Guild Wars 2

I play SPvP nightly and lead 5 man comps through our guild [LFG]. We aren’t the best around but we aren’t bad. We usually hover around 400-600 rating on the leaderboards and due to this middleman standing “which is neither novice or elite”
I feel that we have a good perspective and understanding of the current meta.

Too often I see users comparing metas to what tournament players are doing “if a build is OP or underpowered” and this is as incorrect as a novice rabbit complaining about Rapid Fire or Lich Form. The elite make up a very small percent of the community who are actually able to properly play certain build archetypes and then the novice rabbits consume a wide range of the community who only understand simple build archetypes. The elite players would tell you that Cele/Rifle was the OP build and that Power Necros were not viable in higher tier play but the novice rabbits would tell you that Power Necro was OP and that Cele/Rifle was over-rated.

So what do we have here? A lot of classes/archetypes that vary in their effectiveness depending on what MMR range the player is in and/or is against. This is in my opinion the core of the GW2 balancing issue.

Again, I spend an enormous amount of time with players of various MMR ranges on a nightly basis and without going in to much detail, here is what I find:

Warrior

• Rough to play for lower MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Slightly weak for higher MMRs but it is mostly balanced

Guardian

• Slightly over-powered for low MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• No longer viable for higher MMRs

Thief

• Balanced for lower MMRs can sometimes be difficult to learn
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Fairly balanced within higher MMRs but begins to weaken

Ranger

• Over-powered in lower MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Begins to lose viability for higher MMRs

Engineer

• Difficult to make viable for lower MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Slightly over-powered for higher MMRs

Necromancer

• Over-powered for lower MMRs
• Balanced in mid range MMRs
• Debatable whether it has any viability for higher MMRs

Mesmer

• Balanced but slightly weaker for lower MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Balanced for higher MMRs

Elementalist

• Not viable for low MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Slightly over-powered for high MMRs

So where are we now with balance in GW2? I’m not so sure about that.
I can say that I understand arena-net tries to balance things “game-wide” not just spvp.
Personally I feel that GW2 is very balanced at this point, even game-wide.
But one thing is certain, attention needs to be given towards conquest and making each class viable again in high tier MMR matches.

Does low MMR mean that players only know how to use one skill or something. I think that engineer part is little bit wrong.

I’ve heard that last big tournament included some dps guardians, so why you think he is not viable in higher tier? or it was some low tier tournament?

Trevor Boyer.6524:

I play SPvP nightly and lead 5 man comps through our guild [LFG]. We aren’t the best around but we aren’t bad. We usually hover around 400-600 rating on the leaderboards and due to this middleman standing “which is neither novice or elite”
I feel that we have a good perspective and understanding of the current meta.

Too often I see users comparing metas to what tournament players are doing “if a build is OP or underpowered” and this is as incorrect as a novice rabbit complaining about Rapid Fire or Lich Form. The elite make up a very small percent of the community who are actually able to properly play certain build archetypes and then the novice rabbits consume a wide range of the community who only understand simple build archetypes. The elite players would tell you that Cele/Rifle was the OP build and that Power Necros were not viable in higher tier play but the novice rabbits would tell you that Power Necro was OP and that Cele/Rifle was over-rated.

So what do we have here? A lot of classes/archetypes that vary in their effectiveness depending on what MMR range the player is in and/or is against. This is in my opinion the core of the GW2 balancing issue.

Again, I spend an enormous amount of time with players of various MMR ranges on a nightly basis and without going in to much detail, here is what I find:

Warrior

• Rough to play for lower MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Slightly weak for higher MMRs but it is mostly balanced

Guardian

• Slightly over-powered for low MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• No longer viable for higher MMRs

Thief

• Balanced for lower MMRs can sometimes be difficult to learn
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Fairly balanced within higher MMRs but begins to weaken

Ranger

• Over-powered in lower MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Begins to lose viability for higher MMRs

Engineer

• Difficult to make viable for lower MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Slightly over-powered for higher MMRs

Necromancer

• Over-powered for lower MMRs
• Balanced in mid range MMRs
• Debatable whether it has any viability for higher MMRs

Mesmer

• Balanced but slightly weaker for lower MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Balanced for higher MMRs

Elementalist

• Not viable for low MMRs
• Balanced for intermediate MMRs
• Slightly over-powered for high MMRs

So where are we now with balance in GW2? I’m not so sure about that.
I can say that I understand arena-net tries to balance things “game-wide” not just spvp.
Personally I feel that GW2 is very balanced at this point, even game-wide.
But one thing is certain, attention needs to be given towards conquest and making each class viable again in high tier MMR matches.

Guess when talkin bout guardian you mean bunker…cause i see many teams with offguard in rooster, and eterniah’s team even playing double offguard (That is totally reterded with a d/p thief too) to hardcounter some comps

btw 55 hp still run bunker guard

and a decent celestial ele/engi can hold 3 scrubs alone in low mmr…so yeah…

How is ele and warrior hard to play at lower levels and yet necro and ranger are OP there? Makes no sense.

Builds are categorized as OP based on the top tier, competitive scene for a reason.

