Guild Wars 2

Prysin.8542:

Spicyhash.7605:

I think the funniest thing about warriors is how much they resemble cats. The second they don’t see something they like, they immediately greatsword 3/5 rush outta there. Usually accompanied by a sword 2 or that one hammer leap. Hilarious.

I am annoyed with the warrior class in general, and I don’t find mine fun to play. It makes the cheese that is the mesmer class look tame. I would rather fight a PU mesmer and actually have a shot at killing them than I would fight a warrior who I know will bail as soon as things get tough. Warriors are just as skittish/lame as thieves except they have insane survivability and CC so when they come back from resetting the fight they have a better chance at winning.

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@Prysin.8542

You can’t even use stun breakers or stability against a warrior. Why? Because they have access to more CC than any other class has access to stability/stunbreakers.

Earthshaker
Hammer Shock
Staggering blow
Throw Bolas
Pin Down
Stomp
Bull’s Charge
Rifle Butt
Skull Crack
Tremor
Pummel Bash
Flurry
Shield Bash
Kick

There’s only like one underwater CC. It’s completely out of control.

The worst part is that it is possible to have access to like 8 or 9 of these at one time, while still having room for balanced stance or another stability.

Seeing as stability makes you an unstoppable killing machine aside from direct/condition damage (which is useless because nobody can catch a warrior), damage should be severely reduced while under the effects of stability.

heard of using stability PRE engagement? Oh wait, i main a ranger so my stability lasts very long, i can afford to use it before going in. Sorry, forgot that most of you only get 10 seconds.

Thief: one method of stability, and you can’t do anything when you have it
Necro: 3 seconds, maximum and it’s only for one build
Mesmer: mantras, minimal duration anyway on a long c/d

etc etc etc. stability doesn’t do anything. ‘use stability’ is just a crutch that people who play classes that abuse cc use to justify.

Other professions can bring a lot to the group. However they choose not to. Then they hate on guards and warriors who do.

3/4 players are warriors or guards doesn’t mean any of them are competent. Which, frankly, blows my mind. Guardian is the second easiest class in the entire game to play well, right behind warrior. Yet some people still play it poorly.

First, please understand that Necros and Mesmers are NOT people so those characters should not be included in this discussion.

If 3 of 4 players are Guardian or Warrior that is because a zerg needs those to really operate. As was brought up before, crowd control is very important to controlling a fight and winning, hence why hammer trains became so popular (and why I love carrying Saffron bread around). So more guardians (for Stability support) and more warriors (counter-crowd control and Stability/clears) were needed, etc., etc.

Spicyhash.7605:

Prysin.8542:

heard of using stability PRE engagement? Oh wait, i main a ranger so my stability lasts very long, i can afford to use it before going in. Sorry, forgot that most of you only get 10 seconds.

Thief: one method of stability, and you can’t do anything when you have it
Necro: 3 seconds, maximum and it’s only for one build
Mesmer: mantras, minimal duration anyway on a long c/d

etc etc etc. stability doesn’t do anything. ‘use stability’ is just a crutch that people who play classes that abuse cc use to justify.

Thief lacks stability as a boon but generally has an excess of evades, blinds, stealth and ports to keep out of a warriors grasp. Mesmers are pretty similar in this regard. An equally skilled hammer warrior has little chance against a roaming mesmer build. Mesmers are almost immune to control unless they get caught on complete cooldown.

Necros frequently have three health bars and access to fear which is a great way to out control a hammer warrior.

Hammer warriors are a very counterable class for most builds. Their control is tied to very obvious windups and the hammer is generally not a DPS spike. Where trouble comes in is when they move in packs where the control is constant and the damage is consistent.

As for Ranger stability (not including Signet Rangers), it does have a long up time but the 2 minute cooldown and big flashing red effects around them make them easy to kite until it wears off.

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

First, please understand that Necros and Mesmers are NOT people so those characters should not be included in this discussion.

If 3 of 4 players are Guardian or Warrior that is because a zerg needs those to really operate. As was brought up before, crowd control is very important to controlling a fight and winning, hence why hammer trains became so popular (and why I love carrying Saffron bread around). So more guardians (for Stability support) and more warriors (counter-crowd control and Stability/clears) were needed, etc., etc.

