Guild Wars 2

Daishi.6027:

1. Anything glass, 2. Requires set up to burst, 3. has relatively easy to avoid burst, 4. having said burst requiring defensive cooldowns or resources, and 5. limited and/or restrictive ports.
+
Let’s not forget all while being countered by almost everything else in the competing slot, and naturally soft countered on point/a flat by every current meta low risk bruiser or condi cleave.

Only thing that fits all that criteria is Shatter mes. Call me bias but I cannot understand how anyone can say anything else is objectively harder than that status quo.

Power ranger, Fresh Air, Medi Guard, and both D/P or S/D thief all have very little set up. Thief, Ranger, and Guard, in this context have more damage AND more survivability (Theif and guard not even needing to worry about LoS). Although Fresh air may get the shaft a little bit more in the defensive department they still have more defensive cooldowns.

But the other glass builds I mentioned are definitely the runners up… except maybe medi gaurd.

you are correct and I agree with you 100%, shatter mes easily takes the top spot.

rchu.8945:

Daishi.6027:

1. Anything glass, 2. Requires set up to burst, 3. has relatively easy to avoid burst, 4. having said burst requiring defensive cooldowns or resources, and 5. limited and/or restrictive ports.
+
Let’s not forget all while being countered by almost everything else in the competing slot, and naturally soft countered on point/a flat by every current meta low risk bruiser or condi cleave.

Only thing that fits all that criteria is Shatter mes. Call me bias but I cannot understand how anyone can say anything else is objectively harder than that status quo.

Power ranger, Fresh Air, Medi Guard, and both D/P or S/D thief all have very little set up. Thief, Ranger, and Guard, in this context have more damage AND more survivability (Theif and guard not even needing to worry about LoS). Although Fresh air may get the shaft a little bit more in the defensive department they still have more defensive cooldowns.

But the other glass builds I mentioned are definitely the runners up… except maybe medi gaurd.

you are correct and I agree with you 100%, shatter mes easily takes the top spot.

Nope, Zerk Staff ele takes top spot.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Hardest build ingame is Zerk Staff ele.

There is a difference between hard and simply bad. Hard means it’s hard to make it work but it pays offs. There is nothing hard about the playstlye of a zerker staff ele: no burst combos, no big plays, no jukes. It’s simply not viable, the moment the enemy team notices your existence you are already respawning, there’s not much you can do about it. It’s simply a bad build.

witcher.3197:

iKeostuKen.2738:

Hardest build ingame is Zerk Staff ele.

There is a difference between hard and simply bad. Hard means it’s hard to make it work but it pays offs. There is nothing hard about the playstlye of a zerker staff ele: no burst combos, no big plays, no jukes. It’s simply not viable, the moment the enemy teams notices your existence you are already respawning, there’s not much you can do about it. It’s simply a bad build.

Simply bad, yes. The game has evolved while this has been stuck in the same spot. But it is still possible to play, just extremely hard to make it work in 1v1s. But thats against bad players/ lazy players.

Basically if you go off of this thread-

Every build in the game is an easy facerolling build that anyone can play and pushing buttons takes no skill

but all the builds also take a ton of skill, very hard to play, and are very unforgiving.

Rym.1469:

Medi Hammer and P/D Thief demanding, Condition Necromancer medium in this meta. Alright.

MediHammer is hilariously easy to neuter with just about any measure of intelligent play. All you have to do is bait JI and range it from outside 300 range when it goes into Hammer and you get free shots against it. All good players at this point can handle MediHammer exceedingly well in skirmish contexts. The entire build is about teamfight coordinated burst anyway, and it’s very easy (and common) for players to use it wholly wrong and get rekt.

CondiNecromancer has a fairly simple rotation, and don’t forget that in a skirmish setting it matches exceptionally well against a lot of the other meta builds (CeleRifle Engi, for instance). It’s definitely not easy to play because in teamfights it can be ping-ponged easily (especially if Wurm is down), but it’s by no means hard to play either. It also scores a defensive stat in its amulet, lessening the risk of getting rekt in three seconds by a competent enemy duelist.

