief then you know something is wrong. Simple a legend skill level player will still perform MUCH MUCH better on DH or War in solo/duo queue than if he stay on Rev. So why would he/she bother to stay on Rev if he wants to crack top 20 leaderboards.

I really wish ANET will publish stats of the TOP 50 on leaderboards showing the classes they played the most in Season 5. I doubt Rev will be represented much in Top 50.

ReaverKane.7598:

That’s more because Rev is underpowered, it never was that great, i mean even in PvE Revenant is kind of a one trick pony. Like most things HoT it was a big Flop.
Although i’ll concede that Guard and Warrior are plenty effective even at low skill ratings, i’d like to point out, that’s how they were designed.
Anet said it themselves, there’s a gradient of required skill to play all classes, and Warrior and Guardian are on the low end, while Mesmer and Ele are at the high end.

I’d like to point out that in the hands of a Top player, a Mesmer, Elementalist or Thieves are WAY more powerful than a Warrior or a Guard. The only reason you see them stack less is because they’re HARDER to play.

The issue is less about those two classes being overpowered, which, honestly it’s not the case, DH, especially trap DH are easy to kill, just shove a Ele with obsidian skin on that fray and watch them fall. As for warrior, especially the meta mace/gs, any ranged character wins if you’re smart, just kite him around with autos, wait out the invulnerability, feint the block, and wail on him. Sure it’s not a one shot spot, like other more squishy classes, but Eles and Mesmers are just as tanky, if not more.

Couldn’t have said it better, same with the OP.

You people have such a short memory, DH for the first 2/3rds of 2016 was deemed the worst/most useless profession in pvp and was the only profession to receive a F ranking from the ESL player poll

Darknicrofia.2604:

You people have such a short memory, DH for the first 2/3rds of 2016 was deemed the worst/most useless profession in pvp and was the only profession to receive a F ranking from the ESL player poll

I’ve been especially entertained to see both “warrior OP, nerf them” and “thief OP, nerf them” threads here, concurrently, both citing the utter impossibility of the other profession ever beating them.

Another thing people seem to constantly forget about when talking about DH, is the fact that Guardian is basically the only class that has more than 1 viable build so you never know what you’re going to fight. Whether is be Symbolic, Trapper, DH burn, Guardian burn, or old school meditations. Meanwhile every other class you can expect practically to be playing the same build game after game so you get really used to fighting them and can slot skills pregame to counter them.

Spartacus.3192:

sophiewhite.3149:

heralds/revenants. they arent bad. people just think they are bad. they take skill to use sure but in decent hands they still provide amazing cleave. people are jumping ship over nothing. the only nerf i would reverse on them is the sword 2. that one was just stupid.

You just said it. In decent hands. But when I see all the Rev mains (prev season legend ranked) that I follow on twitch switch to DH/War/Thief then you know something is wrong. Simple a legend skill level player will still perform MUCH MUCH better on DH or War in solo/duo queue than if he stay on Rev. So why would he/she bother to stay on Rev if he wants to crack top 20 leaderboards.

I really wish ANET will publish stats of the TOP 50 on leaderboards showing the classes they played the most in Season 5. I doubt Rev will be represented much in Top 50.

toker- seriously is no one else running into elite level revs? I understand why they wouldnt be at silver and lower but in plat+ they are there.

Rev recived a huge damage nerf and yes Anet needed to gibe them some more sustain some how but saying they cant be good with ESL players playing them? Sheesh.

To your top-10 list

I feel you really should of broke it down better.

I see a ton of necros, warriors, thieves and DH. I also see them from alot of non-main players who are looking for the better match up.

Personally the list should look like

A) DH-Warriors-Necros

B) Thief- Druid-Tempest (you only need 1 of them on your team, cant stack these)

c) Scrapper-Chromancer- Herald

If i may, once again for my its more of a Match Making issue since Anet gave hard counters to classes.

Things wouldnt be such a issue if Anet added things like equal classes to each team as well as rating that way you dont have the 1800 thief with the 1700 DH on one side with the 2 thieves at 1500 on the other team.

I threw out 3 pics one of 2 horrible set up games and 1 that was perfectly set up class wise.

just to leave my game experience here too, I think the most popular professions I always see during a match (I mean since the beginning of the season in every match I’ve played these professions were taking part of) are Guardian and Necro. I mean at least one in my or the enemy team, but I believe they went up to 5 few times. Can’t remember if I got to play in a match with 6 each of those stacked, but 5 I’m sure it happened few times.

I know a lot of people are so opposed to class stacking…But suppose this game ever gets its head out of its kitten , and some semblance of build diversity returns and you can have multiple possible builds per profession filling different roles. I really think the calls for limit of class per-team would be a terrible move then.