Except the counter to hammer trains is synergy between, and intelligent use of, Well of Corruption/Axe 3 and Null Field with hard CC skills. Hammer trains are exceptionally self-limiting and are generally easy to deal with. Their mobility is abysmal because all of the guardians are running Hammer/Staff (which is an awful idea; people need to stop encouraging newbies to use that weaponset). Their over-reliance on hammers (and the associated glacial attack speed) means that they are EXTREMELY susceptible to blind, and they always, without a fault, push in straight lines. If you dodge to the left or the right of a hammer train push you’ll miss 100% of their damage every time. The myth that parties need to be composed of 2x warrior 2x guardian 1x backline to be successful is just that, a myth.

I would even argue that backliners are MORE important than frontliners. In the current meta, the truly skilled guilds have absolutely rock-solid backliners, and the guilds who don’t tend to have little to no sustain. Furthermore, I firmly believe that backline has a far, far higher skill ceiling when compared to frontline. Throwing more stability at the problem isn’t how you solve the issue. Better movement, more intelligent skill use, coordination, and proper builds all contribute far more to a group’s success than an extra bit of stability or another hammer.

tl;dr: Hammer trains are only good for either outnumbering your opponents or wiping pug groups.

Boonprot.6274:

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

First, please understand that Necros and Mesmers are NOT people so those characters should not be included in this discussion.

If 3 of 4 players are Guardian or Warrior that is because a zerg needs those to really operate. As was brought up before, crowd control is very important to controlling a fight and winning, hence why hammer trains became so popular (and why I love carrying Saffron bread around). So more guardians (for Stability support) and more warriors (counter-crowd control and Stability/clears) were needed, etc., etc.

Except the counter to hammer trains is synergy between, and intelligent use of, Well of Corruption/Axe 3 and Null Field with hard CC skills. Hammer trains are exceptionally self-limiting and are generally easy to deal with. Their mobility is abysmal because all of the guardians are running Hammer/Staff (which is an awful idea; people need to stop encouraging newbies to use that weaponset). Their over-reliance on hammers (and the associated glacial attack speed) means that they are EXTREMELY susceptible to blind, and they always, without a fault, push in straight lines. If you dodge to the left or the right of a hammer train push you’ll miss 100% of their damage every time. The myth that parties need to be composed of 2x warrior 2x guardian 1x backline to be successful is just that, a myth.

I would even argue that backliners are MORE important than frontliners. In the current meta, the truly skilled guilds have absolutely rock-solid backliners, and the guilds who don’t tend to have little to no sustain. Furthermore, I firmly believe that backline has a far, far higher skill ceiling when compared to frontline. Throwing more stability at the problem isn’t how you solve the issue. Better movement, more intelligent skill use, coordination, and proper builds all contribute far more to a group’s success than an extra bit of stability or another hammer.

tl;dr: Hammer trains are only good for either outnumbering your opponents or wiping pug groups.

Ermmmm, please don’t use logic, you are making too much sense! Plus, you are letting the walking bags (ie hammer trains) on to our little farming secret.

All kidding aside, we try to run one warrior, one guardian, and the rest backline. As long as your front line knows how to do their thing and the backline knows how to do theirs, we end up wiping pretty much whoever we go up against.

vladis.9072:

guardians have great healing abilities, control, mobility.

I understand that this thread is full of opinions, but that line right there got me man xD.

Guardians have great mobility? I have to completely disagree with you there. Guardians are the slowest profession in the game. Sure guardians can provide swiftness to a zerg, but how many guardians have ever ran away from you?

Guardians have great control? No more or less than anyone else. Guardians have skills that help control the flow of battle (wards and barriers), but lack control in small skirmishes or when facing an individuals. Guardians don’t have daze, fear, stun, cripple, or confusion. A guardian can chill with a trait with 50% chance on critical only with a hammer.

I don’t know what servers you guys play on, but I can honestly say that I’ve been seeing plenty of variety lately. Personally, I used to see nothing but mesmers and thieves everywhere. However, I will say that all commanders for my server now command as either a guardian or warrior.

Your friendly neighborhood guardian.

Jayne.9251:

When they run away, yes

Watch this and you will change your mind.

http://www.gw2wvw.net/video/pineapple-warrior-solo-outnumbered-2

Atherakhia.4086:

Yup, Warriors and Guardians are completely out of control. Far too much utility and variety was given to these classes while next to nothing has been given to others. Hell, the entire medium armor segment may as well not even exist outside of roaming right now.

Game lacks any direction or focus and I have no faith in ANet getting it turned around. I mean check out ANet’s responses to the Ranger forum… glaring class issues that have been an issue since day 1 aren’t even on their radar and they have no interest in fixing anything but low hanging fruit in which the class has none.