Sabre.8627:

Basically if you go off of this thread-

Every build in the game is an easy facerolling build that anyone can play and pushing buttons takes no skill

but all the builds also take a ton of skill, very hard to play, and are very unforgiving.

Yep. The majority of players don’t think that their opponents put in the same amount of effort that they do (or overestimate the amount of effort they put in compared to their opponents.)

This is the obvious thing.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Sabre.8627:

Basically if you go off of this thread-

Every build in the game is an easy facerolling build that anyone can play and pushing buttons takes no skill

but all the builds also take a ton of skill, very hard to play, and are very unforgiving.

Yep. The majority of players don’t think that their opponents put in the same amount of effort that they do (or overestimate the amount of effort they put in compared to their opponents.)

This is the obvious thing.

The truth has been spoken.

witcher.3197:

iKeostuKen.2738:

Hardest build ingame is Zerk Staff ele.

There is a difference between hard and simply bad. Hard means it’s hard to make it work but it pays offs. There is nothing hard about the playstlye of a zerker staff ele: no burst combos, no big plays, no jukes. It’s simply not viable, the moment the enemy team notices your existence you are already respawning, there’s not much you can do about it. It’s simply a bad build.

Exactly. By that logic, I could claim that PP thief takes a tremendous amount of skill.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Rym.1469:

Medi Hammer and P/D Thief demanding, Condition Necromancer medium in this meta. Alright.

MediHammer is hilariously easy to neuter with just about any measure of intelligent play. All you have to do is bait JI and range it from outside 300 range when it goes into Hammer and you get free shots against it. All good players at this point can handle MediHammer exceedingly well in skirmish contexts. The entire build is about teamfight coordinated burst anyway, and it’s very easy (and common) for players to use it wholly wrong and get rekt.

CondiNecromancer has a fairly simple rotation, and don’t forget that in a skirmish setting it matches exceptionally well against a lot of the other meta builds (CeleRifle Engi, for instance). It’s definitely not easy to play because in teamfights it can be ping-ponged easily (especially if Wurm is down), but it’s by no means hard to play either. It also scores a defensive stat in its amulet, lessening the risk of getting rekt in three seconds by a competent enemy duelist.

hahahahahaha okay get your friend and 2v2 me on medi hammer and see how easy it is to deal with in skirmishes

Booms.2594:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Rym.1469:

Medi Hammer and P/D Thief demanding, Condition Necromancer medium in this meta. Alright.

MediHammer is hilariously easy to neuter with just about any measure of intelligent play. All you have to do is bait JI and range it from outside 300 range when it goes into Hammer and you get free shots against it. All good players at this point can handle MediHammer exceedingly well in skirmish contexts. The entire build is about teamfight coordinated burst anyway, and it’s very easy (and common) for players to use it wholly wrong and get rekt.

CondiNecromancer has a fairly simple rotation, and don’t forget that in a skirmish setting it matches exceptionally well against a lot of the other meta builds (CeleRifle Engi, for instance). It’s definitely not easy to play because in teamfights it can be ping-ponged easily (especially if Wurm is down), but it’s by no means hard to play either. It also scores a defensive stat in its amulet, lessening the risk of getting rekt in three seconds by a competent enemy duelist.

hahahahahaha okay get your friend and 2v2 me on medi hammer and see how easy it is to deal with in skirmishes

Macho! You reassured all of us about the length of your Greatsword, thank you very much.

from what i’ve experienced, which isn’t too much since I don’t play on my alts much

fresh air ele
condi engi
lb/gs ranger
sword/X thief

I find that these builds, for varying reasons, are difficult to master. not necessarily difficult to play “decently” (I’ve barely played engi and I can do okay as a condi engi. and I will admit that a lb/gs ranger is an easy build to understand) but will take you a lot of skill and time to master it.

note that I haven’t played necro or mesmer much, so I have no comment on their builds

