Guild Wars 2

Hello,

Anet, I feel like this game’s PvP system is causing a lot of issues with classes. While I applaud your attempt at making every class do everything, the setup of boons, condis, and other class wide mechanics counters this. Classes who excelt at aspects of the games ( bunkering, DPS, condi pressure, etc) will overtake the other classes and a holy trinity will form on its own. Not only if they excel at it, but also if they can do it much more easier (skill gap between classes).

Take Engineers for example. Now that necros have take our place with condi pressure and our nerf to R, we don’t have too many roles to fill in competitve spvp. You really need to find things to make classes special and expand on those. We don’t need more AoE condis, AoEs physical damage, single target physical damage, etc. You need to expand on this system more.

A lot of classes don’t really feel unique with the condi and boon system. This system also means a simple buff to one class can take another classes spot in competitve play. You need to find roles for these classes, expand on the, and make them unique. Don’t just make it so a class can now apply this condi in an AoE now, that doesn’t add a lot. It is hard to say, but I feel like there needs to be more specific roles for classes to fill and increase the individuality of these classes.

Correct me if I’m wrong, aren’t Engies pretty good point neutralizers? That’s a pretty big deal. Or maybe is that too specialized?

Eviator.9746:

Correct me if I’m wrong, aren’t Engies pretty good point neutralizers? That’s a pretty big deal. Or maybe is that too specialized?

While their high CC does make them good at this in some regards, the amount of stability and stunbreakres causes this high point to still not be that amazing. Guardians with their blocks, invurnablities, stabilities, aegis, and minimal CC makes them perfect counters to us in this regard.

Well then guardians are the point defenders. That’s their specalized role

Please fogive me, just being devil’s advocate, trying to understand what this is about.

Eviator.9746:

Well then guardians are the point defenders. That’s their specalized role

Please fogive me, just being devil’s advocate, trying to understand what this is about.

The baseline point I’m trying to get across is that there is a lack of roles in competitive pvp leading to a meta that can make a class a lot less desirable. Engineers prepatch were great at condi pressure, but with the necro buff (which was needed) they are now in a position where they aren’t as desirable in competitve PvP teams. This is because there aren’t enough roles to fill from the simplistic system of Condis and Boons. When I watch these turny matches and what not, I usually see two things. A bunker/tanky classes and then high DPS classes that are either AoE physical or AoE condi. In other woods, cookiecutters.

Eviator.9746:

Correct me if I’m wrong, aren’t Engies pretty good point neutralizers? That’s a pretty big deal. Or maybe is that too specialized?

Your correct. Nobody can name anything else that’s better than engineer at neuting points. Flamethrower 20sec cooldown, Big ol bomb 30second cooldown, throw mine 15 secondcooldown, shield 4 25second cooldown, battering ram 20second cooldown, tornado form or rampager form. big ol bomb with glue floor combo. Theres so many ways to take a point as an engineer. If you really wanted to you can do unlimited chain stun combo.

Last time I checked, necromancers skill traits is all about conditions. Engineer is suppose to use turrets and gadgets but somehow they become the king of conditions for a time.

And you don’t even need to spec in knockback bunker to take points, just having the big ol bomb and landing it twice will neut a point because it has a huge blowout.

Oh and last time I checked elixir r has nothing to do with conditions, if you so paranoid over that stun break get a different utility with a stun break. Use elixir C if you want to get rid of your conditions, you shouldn’t be cheating your way to downed state and have instant rez from it.

I swear elixir C is so underused.

Still even with the roles of guardians and engineers relatively easy to understand, where do the rest of the professions sit?

Elementalists, no where, we do everything all the time, just really badly.

I think the best thing I’ve seen an ele do is staff support bunker. Dish out more heals then everyone bar the guardian. Stick 1 staff ele and another ele together and hey presto so many heals its not even funny.

This topic actually already derailed to an argument that wasn’t the main point of the OP. The point was not to prove that Engi has it’s own role in the game or not, the point of the OP was that there will always be a class in the game, that will be left out of the popular tPvP team composition, because class roles aren’t as well defined as they usually are. There are classes in the game that sort of do the same thing, thus there will always be a class that does one specific thing better than another class, which leads you to the fact that in tPvP that class will be chosen over the one that is not as effective.

And with that point I do agree.

Getting rid of “holy trinity” really made no difference at the end of the day, because people just find some other criteria for building the perfect team up. In holy trinity based games you’re looking for a healer, now you’re just looking for another mesmer, necro, whatever. There is always some sort of holy trinity, in that form or another. And GW2 always had a holy trinity too, which for most of time by now was probably guardian, mesmer and ele/engi.

