Guild Wars 2

I wanted to raise a few questions with this post as well as give my opinions on the questions posed. Before I start, I’ve been an avid player of GW1 and GW2, both since their respective releases. Both games I’ve maxed pretty much everything, be it class, gear, etc. I’m not including this to brag on accomplishments, just to show that I’ve seen pretty much every stage of both games through different patches, nerfs, balances, etc.

Recently both the Engineer and Thief classes have been nerfed pretty bad. To say otherwise means you probably don’t play either class. Both these classes have incredibly high skill caps to be effective. In the past they have both been “OP” because, when played by the top 5% of players they’re really kitten difficult to kill or even survive an attack from.

Naturally this causes people to beat on their chest and cry “NERF THIS NOW” because getting obliterated by a highly skilled player is very frustrating.

The question I’d like to pose, however, is whether classes with high skill caps should be “balanced” with other classes to bring that top percentage of players to be equal.

It’s very easy to be good at Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer, and Necro in wvw be it roaming or zerging. They simply have a lower skill threshold before they become competitive.

So basically someone in the ~50th percentile at playing warrior(in terms of skill) can compete with someone in the ~75th percentile playing a thief or engineer.

Both thief and engineer, especially thief, are high-risk-high-reward classes. A novice thief or engineer isn’t going to gank someone back to last week like a highly skilled player will. A novice, or even middle of the pack engineer player isn’t going to use their skills with as much coordination or creativity as an expert either.

So is it fair to mercilessly “balance” classes like thief and engineer because people cry and QQ when they run into the very best of those classes even though reaching that level of skill has a MUCH higher cap than other classes? I don’t think so.

TL;DR
Thief/engineer take the most skill to play, therefore they should have the potential to be dominant(See highest skill caps) over classes which require significantly less skill to be competitive at.

Balance is probably the wrong way to go about this. Diversity is a far better ideology.

Anet should be analyzing traits and skills that are used too frequently and too infrequently. If some trait or skill is relied on too much, it should be adjusted downward. Likewise if some trait or skill isn’t used at all, it should be improved.

Essentially they should use the economy of player builds to guide the population into a diverse build set. What hurts GW2 isn’t balance as much as it is the inevitable boring play that results from unused and overused build elements.

The problem is you have so many craptastic PvE players who run all kinds of non sense and use way under-powered skills frequently. The run bad armor, bad builds, use bad traits, bad skills, etc. So there is no way to parse good information for WvW from the game.

You can’t get it from WvW players as they don’t even believe non PvE players exist (and have said as much). So, unfortunately, you get the crud that has been out since release not being upgraded due to people playing and using all kinds of crazy kitten.

I agree with a lot in your post OP, but that’s probably because I’m a Thief main…

I don’t claim to be an amazingly good, top 1% Thief and I’ve only ever run into one or two of those Thieves during my entire time in WvW. They’ll hands down systematically destroy everything and it’s crazy to watch or even be on the receiving end and that’s good.

What’s not good is that a Thief who’s in the top 25% of skill, gets his kitten handed to him by PU mesmer or D/D Cele Ele who of which are in the 75% bracket level of “skill”. Some builds literally carry the player to victory and it suddenly changes to a game of “who’s got the better build”.

I have to regularly check a Mesmer’s food and utility, and if it’s condi then I start running for the hills. These are the things which need targeting for tweaks and nerfs. A perfect game should have equal balancing and lets face it, no game is perfect. However, Anet need to start with the absolute most broken builds and tune them appropriately.

Thief fares well against a lot of professions and builds but some are simply impossible. Absolutely not chance of killing them.

I suppose the bottom line is, whilst yes, the skill cap is distorted between professions (and in some cases, “extremely” distorted), its the builds of the professions which cause the distortion and need to be looked at.

Straegen.2938:

Anet should be analyzing traits and skills that are used too frequently and too infrequently. If some trait or skill is relied on too much, it should be adjusted downward. Likewise if some trait or skill isn’t used at all, it should be improved.