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

from what i’ve experienced, which isn’t too much since I don’t play on my alts much

fresh air ele
condi engi
lb/gs ranger
sword/X thief

I find that these builds, for varying reasons, are difficult to master. not necessarily difficult to play “decently” (I’ve barely played engi and I can do okay as a condi engi. and I will admit that a lb/gs ranger is an easy build to understand) but will take you a lot of skill and time to master it.

note that I haven’t played necro or mesmer much, so I have no comment on their builds

I don’t really agree, but I respect your opinion. For example, I play a lot on my engineer, both condi and celestial rifle, and honestly, I find triple-kit celestial harder to play. It’s also stronger, which is why some would say it’s easy, but frankly the delayed damage on condi engi allows you to focus mainly on your personal defense instead of being always offensive, since your confusion does most of the work for you anyway, if you manage to hit your foe with it. I advise every new engineer player to start on a condi build before they try the celestial build, because it’s a bit more forgiving. I also think that LB ranger is easy to play, but maybe it is a question of affinity.

Daishi.6027:

1. Anything glass, 2. Requires set up to burst, 3. has relatively easy to avoid burst, 4. having said burst requiring defensive cooldowns or resources, and 5. limited and/or restrictive ports.
+
Let’s not forget all while being countered by almost everything else in the competing slot, and naturally soft countered on point/a flat by every current meta low risk bruiser or condi cleave.

Only thing that fits all that criteria is Shatter mes. Call me bias but I cannot understand how anyone can say anything else is objectively harder than that status quo.

Power ranger, Fresh Air, Medi Guard, and both D/P or S/D thief all have very little set up. Thief, Ranger, and Guard, in this context have more damage AND more survivability (Theif and guard not even needing to worry about LoS). Although Fresh air may get the shaft a little bit more in the defensive department they still have more defensive cooldowns.

But the other glass builds I mentioned are definitely the runners up… except maybe medi gaurd.

Although mesmer is kind of in a weird place, from what i see. Its definitely one of the hardest builds because its survivability is so low so being able to handle fighting 1v1 and kiting around takes way more knowledge than most other classes. At the same time a lot of people dont know how to fight mesmers and die really easily lol. I think in lower tier pvp its a fairly easy to play class. Higher up its hard especially if you dont have a good team.

Booms.2594:

hahahahahaha okay get your friend and 2v2 me on medi hammer and see how easy it is to deal with in skirmishes

You have to follow the context; your personal skill with the build doesn’t matter. I’ve never contested that it is very powerful in the hands of a smart player, but it’s a riskier build for players to pick up because you can get locked into situations where you can’t do anything and the enemy can burst you down with ease. That’s sort of the whole point of this thread’s discussion.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Booms.2594:

hahahahahaha okay get your friend and 2v2 me on medi hammer and see how easy it is to deal with in skirmishes

You have to follow the context; your personal skill with the build doesn’t matter. I’ve never contested that it is very powerful in the hands of a smart player, but it’s a riskier build for players to pick up because you can get locked into situations where you can’t do anything and the enemy can burst you down with ease. That’s sort of the whole point of this thread’s discussion.

If your in a situation on that build where you can’t do anything it’s because you miss manage your cooldowns. Yeah you’ll die quickly at that point, but medi guard is an extraordinarily forgiving build. Tons of heals, bunch of aegis, invuln, and blind. There is simply way too much defense for me to consider that a hard build. The burst is also way easier to land than many other builds.

This is the point I was making earlier. Just because you die easily when your out of cooldowns or afk doesn’t mean your build is hard.The burst is easy to land, and you have a ton of defensive cooldowns. It’s harder than a warrior that has a bunch of passive defense, but saying it’s on the same level as a shatter mes, or fresh air ele that have way less healing, condition removal, and defensive cooldowns, and less armor is kind of silly imo.