As far as I’m concerned GW1 still had the best class/role definition when it was released, with warrior being the only real DPS, monk being the only real healer and ranger, mesmer and necro all filling their roles really nicely.

It went downhill with release of factions and nightfall. Why? Because suddenly there were more classes fit for 1 role, and the class imbalance came into play – Dervish being supbar to war most of the time, ritualist just being whatever, never nearly as good as monk… Actually it just had no role apart from small arenas, assassins as usually were always going from UP to OP and back, paragon being some kind of stationary turtle spear throwing warrior that was absolutely ridiculous at the beginning…

samo.1054:

This topic actually already derailed to an argument that wasn’t the main point of the OP. The point was not to prove that Engi has it’s own role in the game or not, the point of the OP was that there will always be a class in the game, that will be left out of the popular tPvP team composition, because class roles aren’t as well defined as they usually are. There are classes in the game that sort of do the same thing, thus there will always be a class that does one specific thing better than another class, which leads you to the fact that in tPvP that class will be chosen over the one that is not as effective.

And with that point I do agree.

Getting rid of “holy trinity” really made no difference at the end of the day, because people just find some other criteria for building the perfect team up. In holy trinity based games you’re looking for a healer, now you’re just looking for another mesmer, necro, whatever. There is always some sort of holy trinity, in that form or another. And GW2 always had a holy trinity too, which for most of time by now was probably guardian, mesmer and ele/engi.

As far as I’m concerned GW1 still had the best class/role definition when it was released, with warrior being the only real DPS, monk being the only real healer and ranger, mesmer and necro all filling their roles really nicely.

It went downhill with release of factions and nightfall. Why? Because suddenly there were more classes fit for 1 role, and the class imbalance came into play – Dervish being supbar to war most of the time, ritualist just being whatever, never nearly as good as monk… Actually it just had no role apart from small arenas, assassins as usually were always going from UP to OP and back, paragon being some kind of stationary turtle spear throwing warrior that was absolutely ridiculous at the beginning…

Exactly what I was trying to say, I just didn’t know how to put it into words, thank you

I completely see your point but you have to understand that creating individual identities for classes is not something that is easy without breaking other aspects/power of the class.

However, the lack of the trinity class system (tank/healer/dps) makes it a lot easier to give individualistic roles to each class.

But let me ask you this. If say engineer was tweaked to be the perfect point neutralizer, what happens when some one wants to play a condition build role or a far point assault role etc. I agree that certain classes may do it better but for mid/low level pvp, I am sure many will want to run such builds on a certain class they have become accustomed to/grown to love.

In summary, I agree with your thread but changes have to be made delicately so as to not pigeon-hole the entire class into just that one identity/role.

Interesting. So given that there are some professions that won’t be part of the top teams because there are better alternatives, that means ANet either has to fix balance, or assign special roles. I believe the former can never be accomplished unless all professions can do everything equally (boring). I believe ANet doesn’t want to do the latter because then folks will be pigeon-holed into specific roles based upon profession by design, instead of by meta. I don’t think there is a solution, folks.

Edit: Whoa, Demon and I may have just mind-melded

Demon.5082:

I completely see your point but you have to understand that creating individual identities for classes is not something that is easy without breaking other aspects/power of the class.

However, the lack of the trinity class system (tank/healer/dps) makes it a lot easier to give individualistic roles to each class.

But let me ask you this. If say engineer was tweaked to be the perfect point neutralizer, what happens when some one wants to play a condition build role or a far point assault role etc. I agree that certain classes may do it better but for mid/low level pvp, I am sure many will want to run such builds on a certain class they have become accustomed to/grown to love.

In summary, I agree with your thread but changes have to be made delicately so as to not pigeon-hole the entire class into just that one identity/role.

I see what you mean, but that has already happened with some classes. Engineer, for example. You pick one, level him up or start playing wtih one. You think its going to be fun but only to find out that everythign you do can be done better. Condi damage? People want necros. Bunkers? Guardians. DPS? Mesmers. Those classes I talked about are already pigeon holded into those respected positions anyways. I talk to many mesmers and a lot of them seem to feel high burst damage with shatterers is their only viable build. Necromancers seem to always run conditions. Guardians are almost always a bunker spec of some sort. IT seems like the more they fight the trinity forming, the worst it gets. No matter what they do, people will realize which class excels at what and a trinity will form on its own. As said in other parts of the thread, it is very very hard thing to counter or fix.