Straegen has pretty much hit the nail on the head as it would provide buffs for Engi/Thief and nerfs to the broken builds.

To be honest I think the only things really broken at the moment is the mesmer burst from stealth. The rest would be global nerfs:

If they:
1- could make it impossible for mesmers to 1-shot people from stealth in half a second (not even a thief can do that)
2- reduce power scaling globally by 15% and
3- nerf conditions by something around 20% (except bleeding)
Then I think the game would be pretty balanced from a number point of view.

Then they would need to look at the damage/skill cap and fix some stuff, like for example ranger longbow and AI damage (they could buff something else, I’m not talking just nerfs) and some classes having better elites than others, cooldown irregularities between classes, etc.

Finally some soft cc conditions will have to get looked at with HoT, specially Chill, Slow and Weakness which sometimes makes it impossible to even fight back. I think the percentage of effectiveness of these skills will need to be reduced with the introduction of new conditions.

I don’t think skillcap (or skill floor) should have anything to do with Balance between the professions.

In competitive play, it’s not so much your own skills you need to master, as the other guy’s. So in some ways, however hard it might be to play the “complex” professions, it is far more difficult to keep track of an opponent playing one.

ie “ok he’s stealthed so dodge in 3-2-1 owait probly traited, run awayyy there he is now cleave clones dang stealthed again kitten does Moa 4 do again??”

Agree with Straegen, there needs to be more build diversity.
Historically though, some traits that were heavily relied on became Baseline.

I must respectfully disagree with your base proposition. It is not a good idea to have the most skilled players in the game shoehorned into one or two class choices in order to shine. That means that the skill ceilings for the classes should be somewhat normalized, which likely means raising some and lowering others. Would be tough, but I feel like that’s what we pay game devs to do…make good games.

A second note, I don’t think that one can really say thieves have the highest skill cap. Yes, you can do some great things with them, but the stealth mechanic always causes a skill cap to plummet because it largely removes the opponent from the equation. In cases where there is stealth, burst damage and cc all in one combined with multiple leaps (some of which are stun breakers)…that’s too many tools that the opponent cannot reasonably answer to to say that it is a high skill cap class and deserves to be more powerful for it. A thief without stealth would be high skill cap, a thief with stealth is just hard to respond to.

That said, I don’t like that the recent changes seem to make the least interesting thief builds the favorites. I’m no fan of backstab.

I can’t say anything about engis though as I haven’t played much on them.

The stronger a class/build is, the easier it becomes to play (successfully).

Well i dont agree with opener at all… rlly a good thief is much more scary than a good warrior.
I see the difference between warrior and thief, i mean yes warrior is much more easy to play and learn, but when you come to high level, they are at the same spot, no warrior is even in a worst spot, since its easy to play but hard to make the difference at high level.
I agree only on mesmer statements, yes its easy to play and… even more easier to master!!

Sviel.7493:

I must respectfully disagree with your base proposition. It is not a good idea to have the most skilled players in the game shoehorned into one or two class choices in order to shine. That means that the skill ceilings for the classes should be somewhat normalized, which likely means raising some and lowering others. Would be tough, but I feel like that’s what we pay game devs to do…make good games.

A second note, I don’t think that one can really say thieves have the highest skill cap. Yes, you can do some great things with them, but the stealth mechanic always causes a skill cap to plummet because it largely removes the opponent from the equation. In cases where there is stealth, burst damage and cc all in one combined with multiple leaps (some of which are stun breakers)…that’s too many tools that the opponent cannot reasonably answer to to say that it is a high skill cap class and deserves to be more powerful for it. A thief without stealth would be high skill cap, a thief with stealth is just hard to respond to.

That said, I don’t like that the recent changes seem to make the least interesting thief builds the favorites. I’m no fan of backstab.

I can’t say anything about engis though as I haven’t played much on them.

I agree with this over the OP and can add to the engineer part as I do play it also in WvW.

Power engineer is more risk and was so before the spec patch as they were very weak to conditions. This has been shored up some what due to the revamped alchemy line. Additionally they have access to some of the most amounts of immunity/blocks with tool kit and elixir S and the alchemy line. Not complaining just saying, which certainly gives them a lot more cushions to surviving burst than other classes like thief.