Many of you are confusing ineffective builds with hard builds, staff zerker ele is exceptionally easy, do not think otherwise simply because it dies fast. Also true of many other builds

Another vote for fresh air ele, shatter mesmer and condi necro!

zapv.8051:

If your in a situation on that build where you can’t do anything it’s because you miss manage your cooldowns. Yeah you’ll die quickly at that point, but medi guard is an extraordinarily forgiving build. Tons of heals, bunch of aegis, invuln, and blind. There is simply way too much defense for me to consider that a hard build. The burst is also way easier to land than many other builds.

This is the point I was making earlier. Just because you die easily when your out of cooldowns or afk doesn’t mean your build is hard.The burst is easy to land, and you have a ton of defensive cooldowns. It’s harder than a warrior that has a bunch of passive defense, but saying it’s on the same level as a shatter mes, or fresh air ele that have way less healing, condition removal, and defensive cooldowns, and less armor is kind of silly imo.

My previous list was extremely rudimentary. I by no means think that everything on the “Hard” list is equivalent, and even mentioned in that post that many things are closer to the edge than the list may immediately suggest.

I definitely do think that MediHammer is easier to play on average than a Fresh Air Ele or a Shatter Mesmer, but at the same time it also has a far more telegraphed burst that is easier to avoid than those other two and both the Fresh Air Ele and Shatter Mesmer have far superior disengage than a MediHammer Guardian. It’s give and take, and while the two examples you chose are certainly tougher, I do think the MediHammer is tougher to play well than a lot of people give it credit for.

Sorel.4870:

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

from what i’ve experienced, which isn’t too much since I don’t play on my alts much

fresh air ele
condi engi
lb/gs ranger
sword/X thief

I find that these builds, for varying reasons, are difficult to master. not necessarily difficult to play “decently” (I’ve barely played engi and I can do okay as a condi engi. and I will admit that a lb/gs ranger is an easy build to understand) but will take you a lot of skill and time to master it.

note that I haven’t played necro or mesmer much, so I have no comment on their builds

I don’t really agree, but I respect your opinion. For example, I play a lot on my engineer, both condi and celestial rifle, and honestly, I find triple-kit celestial harder to play. It’s also stronger, which is why some would say it’s easy, but frankly the delayed damage on condi engi allows you to focus mainly on your personal defense instead of being always offensive, since your confusion does most of the work for you anyway, if you manage to hit your foe with it. I advise every new engineer player to start on a condi build before they try the celestial build, because it’s a bit more forgiving. I also think that LB ranger is easy to play, but maybe it is a question of affinity.

Yeah, perhaps cele engi is harder. I just know when I played it, i found it a lot easier to play, along with it being more popular… it is something that takes mastering though. I’ve also never been a fan of DoT builds, so that may be part of why I would think condi engi is harder. I have very little experience with engi though, so I’ll take your word for it.

As for lb/gs ranger, as I said, in my opinion it is easy to play… just hard to master. If you pvp a bunch, you generally run into 2 kinds of lb rangers, the kinds that are annoying but are basically free kills if you pay attention to them, and the kind that are REALLY annoying, and always seem to catch you off guard. I think that’s the difficulty in playing a ranger. knowing positioning, where you should be, how to avoid being caught in a confrontation you can’t win, and actually learning how to use your greatsword. (and utilities take some practice, unless you’re using signets, imo). Granted these things are true of any class, but I believe doubly so for lb/gs rangers. we have a tough time capping points, and not enough mobility to reposition as well as say, a thief. The difference between a ranger that is not good and a ranger that is good is whether they stay on a ledge pewpewing until someone else decides to go up to kill them, or if they’re actively moving, pushing fights into their favor, catching enemies off guard, etc.

Mooncow.6847:

Many of you are confusing ineffective builds with hard builds, staff zerker ele is exceptionally easy, do not think otherwise simply because it dies fast. Also true of many other builds

How is it exceptionally easy?

When talking about ineffective though, say hi to 5-8 seconds of chain CC while getting DPS’d by Mace Shield + Axe Mace Warrior.

Certain builds become viable when you get mechanically intensive. The existence of those builds are something people can’t deny yet some people are using the word “ineffective” to deny the existence of certain things such as HARD and EFFECTIVE.

