Hey guys,
With the current reworks, as well as finally seeing all of the elite’s coming in the expansion, I think it’s time for a more up to date Tier list.
Note: These are from what I see every day. As a PvP’r who plays generally around 20-50 games a day, and plays all classes except Engineer and Warrior, but am in constant play with Engi/War teammates.
Tier S (Holy Moly! Unbeatable 1v1):
Necromancer: Now before everyone starts going insane. Let’s look at their steady flow of buffs. They have been continually buffed over the last several balance patches, and are receiving the Reaper….arguably the strongest Elite spec in the game. These changes have made them monsters in SPvP. With the bunker capability only rivaled by a Guard, DPS that auto targets for AOE damage, and possibly the greatest sustain in game, they are not the kitten class they used to be. I have personally won multiple 3v1’s on my Necro, even more 2v1’s, and when it comes to 1v1…..I don’t think I’ve ever lost one in the last 3 months. Let me rephrase that, we have become a class that CANNOT be killed 1v1 unless Skype minimizes me out of my game lol. Our current state along with the Reaper coming…..they deserve to be up here.
Tier A (Has some aspect that seem a little to strong, but pretty balanced):
Guardian: Arguably the best bunker in the game, the last few patches have not only secured this role, but given them in many cases more burst than I put out on my hunter or thief……just….with burn >.>. Guardian are receiving DH as their elite spec….and although it’s a bit underwhelming when compared to the others, it does, in my opinion, secure them as the best bunker class in the game by giving them traps. The main reason they are up here is that I can apply so much burn so fast that I am downing 12k health targets in under a second…..that’s faster than my DPS classes, and I have the bunker capability of…well….a guard. I think their role is not evolving quite as much as other….but they are just becoming even better at what they already do well.
Ele: If this had been written 2 days ago, they would be up there with Necro’s….but having played a bunch of my Ele the last two days, they are still very strong….but not 3v1 strong anymore. We kept all of our sustain and escapes, while having our DPS beat down a little, mainly, our burning. Ele’s elite is giving them access to a few more support options, while giving them supercharged stances, allowing them to unleash large AOE affects. I think Ele is in a good place right now….maybe a little strong….but its a good step from where it was last week.
Mesmer: I know….Mesmer and Ele have been at the far end of the beating stick these last 3 months with everyone hating them. But truthfully, Mesmers are still really strong. Yes…we cant stealth around the map for 2 minutes at a time anymore. But really, we still have all of our damage. PU took a hit, but still remains strong, and still allows us to dish out tons of burst, with the ability to escape when needed. However, as a side note to both Mesmer and Thiefs, with all of the reveal coming out in the expansion, I feel that stealth itself will be less useful…..
Tier B (This is the balanced Tier):
Warrior: Lets make something clear….if you’re new to the game, don’t know what projections to looks for, or don’t know when to dodge what, Warriors are Tier SSS for you :P. Warriors still stand out at some of the most brutal damage in the game. If you don’t dodge at the right time they will punish you for it….and I mean you’re dead punish. They have tons of mobility, tons of damage, tons of control, and tons of escape/sustain……well that makes them sound pretty SSS right? Warriors are strong as heck, yes, but their moves are also all very predictable, and have projections. This means well timed dodges and experienced players who know those projections are able to handle them much more successfully. Like I said, I don’t have a Warrior, but from the looks of it and from what my War teammate tells me, the Zerker Elite is very strong, giving him access to plenty of new damage. So it seems that Warrior is still in a very good place.
Engineer:
Engineer is truthfully on the fence of Tier B and A….but it’s not their fault. Engineer’s are great bunkers, and provide TONS of utility to any team. Their elite spec, “The Scrapper”, is also looking like it’s going to be pretty mean. What put’s them on the fence of being Tier A is their ability to apply lots of Burn. Like I said before, this is not due to Engineer….this is due to how strong Burn is right now. All in all I think Engineer’s are a pretty balanced class, they have lots of bunker potential along with the ability to dish out really mean damage…..especially those bombs 0.0….
