Guild Wars 2

Current balance issues:

How can we get other classes invited into the best possible min-maxed groups in Guild Wars 2? How can we get other group compositions to compete with those listed below?

4 War/Mesmer

2 War/2 Guard/Mesmer

3 War/1 Guard/Mesmer

Warriors do the best damage by a high margin, Guardians do best support/damage, and Mesmers provide unique buffs that make one per group nearly mandatory.

These groups takes care of all buffs needed for their respective tasks, offers great damage, and miss out on nothing significant that another class could be providing.

My Suggested Fixes:

1.) Warriors.

Warriors do the best damage, but that’s not actually the balance issue. The issue is that a group of warriors ALSO brings the best damage buffs. 100% uptime on fury and 25 stacks of might in a 3war group.

Therefore, the fix I suggest for Warriors is that, in exchange for a bunch of PVP buffs and buffs that do not affect damage (such as more ways to gain prot, stability or other boons), they lose their ability to stack significant amounts of might, and perhaps a nerf to their ability to gain fury as well.

Some more details on what type of buffs I think they should get? I think Warriors should gain very high vigor, swiftness, and stability uptime. This would make them a bit more mobile and hard to control, and fits the idea of a “warrior”. Obviously that alone wouldn’t make up for the might/fury loss, so Anet will have to be creative.

Note: I am not suggesting a nerf of warriors so much as I am suggesting making them stronger in some areas in exchanging for losing the ability to stack so much might and fury. In a group composition where someone else is providing might and fury, they would be doing EXACTLY the same damage with more survivability.

How will this affect the meta? One might stacking class gets added to COF P1 farms—lots of other classes can excel at this. In other dungeons, one slot that was devoted to Warrior can optionally get switched to a might-stacking class.

2 warr/2 guard/1 mesmer gets a bit of a nerf since both Guardians will have to swap for staff 4 and sacrifice damage to stack might. With this change, perhaps it would be more efficient to look at the might stacking options other classes have. Most likely, this meta would remain—but other groups would be able to compete.

It seems like a lot of other classes have interesting might stacking talents— but all for naught, since warriors stack might so easily. This would make a lot more traits and builds for other classes worth looking at.

2.) Mesmers (Or Engineers)

Mesmer’s unique abilities make one per group almost necessary.

The simple fix? Give Engineers a “Portal Gun” talent, and give engineers an AOE frenzy buff. Obviously care will have to be taken that this does not buff them in PVP. Now groups can bring one Mesmer or an Engie to fulfill the necessary unique buffs—Mesmer’s still having the advantage of reflects. Alternatively, give Engineers portal, and Rangers an AOE frenzy elite skill. Make it PVE only if you need to.

3.) Guardians

I main a Guardian, so I’ll be honest and say I might be biased here. I personally feel that Guardians do a bit less damage than people realize, and that this low damage is a fair exchange for the utility they bring. However, it is possible that Guardian survivability needs a slight nerf to make it a bit less easy to play compared to other classes. Giving another class, perhaps rangers, the ability to AOE stack enemies might help as well. To be honest, I’m least confident about how to fix Guardian or if Guardian really needs a fix so much as Guardian/warriors synergy needs a nerf. I do agree that they are too common and effective, but perhaps other classes need to be brought up rather than Guardians being brought down. Maybe Guardians are the place where other classes need to be buffed up to, whereas Warriors are just a clear outlier that needs a damage nerf.

Let’s Look Back at the Group Compositions I posted above:

With these changes, I think the games min/max group composition could become much more interesting and diverse, opening up a ton of options. Things can never be perfect, but I think this would be a vast improvement. I have a zerker warrior, and I’m not trying to get it nerfed— I just have more fun when I’m in a group with more diversity, combo fields, buffs— I don’t want every dungeon run to be exactly the same. I want options.

4 War/Mesmer:

3 DPS zerkers/ 1 might-stacker/ Mesmer/Engineer.

2 War/2 Guard/ Mesmer:

2 Zerker DPS/ 1 might stacker/1 Guardian/Mesmer/Engineer.

2 War/ 2 Guard/ Mesmer:

2 Zerker DPS, 1 might stacker, 1 Guard/Mesmer/Engineer.

Thanks for reading and letting me know what you think.

All classes in general need more unique utility abilities like the mesmer portal and guardian bubble (well excepting of course the guardian and mesmer). But copy/pasting the mesmers portal on to the engineer would be a bad idea in my opinion.

Let me guess, you are Asuran xD
I like your suggestions. Too bad they don’t solve the problem that Rangers would still be cast aside, and since it is my favourite class, that makes me sad.

Gabby.3205:

Let me guess, you are Asuran xD
I like your suggestions. Too bad they don’t solve the problem that Rangers would still be cast aside, and since it is my favourite class, that makes me sad.

Ranger buffs are something I care deeply about as well. I just decided to focus on this big issue in this thread, assuming that Anet is aware of individual class issues. I wanted to address the OP meta— since I figure Anet is working on the underpowered classes.

Perhaps Engineers could have portal, and Rangers could gain an ability like Time Warp.

Nah Warriors are fine as they are no need to nurf them or u will see them as weak as the Mesmer’s are now. They need to allow tanking back in this game for warrior’s as far as I can say.

BLACKTHORNTK.5739:

Nah Warriors are fine as they are no need to nurf them or u will see them as weak as the Mesmer’s are now. They need to allow tanking back in this game for warrior’s as far as I can say.

With my suggestions, Warriors would remain the highest damage. You would just need say, an Elementalist to stack might and fury. Or a Ranger to provide Fury with warhorn/pet and another class to stack might.

It really opens up a lot of group compositions.

Hamartia.3421:

BLACKTHORNTK.5739:

Nah Warriors are fine as they are no need to nurf them or u will see them as weak as the Mesmer’s are now. They need to allow tanking back in this game for warrior’s as far as I can say.

With my suggestions, Warriors would remain the highest damage. You would just need say, an Elementalist to stack might and fury. Or a Ranger to provide Fury with warhorn/pet and another class to stack might.

It really opens up a lot of group compositions.

I agree but only against groups, against only one enemy it should be the thief of course

Black Teagan.9215:

Hamartia.3421:

BLACKTHORNTK.5739:

Nah Warriors are fine as they are no need to nurf them or u will see them as weak as the Mesmer’s are now. They need to allow tanking back in this game for warrior’s as far as I can say.

With my suggestions, Warriors would remain the highest damage. You would just need say, an Elementalist to stack might and fury. Or a Ranger to provide Fury with warhorn/pet and another class to stack might.

It really opens up a lot of group compositions.

I agree but only against groups, against only one enemy it should be the thief of course

I don’t have a strong opinion on this. =)

Does thief single target beat warrior?