Condi engineer was not very high risk and incredibly rewarding, still is due to IP and the way they have so many conditions to cover the damaging ones. This is playing to the engineers strengths though and smart cleansing from the enemy team will render it fairly ineffective and unless the engineers team is built to overload with conditions it’ll be fairly weak in team fights.

I wouldn’t say skill cap is class specific though, I would say it’s build specific within reason obviously. Some builds have much higher risks and rewards but the meta builds will usually be the highest reward for the least risk, relatively.

“TL;DR
Thief/engineer take the most skill to play, therefore they should have the potential to be dominant(See highest skill caps) over classes which require significantly less skill to be competitive at”

I do not agree with this at all both as a false statement and in the fact that even if it were true it would make for an incredibly boring game.

All classes should be relatively balanced at max performance but within their role. For example thief and Mesmer could have a bunker spec but most other bunkers outshine it however those two completely outshine those other classes in a +1 and point decap/control aspect and are balanced against each other there.

And before a thief main comes and says “but thief doesn’t have a bunker” not yet, let’s wait on daredevil though as it’s clear everything with the specialisation patch was balanced initially against the elite specs.

apharma.3741:

And before a thief main comes and says “but thief doesn’t have a bunker” not yet, let’s wait on daredevil though as it’s clear everything with the specialisation patch was balanced initially against the elite specs.

Now it makes sense, now I understand why thief in its current state is so weak – and all other classes are that strong, it’s because their elites will drag them down, power wise, right?

Jana.6831:

apharma.3741:

And before a thief main comes and says “but thief doesn’t have a bunker” not yet, let’s wait on daredevil though as it’s clear everything with the specialisation patch was balanced initially against the elite specs.

Now it makes sense, now I understand why thief in its current state is so weak – and all other classes are that strong, it’s because their elites will drag them down, power wise, right?

It’s missing a key piece, the elite spec. Once that is out and can actually be played a lot more everything can be tuned up or down for all the builds which are using low stealth.

I mean the beta weekend is nice and all and the feedback helps but you can’t test everything. All the interactions between the elite spec, different traits within a class and with other classes will make a ton of difference to many classes. I expect a tuning down right across the board for all classes when a lot of interactions can be seen.

Concept is off. You are complaining about differences between skill and performances, but those differences are intentional. It is supposed to take some builds less work to be good.

In addition to scissor-ish > paper-ish > rock-ish type balancing, there is also the “we are going to make this OP just to change the meta and keep the game interesting.” Nearly every developer does this. It sucks, but thats the way it goes.

Secondly, there has to be a variety of low-skill-floor but still very successful classes for new players. If you don’t have condi-necros or something that you can just faceroll to victory, new players will just get wrecked. You can’t expect people to come in to a game where they need to be able to play the engineer/elementalist piano just to compete, they will quit or worse: become PvE heroes.

For a long time the entry level classes used to be thieves, warriors and bunker specs available to various classes. Its been every class at one point in time as the meta rotates: generally the OP class is the one with the lowest skill floor. At the moment I think its just condi-necros. Mesmers and cele-ele-DD are very OP but I think the skill floor isn’t low enough to accommodate that type of new player. People abusing those classes right now are experienced people who played other classes and decided to give mesmer a whirl while its the FOTM, and with their knowledge of the game and very limited knowledge of a new class they can be ridiculously competitive even when playing against better opponents.

tl:dr: there will always be some easymode, low-skill high-reward class, its important to bring new people into the game.

I think there are a number of issues with this topic.

First off, skill cap isn’t really defined; what makes it inherently that Thieves and Engineers take more skill to play? Plus the situations are too broad. For example, consider the difference between a d/d glass thief and a p/d dire condi roamer even just factoring this “risk and reward” thing. Likewise with an SD zerker engineer vs a condi double S engineer.

And even the method of success is hard to define. A roaming condi necro can certainly win many 1v1s in a faceroll fashion, but how does it perform when it has to disengage or fights people that constantly do so?