Eviator.9746:

Interesting. So given that there are some professions that won’t be part of the top teams because there are better alternatives, that means ANet either has to fix balance, or assign special roles. I believe the former can never be accomplished unless all professions can do everything equally (boring). I believe ANet doesn’t want to do the latter because then folks will be pigeon-holed into specific roles based upon profession by design, instead of by meta. I don’t think there is a solution, folks.

Edit: Whoa, Demon and I may have just mind-melded

Heh. Yea, your post just summarizes why balancing is such a royal problem in any game where the classes have a huge variety of unique ways to achieve standard roles.
WoW just went with the former suggestion you gave by making nearly 90% of all classes have access to the same things. Players need to understand this before they go rampaging in the forums abusing the devs/company for the lack of game balance. “Its so simple to fix, yet they do not do it. They do not care about their players”. NO. They do not fix it exactly because they care about their players and it is NOT simple to fix.

Deified.7520:

Demon.5082:

I completely see your point but you have to understand that creating individual identities for classes is not something that is easy without breaking other aspects/power of the class.

However, the lack of the trinity class system (tank/healer/dps) makes it a lot easier to give individualistic roles to each class.

But let me ask you this. If say engineer was tweaked to be the perfect point neutralizer, what happens when some one wants to play a condition build role or a far point assault role etc. I agree that certain classes may do it better but for mid/low level pvp, I am sure many will want to run such builds on a certain class they have become accustomed to/grown to love.

In summary, I agree with your thread but changes have to be made delicately so as to not pigeon-hole the entire class into just that one identity/role.

I see what you mean, but that has already happened with some classes. Engineer, for example. You pick one, level him up or start playing wtih one. You think its going to be fun but only to find out that everythign you do can be done better. Condi damage? People want necros. Bunkers? Guardians. DPS? Mesmers. Those classes I talked about are already pigeon holded into those respected positions anyways. I talk to many mesmers and a lot of them seem to feel high burst damage with shatterers is their only viable build. Necromancers seem to always run conditions. Guardians are almost always a bunker spec of some sort. IT seems like the more they fight the trinity forming, the worst it gets. No matter what they do, people will realize which class excels at what and a trinity will form on its own. As said in other parts of the thread, it is very very hard thing to counter or fix.

Your absolutely right there. It has become a reality in this game’s meta. Well I guess the elitism/follow the leader trend in gaming communities is to partially blame here.
We always look for the best and do not accept the second best in most cases (even if the second best is more fun and 1% less effective). We also start following pros in every game and cling to their words religiously. This causes every game to end up with the “COOKIE CUTTER” spec. I do not know if game devs know this, but there is no way to remove cookie cutters without the help of the player-base itself to disregard their elitism in places where it really is not necessary.

Sadly, in pvp the truth is, elitism is the most effective approach to win games. In pve, it holds true only at really high levels of pve. Well I guess they could probably implement some identity to the classes that are not being represented enough but I am just worried if this would work against its intent and shun away more players from the class than improving its playerbase.

So what your asking is for each class to be more defined in tiny maps where people can easily have 9 clones, 2 pets and a tonne of marks coming at them all at once?..If you want identity..make the maps larger and team sizes 50% smaller. The PvP is a mekittenaotic, not enjoyable and on the verge of being yesterdays news if a new title comes out.

In state of the game they hand invite people who live in a shelter world where they all have VOIP, assigned roles and a few secondary roles and have played with each other for a year or there abouts. It is so removed from the reality of the 90% of what the rest of us play it is remarkable. No wonder when you look at the forums it is all venom, no love..because gw2 has tried to put 8 pounds into a 5 pound game and designed professions with no idea of how this was all gonna play out on a 8 vs 8 tiny map where no one has any incentive to try and band up unless it is to gank or zerg. Gankers and zergers are universally hated in games..and this game promotes it heavily.

It’s hard for us engineers to be completly kicked out of the damage dealer role. HGH was overpowered and 2 patches later( and 6 nerfs ) we are not only replaced by a better class, we are so much weaker that we feel useless in this role.