I’ve got my Warrior I run with now and will have my guardian to 80 by the time the December patch comes around to nerf Warriors (which is just going to move more over to condi/regen as opposed to hammer/crit builds which is just as op.

Warrior, Guardian, Necro, or bust is the name of the game.

Watched a ranger outplay a warrior yesterday 1v1, drained him dry. No “OP” was called from either side.

Also see mesmers and thieves school warriors in 1v1 all day long like its noones business.

Fuzzion.2504:

Jayne.9251:

When they run away, yes

Watch this and you will change your mind.

http://www.gw2wvw.net/video/pineapple-warrior-solo-outnumbered-2

He’s a very calm and collective player. Give him time to learn any profession and he still collect many bags.

This was posted by arenanet on reddit earlier now you can see how wrong you are.

76.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

tom.7468:

This was posted by arenanet on reddit earlier now you can see how wrong you are.

Stats from 2012 are hardly relevant to the current situation in 2014.

tom.7468:

This was posted by arenanet on reddit earlier now you can see how wrong you are.

What’s wrong with GW2 players? Why all the male characters?

Keep in mind those are for PvE, WvW and sPvP. I think those graphs could be skewed a bit for WvW. To be realistic I would estimate around 65% of players are either Guardian or Warrior (in WvW) – 9/10 is a complete exaggeration (although 65% is still a problem).

Again, realistically, I have alts for all classes (except ranger, ick) and WvW spec on all of them and frequently play them in WvW and what it boils down to is: Warrior is low risk and high reward (especially with a hammer in large groups) – I wouldn’t say OP, it’s just far too rewarding.

Silly high self healing, loads of cc and high mobility from the weapons themselves without needing to waste utilities on it. So the question should be why are other classes not brought up to the level of warriors and guardians.

Atherakhia.4086:

Yup, Warriors and Guardians are completely out of control. Far too much utility and variety was given to these classes while next to nothing has been given to others.

I play my guardian because, with appropriate dodging of your hammer train or aoe bomb, I can survive in the center of your zerg. I find that most other professions cannot do this, nor should they be able to. This allows me to be a first line while the squishies behind me nuke you.

The major appeal is survival not variety or utility. In fact, guardian doesn’t have very much variety. Just about every zerg build is probably 0/0/30/30/10 or 0/0/10/30/30 or something very similar with 5-15 points sprinkled somewhere else as a personal preference.

If you look through the guardian forums, you’ll see that most guardians have lack of variety as a major complaint.

Also, it makes sense that a profession titled “guardian” should have enhanced survival.

Antara.3189:

Atherakhia.4086:

Yup, Warriors and Guardians are completely out of control. Far too much utility and variety was given to these classes while next to nothing has been given to others. Hell, the entire medium armor segment may as well not even exist outside of roaming right now.

Game lacks any direction or focus and I have no faith in ANet getting it turned around. I mean check out ANet’s responses to the Ranger forum… glaring class issues that have been an issue since day 1 aren’t even on their radar and they have no interest in fixing anything but low hanging fruit in which the class has none.

I’ve got my Warrior I run with now and will have my guardian to 80 by the time the December patch comes around to nerf Warriors (which is just going to move more over to condi/regen as opposed to hammer/crit builds which is just as op.

Warrior, Guardian, Necro, or bust is the name of the game.

Watched a ranger outplay a warrior yesterday 1v1, drained him dry. No “OP” was called from either side.

Also see mesmers and thieves school warriors in 1v1 all day long like its noones business.

That is the trade off. Those classes are very good at running around ganking and soloing. Warriors and Guardians excel at group activity.

Paintrain Meta, that´s why. Guardians deliver stability, protection and condition remove. Warriors have warbanners and blastfinishers. Both classes are heavy and eat damage like it´s nothing.

Fix Aoe Cap and things will change…at least in WvW.

In guild groups.. Yeah its warrior and guardian dominated. In pug zergs, small scale and solo play though it seems pretty evenly spread to me.

i have to agree with OP. yes.

The reason you see a lot of heavies is only because they are the head of the train. Light and mediums are mixed in there too. The meta is fine as is. The AoE cap is fine as is. If they increased the AoE limit all you’d end up with is GC Staff Guards, Ele’s, and Necros melting everything in range. Which would be boring as heck.

DeWolfe.2174:

The reason you see a lot of heavies is only because they are the head of the train. Light and mediums are mixed in there too. The meta is fine as is. The AoE cap is fine as is. If they increased the AoE limit all you’d end up with is GC Staff Guards, Ele’s, and Necros melting everything in range. Which would be boring as heck.