TL:DR Don’t be simple-minded

If you are playing a shatter Mesmer against any player who is decent, you are going to have a rough time.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

Jasher.6580:

If you are playing a shatter Mesmer against any player who is decent, you are going to have a rough time.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

+1

and someone mentioned a medi-hammer guardian is harder than shatter Mesmer from a post above, lol…

iKeostuKen.2738:

How is it exceptionally easy?

None of the skills on staff set are especially hard to use in optimal ways. The only thing that can be tricky to nail if you’re new to the class is using About Face with Fire 4 skill.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Mooncow.6847:

Many of you are confusing ineffective builds with hard builds, staff zerker ele is exceptionally easy, do not think otherwise simply because it dies fast. Also true of many other builds

How is it exceptionally easy?

because as a zerker staff ele your damage comes from a few set of skill (lava font, metor shower, ice spike, earth 2) and all it requires is you putting your mouse on the opponent and being as far away as possible. Not much more to it than that

Nyx.7342:

Aktium.9506:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Medium Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- PU Mesmer

Aight.

what exactly is PU memser…is that the condi mez build with scepter or is it something else?

Rising Dusk.2408:

High Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- CeleDD Elementalist
- CeleRifle Engineer

These two should be in medium. Both of them require you to know your skills but theyre both fairly forgiving and allow you to survive while dishing out a lot of damage. I would rank enige as harder than ele tho between the two builds. Maybe its just because i know all my ele skill instinctively from Pve, but the few times i hop on my d/d ele in pvp it seems like i cant be killed…..

PU mesmer is condi mesmer who stealth a lot, You will almost never bump into one in pvp because with out perplex rune and condi food they are rather harmless. Sure it’ll take you a long time to kill them 1 v 1 but they do no damage and can’t move very fast. Kinda like a turret engi who has no rocket and rifle turret.

rchu.8945:

Jasher.6580:

If you are playing a shatter Mesmer against any player who is decent, you are going to have a rough time.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

+1

and someone mentioned a medi-hammer guardian is harder than shatter Mesmer from a post above, lol…

Glass mantra mesmer is harder than shatter mesmer IMO – micromanaging 4 mantras in a zerker build has to be the hardest thing in the game.

Curunen.8729:

rchu.8945:

Jasher.6580:

If you are playing a shatter Mesmer against any player who is decent, you are going to have a rough time.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

+1

and someone mentioned a medi-hammer guardian is harder than shatter Mesmer from a post above, lol…

Glass mantra mesmer is harder than shatter mesmer IMO – micromanaging 4 mantras in a zerker build has to be the hardest thing in the game.

Oh, I thought we were talking about viable builds in the current meta.

Jasher.6580:

Curunen.8729:

rchu.8945:

Jasher.6580:

If you are playing a shatter Mesmer against any player who is decent, you are going to have a rough time.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

+1

and someone mentioned a medi-hammer guardian is harder than shatter Mesmer from a post above, lol…

Glass mantra mesmer is harder than shatter mesmer IMO – micromanaging 4 mantras in a zerker build has to be the hardest thing in the game.

Oh, I thought we were talking about viable builds in the current meta.

I reread the OP and yeah I guess you’re right, so yeah – then I’d agree shatter is the hardest useful build.

GS/LB on Warrior is a build that I find to be effective, but not as easy as say a D/P teef.

There’s a ton of possible variation, you can go straight up damage. Or you could also go the Might stacking route as well. Anything left blank is player choice.

I think it’s arguable if the build is worth using in serious play, teef can deal more damage and abuse the Z axis, but this build is very fast as well and has arguably better on point presence.

Mooncow.6847:

iKeostuKen.2738:

Mooncow.6847:

Many of you are confusing ineffective builds with hard builds, staff zerker ele is exceptionally easy, do not think otherwise simply because it dies fast. Also true of many other builds

How is it exceptionally easy?

because as a zerker staff ele your damage comes from a few set of skill (lava font, metor shower, ice spike, earth 2) and all it requires is you putting your mouse on the opponent and being as far away as possible. Not much more to it than that

That deserved so much face palm, its not even funny. Have you ever tried using a Zerk staff build in SPvP? Did you know that those skills require the opponent to stand still if you even wanna start seeing damage tick? Unlike These other builds where everything is directly applied to the target.