But this is the way it goes. On one patch you are overpowered on the next you are useless. The nerfs and buffs for other classes punished us hard

Engis are far from useless learn to play your class. Honestly people kitten about how anets slow and steady changes suck then they do a big patch and even more people kitten. Engis are fine patches happen changes happen the difference between a good and a bad player is good players can adapt bad players cannot.
/thread
Also i dont main a mesmer anymore i just forgot how to change my sig =P

Derps.7421:

Engis are far from useless learn to play your class. Honestly people kitten about how anets slow and steady changes suck then they do a big patch and even more people kitten. Engis are fine patches happen changes happen the difference between a good and a bad player is good players can adapt bad players cannot.
/thread
Also i dont main a mesmer anymore i just forgot how to change my sig =P

Calm down pal. That’s not my personal opinion. I am a low skilled engineer and I am fine with my class. That’s the opinion of far better player.

I think this has been the most challenging patch for the following reasons

Personal

Highlight of my first experience was getting feared once, using my shadowstep and getting feared again, returning back and getting feared for the last time. That brought up memories as a Thief being haunted by triple Elementalists team comps back in the day.

Second highlight was seeing a lot of classes melting down in such a fast-paced non-reactionary manner one after the other one. Specifically, when I saw one guard dropping in twenty or in thirty seconds (I can’t remember the exact time) I thought that if a bunker like that gets burned so easy and so fast, then it is no wonder I see the rest following the same way.

General Consensus

What I have realized after this patch is that an overpowered* class in a tournament environment is a class that is able to

a.duplicate it self and fulfill other roles equally well
b.force the rest of the classes to change their builds just for that one class.

and I would like to think most would agree with me as well.

On other matter, most of the players I have talked to were positive with the changes. For them it was refreshing to see new stuff coming into the TPvP scene including changing the traditional perspective that you always needed a Guardian to play in tournaments.

General Observation

However on the other side, the community as a whole including a couple of players that I play with, did not receive this patch positively at all.

Typical examples are the following;

“Mesmers got nerfed”
“Engineers are not needed anymore”
“Warrior’s cleansing Ire is completely a useless trait”
“Thief’s S/D got absolutely hammered”
“I am giving up my class and rerolling to a Necromancer”

that I quite frankly,find it overacting, even though I am confident that each player has got his own reasons and concerns regarding the matter.

For example, if I was an engineer my first reaction would be “Finally, I have got a great partner in crime (condition pressure) that complements me instead of substituting me”.

What I am trying to say is that it might be in some ways a Crisis of PvP Identity but it is really a crisis within community.

a) This is still a MMOrpg and in every single MMOrpg big changes happen. If you can’t handle big changes then you an MMOrpg is not for you.
c) Each patch is a class challenge; you gain something and you lose something but also a mental one; it challenges you to show character and overcome.
d) Investing and putting effort into your class does not only mean playing X amount of hours; it also means being aware of build diversity.
e) TPvP patches have always been about adapting and that includes every single thing; from changing weapon sets, to builds, to utilities and so on and so forth. If you are not willing to switch and adapt to different playstyles then there is no point in creating and playing any class.
f) There is no such thing as “balance” in any MMOrpg; not in the sense that the average gamer defines it as having each class being able to kill all classes in one vs one with the right spec. What “balance” I believe is, is that having classes countering each other out without ever having one class with one build countering them all or having classes synergizing well with other classes (aka taking a bunker warrior instead of a guardian because it synergizes well with that specific team comp).

My 2cents.

*Please kindly note that I am in no way implying that a Necromancer right now has become Godmode. My definition of what it means for a class to be overpowered is in the context of a team pvp environment and not in one versus one environments and I hope it does justice without sounding unreasonable

well, good that warriors have it’s own rule as being a free point

While there are somewhat seemingly limited roles, theres actually a variety of different roles spvp brings to the table.
These are the roles i consider classes could fill
Bunker roles: Far, back, mid point bunker
Dps roles: Condi, aoe direct dps or single target spike (hit and run), bunker buster, aoe nuker
Utility: Stomper, rezzer, cc(easy access to immbolise or stuns), portal, boon giver

Some of these roles are mutually exclusive and one class can fill multiple roles. So heres where balancing comes in:
It is difficult to actually balance engineer and necros to be equal aoe condi nukers: one eventually is more effective than another. If it is intended for a trap ranger to put out less condi damage than a necro, then he must fill another role. So a spec can be balanced by not tweaking its power, but perhaps its utility. That said although hgh is not valued as much, engineers are still good back point neutralizers, so the engineer as a class is “balanced” while hgh spec might not seem so valuable.

if a spec fills too many roles at the same time, then there is an issue of imbalance. If a spec eliminates the existence of a role, there is also imbalance. Bunker are no longer effective with the current state of necros. Single target dps is non existence as aoe specs overshadow them.