I actually agree with you 100%. A large proportion of players seem to think that anything with Guardians and Warriors automatically makes a hammertrain. It doesn’t. What does make a hammer train, though, is when your parties are made up of 2x guard 2x warrior 1x misc, like a lot of budding GvG guilds out there. You don’t need anywhere near that much frontline or stab to be successful. You just need to improve your movement. Also, let me re-iterate, hammer trains are really easy to kill and dodge. I promise.

The reason warriors and guardians are pretty much the dominant class in WvW is survivability/ability to output damage + ease of use. Not many other classes combine this very well.

I’ve played all but the ranger in WvW at 80 in good gear.

From easiest to hardest to do well with(imho):

1) Warrior
2) Guardian
3) Mesmer
4) Thief
5) Necro
6) Engineer
7) Elementalist

I’m playing the ele as a WvW main now, simply because it’s the most fun, but very frustrating when a no brain warrior adds into a fight and hits you with an eviscerate for 9k and that’s 2/3 of your health gone after you’ve been dancing around the keyboard for 5 minutes to get the other guy to 4/5.

Warriors and guardians are the path of least resistance. It’s natures law.

People just want an easy class which they can do well with and feel good about themselves whilst not getting 2 shotted by thieves and other dps.

When I go into spvp and play a glass ele and die every 10 seconds to anything which looks my way, then go to my warrior,run zerker setup, don’t die once the whole match whilst being able to kill at will, i’m not thinking:

’I’m amazing!!!! i’m so good at this game!!!’.

I’m really thinking ‘Warriors are ridiculous!, but it’s pretty fun to kill other warriors and thieves, why bother gimping myself playing a challenging class.’

Claude.9120:

Silly high self healing, loads of cc and high mobility from the weapons themselves without needing to waste utilities on it. So the question should be why are other classes not brought up to the level of warriors and guardians.

Bringing everyone “up” to their level will introduce a massive powercreep. Once everyone else is brought up, some of them will be brought “too much” up and become “op”. Then to cure OP, we make the rest “op” and now everything is “op” and you can pretty much solo all content by tappin your 1 key with your toes while eating dinner or watching a movie.

We try to run a balanced setup → 10 frontliner, 10 “backliner” (midline included).
If we go bigger in numbers, we try to stay with this setup, which means if we have 24 guys we try to get 12/12

Fasyx.9347:

Paintrain Meta, that´s why. Guardians deliver stability, protection and condition remove. Warriors have warbanners and blastfinishers. Both classes are heavy and eat damage like it´s nothing.

Fix Aoe Cap and things will change…at least in WvW.

+100000000000000000000000000000000 AOE would make busting these hammer trains easy as pie.

phaeris.7604:

1) Warrior
2) Guardian
3) Mesmer
4) Thief
5) Necro
6) Engineer
7) Elementalist

There is something wrong with this range. I cannot quite put my ranger on it.

If you plan on just swinging away at w/e is near you then yes Warrior is easiest to play. If you plan on working as a team to bring down a worthy opponent, then you may think otherwise. I laugh everytime I see a Theif or a Mesmer or even a Ranger just run straight at me like they own the place. Normally they result in just auto attacking and spamming w/e they have that isn’t on cd.

I find it hard to trust people when they say Warrior is op when so many people I personally have seen have no idea how to play against someone who can take a hit annnd give it right back. Warriors are vulnarable to range attacks (not all but most builds). Kite them if you seem them pull out an axe or a gs as they normally require decent proximity to fight you. If they pull out a rifle, get right in their face and circle attack them. It is very hard to keep targets on someone moving around your feet with a rifle.

But kitten y people just run in swinging and they get their butts handed to them so they complain.

Current meta is to survive.

yup theres a lot. easy fix tho, anet just needs to add strip all boon skills to the non-GWEN professions.

The run i just did of the aetherblade path in TA shows how bad this whole thing is. My guild mate wanted to try it so we got a group of random classes and had some problems but got stuck on slick. Was gonna give up when we decided to change to our warriors and guardians and try again. not only did we beat slick with ease but we finished the whole dungeon without any more major problems. I think this shows a major imbalance in the power and survive ability of the heavy classes in this game compared to everything else. I know other classes have their place but it seems everything is easier with a heavy class so we see more of them.