How about that survivability, Lowest hp, lowest armor. Players can teleport to you, leap to you. Are you sure you can just sit back and press buttons when thats happening?

Its not a completely useless build, but it is indeed harder then the rest when you have to manually do your set up which isnt in the least bit forgivable with a extreme amount of counter play.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Naked, no-utility and one weapon zerker builds

That build still has weapon skills, traits, and an amulet, with more stats than most other amulets, it just screams op cheese mode to me. Need to drop all those things, and only have access to class mechanic. Ranger being the one exception which has no hard builds as their class mechanic is an op ai that will just carry them to easy wins no matter what.

Mooncow.6847:

iKeostuKen.2738:

Mooncow.6847:

Many of you are confusing ineffective builds with hard builds, staff zerker ele is exceptionally easy, do not think otherwise simply because it dies fast. Also true of many other builds

How is it exceptionally easy?

because as a zerker staff ele your damage comes from a few set of skill (lava font, metor shower, ice spike, earth 2) and all it requires is you putting your mouse on the opponent and being as far away as possible. Not much more to it than that

Is that all you do as a zerker staff ele? Because if so you’re vastly under-utilizing your skills.

Rotation is important as you can be providing might to your team while dishing out that damage. Another huge part of the playstyle is AoE crowd control with Frozen Ground and Static Field to trap enemies in the kill zone and mess up their rotations with chill. Even Unsteady Ground can be useful for stacking cripple if you drop it in the center of the point as the enemies will have to run across it multiple times if they want to avoid leaving the point and remaining mobile. Then there’s tactical placement of your water fields to help deal with enemy condition pressure on your allies and letting your allies blast said water fields for more heals.

This is all ignoring when the enemy eventually notices you. At that point the skill requirement exponentially increases. You have to vastly out play your opponent to win a 1v1, and you have to be very good at timing your cantrips, dodges, crowd controls, and Burning Retreat to survive pressure long enough for your team to peel.

Aside from the raw mechanical requirements you also have to be really good at placement and map rotation to be effective. Where you are when you begin casting is extremely important, as well as what fights you choose to jump in on.

Easiest class to play? Engi. Why? At lower levels you have turret engis and at higher levels you have nade spam cele builds. Even better at higher levels, the main engi counters are not part of the meta.

Hardest to play?
Mesmer/Necro- Mesmer is probably in the worst spot in general right now. Necro isn’t a lot better.

Honorable mentions.
Easy to play- longbow power rangers. It is easy to pick up and does well anywhere except at the highest levels of play
Hard to play- Thief. This is the class that loses more games for teams than it wins. Unless you are one of the top 10 thieves in the game, I don’t want you on my team.

ArthurDent.9538:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Naked, no-utility and one weapon zerker builds

That build still has weapon skills, traits, and an amulet, with more stats than most other amulets, it just screams op cheese mode to me. Need to drop all those things, and only have access to class mechanic. Ranger being the one exception which has no hard builds as their class mechanic is an op ai that will just carry them to easy wins no matter what.

True, only real kittenes kill someone with their fists alone…

Yet here everyone is like picking all those OP builds, rewarding them via stats which is so unfair… No-skill is truly amongst the people

What builds are hard? Shatter mes.
/thread

Easiest to play and rewarding: Engineer and Ranger. Personally i find DPS Guardian easy to play and rewarding. It kills every zerker and more.

Warrior and Ele i think both easy to play and rewarding after you get used a bit for them. High sustain/Mobility/Good damage. Very forgiving professions. If you do some mistakes you can still survive.