Tier C (Needs some work, but has potential):
Ranger:
My ranger was my first character ever back at launch and thus I have tons of playtime on her. Rangers received a little bit of love just two days ago, but quickly had it revoked. Now….lets be honest fellow rangers….HaO was insane…it needed it. However, I feel like they are moving us up in the world. To be honest, the only think that made me separate Ranger from Thief in the Tier list was the recent show of their elite spec, “Druid”. This form looks INSANE. Yes, some of the community is complaining that they don’t apply boons and they JUST heal…….JUST!!! I’m not sure what stream the rest of you were watching, but the Druid was healing on a 0 second CD for 2k AOE, a 6 second CD for 4k AOE, along with the plant that exploded for 3k AOE healing and Condi removal……this is adding up to thousands of life on one person healed every few seconds…and potentially hundreds of thousand of life every transformation…..that’s game changing right there. I for one am very excited to be playing my ranger at HoT launch and think they will likely be around Tier A just for their healing capability come post launch.
Tier D (Needs an overhaul/Is this still a class?)
Thief: As said before fellow Rangers, your current state is right down here with us, but your elite puts you over the top. On the other foot we have Thief…..our specialization is…..we can….dodge once more >.>….yay? Thief has been continually nerfed into a state of almost uselessness. They are currently not the best at….well….anything except taking a dirt nap…..OK that isn’t true….we do one thing better than other, but lets take a look at that.
Thief currently is not the best stealth class, which was taken over by Mesmer, is not the best at sustain/survival, is not the best bunker, not the best Burst, not the best sustained DPS, not the best 1v1, not the best group fighter…..and to top it all off, our class mechanic is stealth…..a mechanic that half the other classes get on top of their special class mechanics. The current patch buffed our Pistol damage….but this doesn’t help us in any way in PvP, and is strictly a PvE buff. Anyone with a dodge (All classes), a knockdown (Half the classes), a stun/daze (All classes), a reflect (Half the classes), a knock back (Half the classes)…you get the picture. There are 3 seconds of unload to either dodge or interrupt…once that’s done, P/P thief has no mobility, escape, or stealth entry. The only time you should ever lose to a P/P thief in PvP is if you’re 80% of the way through another fight and don’t have any control/dodges up atm. It’s gotten so bad that the Pro’s have openly said that if any other class ever achieves the mobility of thief, they will drop their thief’s in a heartbeat….which brings us to our one little thing we do excel at….running!
More specifically mobility in general. We can get around the map fast…and I mean FAST with Short bow and Shadow step. This has made us key in decapping points. However, they have nerfed us to the point that we can’t actually 1v1 anyone….and with DD as our specialization….which is pretty pathetic compared to others, I feel as though Thief will become even more pathetic in combat scenarios.
The way I feel is if Anet wants Thief to be super mobile sneaky back cappers, then they need to focus our class around movement, and not fighting. We need to be given things that increase our movement speed. Our new elite skill should be a signet something along the lines of “Passive: Combat does not slow your movement speed. Active: Gain super speed for 6 seconds”. The 25% movement speed from our signet should be somewhere in our spec. If they want us to be non combative back cappers, then they need to make sure we excel at that much like Guards do at bunkering. Not making us just a tiny bit better than Ele’s to the point where one more blink skill and thief’s would officially be deleted from the game and no one would notice lol.
In conclusion: Everything is going to change with the expansion. I think Necro’s will move up even higher to an SS Tier, and I think Thief’s will fall even lower to an F Tier….but we will all have to wait and see.
Hope this helped some new players choose their classes, and maybe helped dev’s see some of the issues in game in it’s current state!
See you in game!
P.S. It should be noted that I main a Thief in PvP. However, I hold no biased opinions since I play almost all of the classes. The only reason I main Thief is for the back capping for my team since that’s my role.
(edited by Luclinraider.2317)