For example: DPS guards aren’t OP at low skill levels. That just makes no sense. The builds work exactly the same whatever skill level you’re playing at. The difference is that some builds are easier to use, and thus, more effective for less skilled players. That doesn’t make them OP, it makes the newbs… Well, newbs. Surprise!

You can’t call a build OP because of L2P issues. That’s just silly.

Guardian
Slightly over-powered for low MMRs
Balanced for intermediate MMRs
No longer viable for higher MMRs

delete before kitten and eu find out about this

MaXi.3642:

I’ve heard that last big tournament included some dps guardians, so why you think he is not viable in higher tier? or it was some low tier tournament?

Just because one or a few elite players can make an archetype shine, does not mean that archetype is or even can be played in the same manner by the vast majority of the community. Sizer wielding S/D is a perfect example of everyone thinking a clearly perfect new meta exists until they find out that they simply cannot play the S/D anywhere near a well as Sizer and then they go back to D/P.

Your statement is a perfect example of: “too often players judge build balance based on high tier play”. Why would the game be balanced for high tier play when only an extreme minority will ever even play at that level? Think about this.

To the rest of the comments:

I appreciate the feedback but most of you have overlooked the reason in this post.
Examples were made against this post “in the comparison to elite tournament teams” and you seemingly overlooked the statement in the first paragraph about “how players too often judge balancing using elite tournament teams”. This statement and the post here-in is to point out how the dynamic of conquest matches vary greatly from low MMRs to high MMRs. Again, a great example of this is a Power Necromancer that is amazing in play during low MMRs, where as in high MMRs it becomes weak and then Celestial/Rifle becomes strong, where as the Cele/Rifle is too complex for beginners and even usually intermediates. Do not overlook the fact that the DYNAMIC of match play is very different from low MMRs, to mid MMRs, to high MMRs and then even elite MMRs “tournament teams”.

The point of this post is not to argue with everyone but rather to re-direct the focus on the readers back at it’s goal. Those who said “classes play the same between low MMRs and high MMRs” are wrong. Anyone who has spent any serious time with the community at all, can tell you that.

So! again the focus here, what can be done to make classes just as viable as each other in each tier of gameplay?

can you give me an example of the kind of player who’s in the high mmr? since you seperated high from the “elite” tournament players

400-600…. I can’t even. The leaderboards are just a grind. If you are not going past 400-600 then you really shouldn’t be making statements like this. Also, the best way to tell how something is balanced is look at the top competitive teams and see if they are stacking a certain class or more so a specific build. If you see several of one build/class in an ESL weekly Or better yet WTS chances are it is overpowered because these teams while they are good they take the most overpowered classes in the game and play them, because they know that stat wise nothing is better.

Let me summarize the OP

1. Warrior – He thinks shoutbow is weak. Huh?
2. Guardian – He thinks guardian is not viable. I hope the European champion team doesn’t know that! They are running one. DPS guard is good at any tier, not just elite.
3. Thief. No comment. Unless it is a top 10 thief, the class is pretty much garbage at anything higher than mid tier
4. Engineer. No way. It is OP at every level. Lower and mid tiers have the turret engi and upper tiers have the nade spamming rifle engi. OP
5. Ranger. No arguments on that
6. Necro. I don’t really have an issue. At higher levels, it definitely takes more skill than other classes
7. Mesmer. I’m ok with this
8. Ele. Not viable for low end? Are you serious? Everything is viable in low end. The class is broken OP at every level. Only engi is stronger right now.

ye ole tier list for medium-high level pvp:

S-Tier (universally dominant, too strong; meta shifting):

• Elementalist

A-Tier (strong in almost all scenarios, but well balanced):

• Warrior
• Engineer
• Thief
• Mesmer

B-Tier (good/strong niche performance, but can be outperformed by others):

• Guardian
• Necromancer

C-Tier (mediocre, is considerably outperformed by other professions filling same role):

• Ranger

Let’s keep it positive
The idea here was not to make a strong statement that catches trolling
The idea here was to prompt the idea of balancing viability in play
Amongst all tiers of users

Sinject has given the type of response that I was looking for
His own point of view on viability distributed amongst all tiers

Anyone else?

This list is based on the meta defining abilities of each profession, how easily they can influence other professions and the simplicity with which they can be played effectively.

S- Tier ( Meta Defining, push most builds out of the game mode, makes the balancing that much harder as you need a specific trait/utility investment to counter them, positioning doesn’t help at all)

-Thief

A-Tier ( Can influence marginally the meta, a heavy trait investment can help but it’s not necessary, positioning can help against them but won’t solve all problems; most builds are viable against them)

-Engineer
-Mesmer

B-Tier ( Do not influence balance, can’t change meta, can’t force any build out of conquest)

-Guardian
-Elementalist
-Necromancer
-Warrior

C-Tier (More of a liability even when played well, they can’t cover any role better than others)

-Ranger

sinject.4607:

C-Tier (mediocre, is considerably outperformed by other professions filling same role):

• Ranger

I hear the footsteps of a wild Euratien approaching,.