Hardest to play: Necro and Mesmer ( 1 or 2 mistakes and you are dead. Required a good team to show their true power )

Hard to play but very rewarding in good hands!! : Thief ( It’s probably only hard because i never liked thief/rogue playstyles. but it can require some skill as there are a lot of bad thieves. )

witcher.3197:

Every zerker build excluding medi guard and s/d thief. (just an opinion)

If you think those don’t require skill, then you haven’t fought against people who actually know how to play them.

I revised this list with my opinions:

Low Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- Turret Engineer
- GS Medi Guardian
- PU Mesmer
- Condi Shatter Mesmer
- Phantasm Mesmer
- Power Necromancer
- Minion Master Necromancer
- Power LB Ranger
- Spirit Ranger
- P/D Condi Thief
- Shoutbow Warrior
- Hambow Warrior

Medium Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- Cele D/D Elementalist
- Bunker Staff Elementalist
- Cele Rifle Engineer
- Condi Engineer
- Bunker Guardian
- Hammer Medi Guardian
- Condi Necromancer
- Condi Survival Ranger
- Traps Ranger
- S/D Acro Thief
- Bunker Warrior
- Condi Warrior

High Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- Condi Signet Elementalist
- Fresh Air Elementalist
- Zerker Staff Elementalist
- Static Discharge Engineer
- Shatter Mesmer
- Lockdown Mesmer
- D/P Thief
- Zerker Warrior

I tried to rate this on my overall impression for how the build performs versus how much effort is required to do well with it. Some builds have a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling, which skews my rating of it.

turret engineer can actually be an incredibly difficult to play if you are fighting something like, condi ranger or condi engineer. well, assuming your opponent is not bad, which brings me back to the point i made in my last post. the difficulty of the build depends heavily on what build you are fighting, and how good the player is at playing it.

so, actually the hardest build to play is the same one the opponent is playing. as, with the same tools at both of your disposal you have to outplay them.

Rusc.4978:

I revised this list with my opinions:

Low Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- Turret Engineer
- GS Medi Guardian
- PU Mesmer
- Condi Shatter Mesmer
- Phantasm Mesmer
- Power Necromancer
- Minion Master Necromancer
- Power LB Ranger
- Spirit Ranger
- P/D Condi Thief
- Shoutbow Warrior
- Hambow Warrior

Medium Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- Cele D/D Elementalist
- Bunker Staff Elementalist
- Cele Rifle Engineer
- Condi Engineer
- Bunker Guardian
- Hammer Medi Guardian
- Condi Necromancer
- Condi Survival Ranger
- Traps Ranger
- S/D Acro Thief
- Bunker Warrior
- Condi Warrior

High Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- Condi Signet Elementalist
- Fresh Air Elementalist
- Zerker Staff Elementalist
- Static Discharge Engineer
- Shatter Mesmer
- Lockdown Mesmer
- D/P Thief
- Zerker Warrior

I tried to rate this on my overall impression for how the build performs versus how much effort is required to do well with it. Some builds have a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling, which skews my rating of it.

This list is good. The only change I’d make is to move cele rifle engi to the easy category, at least it is for me.

most power builds got kinda easy with the sigill change and passive play. air/fire and it doesnt matter if you miss the burst ( not that much ). gs mesmer spamming 1 1 1 1 . same for medi guard with the 1 szepter spamm, the thief with s/D, freshair ele etc.
engi got a lot of skillshots, but with ip and the good sustain it is kinda the same. ele got double the skills, but thats in the end not harder nor a disadvantage ….
more or less all of the builds are (ab)using some overpowered strategy/traits/sigills. even frenzy /bullcharge can be kind of gimmic, but with the high risk people take the low risk/medium reward playstyle.
play for win , even if its just the fun you can win out of gw2

Rusc.4978:

A lot of true stuff

I like this list a lot. You’re especially right in saying that perhaps the only challenging condi build in this game is signet elementalist.

Just to be clear because there are so many people talking about this: it’s difficult to make zerker staff elementalist work in pvp, but less because it takes mechanical skill and more because it’s just bad. You’re better off with a celestial or a cleric amulet.