there was this kind of discussion in the past (Engi or Necro).
I think this dessision is deppending on strat. your team is willing to play, BUT since everyone is playng aggressive style – there is point to take necro and otherwise. Engi can very easily decap point by setting turrents (if there is only one deffender and its not a guard) – necro will mostly try to kill enemy first, that leads to point lost.
So i dont think Necro put Engi from tpvp (again) it is really deppending on team strats.

imo:
Guardians , staff eles: supporters and holders at the mid point.
Power thieves: single target spike and blast finishers, great roamers.
d/d, s/d eles: depending on their build they can go anywhere from AOE power pressure to team supporters (or both), great roamers.
Condition thieves: AOE condition pressure during team fights, great roamers.
Necromancers: AOE condition pressure during team fights and fears. Technically you can also spec for holding but imo that would be a waste right now.
Power mesmers: close point holders with portal and AOE power pressure during team fights.
Condition mesmers: reroll power, condition is not a thing for tournaments imo.
Engineers: AOE pressure or single target spike, close point holders or far point contesters, big amount of cc.
Rangers: condition pressure or single target spike, close point holders or roamers. Long lasting water combo field and over time condition removal for team fights.
Warriors: fail version of thieves.

Oh I didn’t derail anything, the op wanted to talk about how necros are being condition pressure classes and engineers aren’t the best at it anymore so that’s exactly what I discussed.

Again last time I checked necromancers are nothing but conditions so I’m by all means satisfied necromancers dominate engineers in the condition game. Its not the engineer role to condition pressure people. And nades still works great because they haven’t been nerfed, whats been nerfed is engineer survivability. So if you still have a engineer throwing nades at you from up top, its still a threat.

Our role is more of a support or bunker type, we have turrets, we have ways of crippling and immobilizing, and also knockbacks.

If anything the ranger class needs to dominate the ranged dps, that’s the only class that sucks right now and look at that poll of the worst class somebody made, its clear rangers suck. Engineers don’t need much more loving we are fine where we are. HGH engy would crush a ranger in a ranged fight. Why do you see HGH engies chilling up top, while the rangers are meleeing it? Because rangers clearly lost there ranged role, they do better off with an avoidance type role while pet mauls you. While engineer sits up top throwing nades, using elixir gun and adding more condis and crippling people and throwing mine fields to knockback people all of this from a distance. You don’t even have to move really, just get to some spot where people have to go out of there way to get you. Note* AE condi from nades, AE cripple from elixir gun, AE knockback from mine field, we still bring a lot to the table unlike other classes. Plus if you use elixir C you get AE 1 condi to boon with addition slot to all conditions to boons to yourself. We have so many worthwhile utilities its not even funny compared to other classes.

If somebody sets up a warrior or thief for the kill, they’re going to kill you especially the warrior. However if you sets up a ranger for the kill, they wont kill jack kitten. kittening worthless class right now. All they do is annoy people from a distance, other than that worthless, I’d rather have a GS Mesmer annoy someone than a ranger.

This is the thread about worst class https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-present-Vote-for-the-worst-Results/first
and this is the results. http://kwiksurveys.com/tmp_pdf/report-ED95F5FCB9654F3BA3F637D7E89D011E.pdf

Rangers just kittening suck at pretty much everything. Just don’t play a ranger. You want AE ranged damage reroll as HGH or staff ele.

Lighter.5631:

well, good that warriors have it’s own rule as being a free point

Warriors are far from free points post patch. I have been testing Defective’s build with a condition damage variant and against anything non condition heavy I can easily hold my own and many times go for the kill

samo.1054:

Dervish being supbar to war most of the time, ritualist just being whatever, never nearly as good as monk…

…wad?
Mut be revisionist ‘history’, or just plain brainfarting there.

Is it strange for me to want to assault as a Mesmer?.. Everyone says I should just hold close and portal.. but I just want to assault all day…

That’s how I’ve been playing for 45 levels.. I always go long,
I feel like you have to carve out your niche with your class ..

Some may say that Thief can do my job better with stealth and spike,
but I disagree ..

I can dazelock, I can spike, I have 40% swiftness uptime…. I can reset a fight I’m losing most of the time. I can kill almost anything 1v1, but whenever I get on a team after soloqueing and winning 60%~ of the time I’m told to go close point.

I guess I’m not going to ever be a pro, but whatever, I’ll keep playing my way till people realize how important a mesmer on farpoint can be.