In ideal zerg fights, all classes except for rangers and engineers have major roles. Guardians are the backbone, provides group with stability, protection, retaliation, might and some initial heals. Warriors, passive dps and CC, condition removal. Main source of CC are stun and knockbacks. Since hammerstun is nerfed, good groups prefer flurry over it. Necros are the main source of DPS and boon strips staying ranged. Eles are the major class for heals and some CC on engage, also DPS. Mesmers are for harassment and null fields, veils, crucial timewarp on stack etc. Thieves are casterkillers. If you have imbalance of any class, things would go wrong. It’s a different case in huge blobs though. But a blob with 60 random players vs a blob with 20 skilled co ordinated classes with 20 other randoms, the second one would melt through the first blob. I have nothing to say about rangers, but Engineers are one of the best roamers out there. Sure, everyone running warr/guard to “survive” but when that blob of 40 including 20 guild group statics and veils over you, you have nowhere to go no matter how many melee you have with you. I have every classes except for ranger. I enjoy every single of them. Depends on what am I doing and yeah, I started this game after launch with a Warrior, it’s my main. If you have no clue what I wrote, make a Ranger, get Arrow cart mastery and siege might maxed, go to EotM, build a superior ac at the top of the keep gate,man it.. and go afk..profit.

phaeris.7604:

From easiest to hardest to do well with(imho):

1) Warrior
2) Guardian
3) Mesmer
4) Thief
5) Necro
6) Engineer
7) Elementalist

Not even close if we’re talking about the zerg meta, lol.

Guardian is way easier than Warrior (due to shotgun staff), Elementalist comes in right after Necro (which would be somewhat equal to Warrior). Mesmer is at the bottom together with the Engineer and Thief.

I agree with your placement of the Ranger.

my only problem with the current meta: medium armor classes not include
its a war. you must to survive, help friends, move as a team. you will never see on any battlefield soldiers with a knife. berzerker for pve, toughness for war.
what i miss from gw2 is the body block from gw1.thats the last thing what i need to feel myself on a battlefield

I play guardian simply because of the heals and great defense.

I would say most people play heavy armored professions because they’re tankier and can go to places most of their other professions can’t – because they’re too squishy.

Don’t even get me started on how unfair it is to have warriors with 35,000+ health AND heavy armor.

If the other classes would stop being so bad then Heavy Inc. might be more lenient.

Stand The Wall.6987:

If the other classes would stop being so bad then Heavy Inc. might be more lenient.

its not about others being bad, it is almost entirely that the players that play the “metagame” refuse to budge even if bringing a few different professions can greatly help them.
Where there is a will, there is a way. However in the case of WvW meta, there is no will to change it, so there is no way to change it aside from forcing the meta to change through nerfs and buffs

Zaoda.1653:

I play guardian simply because of the heals and great defense.

I would say most people play heavy armored professions because they’re tankier and can go to places most of their other professions can’t – because they’re too squishy.

Don’t even get me started on how unfair it is to have warriors with 35,000+ health AND heavy armor.

Those warriors are nothing but a meat shield. The couldn’t even kill a ranger pet, you have nothing to fear from them.

phaeris.7604:

6) Engineer

Naaw bro, ‘nades – make’s things nice and easy. Either way I mostly agree with your list. I feel that Engineer is the absolute sweet spot for risk/reward (which is why I play it the most). Pity ANet are semi-nerfing it in the upcoming patch.

I think that’s the problem – the first 2 or 3 get more reward (loot bags being the metric here) for that virtual “no risk” you are talking about. My warrior is, quite honestly, hurrdurr-spec and my engi is a fine-tuned beast from hell: still more lewts on the warrior.

zamalek.2154:

phaeris.7604:

6) Engineer

Naaw bro, ‘nades – make’s things nice and easy. Either way I mostly agree with your list. I feel that Engineer is the absolute sweet spot for risk/reward (which is why I play it the most). Pity ANet are semi-nerfing it in the upcoming patch.

I think that’s the problem – the first 2 or 3 get more reward (loot bags being the metric here) for that virtual “no risk” you are talking about. My warrior is, quite honestly, hurrdurr-spec and my engi is a fine-tuned beast from hell: still more lewts on the warrior.

I love hurrdurr spec’d warriors. they are so easy to kill with my level 30 engi

Epic.3950:

I love hurrdurr spec’d warriors. they are so easy to kill with my level 30 engi

I don’t know any warrior that specs around Hundred Blades. Most warriors use HB as an attack of opportunity and the GS as a mobility platform. Most that use it are control warriors and when chain stunned/immobilized by a zerk warrior, HB will kill almost any class especially an uplevel. Most uplevels barely tickle a warrior for damage anyway.

… and yes I do have a fully geared level 80 engi and a fully geared level 80 warrior