I find it interesting that some people seem to be equating more buttons with more skill required to press them. I personally don’t see it that way at all. I think running through rotations like you can with cele engi and cele Ele is very simple. They may have high skill ceilings but you can more or less mash buttons and remain somewhat effective because of the nature of the builds. They are forgiving. There is nothing difficult about playing the apex predator of PvP unless you’re doing it at the highest levels.

Most people seem to agree that mesmer is the hardest, but they don’t have many skills in comparison.

Rusc.4978:

I revised this list with my opinions:

Low Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- Turret Engineer
- GS Medi Guardian
- PU Mesmer
- Condi Shatter Mesmer
- Phantasm Mesmer
- Power Necromancer
- Minion Master Necromancer
- Power LB Ranger
- Spirit Ranger
- P/D Condi Thief
- Shoutbow Warrior
- Hambow Warrior

Medium Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- Cele D/D Elementalist
- Bunker Staff Elementalist
- Cele Rifle Engineer
- Condi Engineer
- Bunker Guardian
- Hammer Medi Guardian
- Condi Necromancer
- Condi Survival Ranger
- Traps Ranger
- S/D Acro Thief
- Bunker Warrior
- Condi Warrior

High Demand on Player Skill / Knowledge / Timing
- Condi Signet Elementalist
- Fresh Air Elementalist
- Zerker Staff Elementalist
- Static Discharge Engineer
- Shatter Mesmer
- Lockdown Mesmer
- D/P Thief
- Zerker Warrior

I tried to rate this on my overall impression for how the build performs versus how much effort is required to do well with it. Some builds have a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling, which skews my rating of it.

This is the best list here, although I would move Fresh Air Ele to the Medium list, because, for the role they have, it’s not that hard to pull it off

Roe.3679:

I find it interesting that some people seem to be equating more buttons with more skill required to press them. I personally don’t see it that way at all. I think running through rotations like you can with cele engi and cele Ele is very simple. They may have high skill ceilings but you can more or less mash buttons and remain somewhat effective because of the nature of the builds. They are forgiving. There is nothing difficult about playing the apex predator of PvP unless you’re doing it at the highest levels.

Most people seem to agree that mesmer is the hardest, but they don’t have many skills in comparison.

You seem to be confusing two things here: skill and effectiveness. But again, there’s a lot of that in this thread. Cele engi and elementalist seem so simple because they are so effective. Especially on ele, just going through a rotation will make you win against some players. I don’t play elementalist that much, so I just rotate the skills to stack might, and I get rekt most of the time (thank you Anet for not adding profession-based MMR). On engineer though, if you use a rotation, you’re definitely playing it wrong: heck, what’s the point of having no CD on kits if you’re gonna use a rotation anyway?

Sorel.4870:

Roe.3679:

I find it interesting that some people seem to be equating more buttons with more skill required to press them. I personally don’t see it that way at all. I think running through rotations like you can with cele engi and cele Ele is very simple. They may have high skill ceilings but you can more or less mash buttons and remain somewhat effective because of the nature of the builds. They are forgiving. There is nothing difficult about playing the apex predator of PvP unless you’re doing it at the highest levels.

Most people seem to agree that mesmer is the hardest, but they don’t have many skills in comparison.

You seem to be confusing two things here: skill and effectiveness. But again, there’s a lot of that in this thread. Cele engi and elementalist seem so simple because they are so effective. Especially on ele, just going through a rotation will make you win against some players. I don’t play elementalist that much, so I just rotate the skills to stack might, and I get rekt most of the time (thank you Anet for not adding profession-based MMR). On engineer though, if you use a rotation, you’re definitely playing it wrong: heck, what’s the point of having no CD on kits if you’re gonna use a rotation anyway?

Rotations most engineers use: magnet pull, crowbar, spam Nades, rifle knockback, immobilize, jump shot, slick shoes.

More buttons =/= hard. Skill ceiling doesn’t make the class hard. Skill floor is what makes it hard.

Builds hard to play are for me the hardcountered builds.
And to my humble opinion there is nothing more hardcountered than a mesmer (any builds) by a thief.

My build is hard yours is easy /end thread.