ArchonWing.9480:

I think there are a number of issues with this topic.

First off, skill cap isn’t really defined; what makes it inherently that Thieves and Engineers take more skill to play? Plus the situations are too broad. For example, consider the difference between a d/d glass thief and a p/d dire condi roamer even just factoring this “risk and reward” thing. Likewise with an SD zerker engineer vs a condi double S engineer.

The risk reward with P/D dire and D/D zerker thief should be about equal right now as the condis availlable to thief have been nerfed with the patch.

Straegen.2938:

Balance is probably the wrong way to go about this. Diversity is a far better ideology.

Anet should be analyzing traits and skills that are used too frequently and too infrequently. If some trait or skill is relied on too much, it should be adjusted downward. Likewise if some trait or skill isn’t used at all, it should be improved.

Essentially they should use the economy of player builds to guide the population into a diverse build set. What hurts GW2 isn’t balance as much as it is the inevitable boring play that results from unused and overused build elements.

I agree with this 100%. Still way too much GWEN is here along with “stuck in the past” power builds. Also still need a way to break up the mega blobs with forces 1/3 to 1/2 their numbers via skill coordination. Theoretically it is already possible but the execution is too problematic due to large scale fights lag.

Robert.6790:

TL;DR
Thief/engineer take the most skill to play, therefore they should have the potential to be dominant(See highest skill caps) over classes which require significantly less skill to be competitive at.

Yay! I haven’t seen such a post for a while. The skill cap needed for the different classes should not determine their “power”. Classes with a higher skill cap are usually more fun to play and have a lot more versatility and utilities.
I for myself enjoy my thief and my engi as they are. There are always some builds which are pretty easy to play and super effective at the same time but I don’t mind. With some practice I’ve managed to beat every cheese or even counter build so far – PU is another story…sometimes – and in the end it felt more rewarding than rolling over other players with some kind of faceroll cheese build.

TL;DR
Thief/engineer take the most skill to play, therefore they should have the potential to be dominant(See highest skill caps) over classes which require significantly less skill to be competitive at.

Apart from the fact it makes no sense whatsoever to me to say a profession has a high or low skill floor in itself (a build yes, not a profession) I do not agree it would be a good idea to clearly make a profession, regardless of how tricky it can be to master with it’s hardest builds, potentially inherently better.

Why? Because it would meant that, if we accept your opinion (which I certainly do not) of thieves and engi being the profession who would have the highest potential because of their highest skill floor, all pro players would invariably seek to play them because they ultimately lead to the best potential. Nothing in competition but thieves and engi? Really? That sux. I’m sorry but that is the mother of all bad ideas.

If you are anything like me you want to play more complex builds for the fun they provide, not because you want to feel legitimate to be OP and look down on ppl. I play all 8 professions and they all are max level fully geared but some of them I can’t play for long because I too often find them boring and too often irrelevant in too many contexts. Your reward is the fun you have to play something more exciting. The last thing this game need is what you suggest and which looks to me like an elitist validation. We already have way too many ego driven players anyway…

All profession should have the same overall potential but not all build should be as easy or difficult.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Apart from the fact it makes no sense whatsoever to me to say a profession has a high or low skill floor in itself (a build yes, not a profession)

With that perception you’re wrong, there are classes which are easier to play, no matter what weapons you chose.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

I do not agree it would be a good idea to clearly make a profession, regardless of how tricky it can be to master with it’s hardest builds, potentially inherently better.

I didn’t quote the rest of what you wrote but I refer to it:
If you make all classes equal at pro level, then again some classes wouldn’t be played, such as thief or engineer who are a lot harder to master than others.

And how many really good players are there anyway, so would it make a difference when all of them chose to be an engi or thief?

Just a flaw in your reasoning, I don’t really have an opinion on that as I can see why lower skilled players might be afraid of both classes and maybe that isn’t right. The approach anet took though, to make both classes basically unviable isn’t right either.

Jana.6831:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Apart from the fact it makes no sense whatsoever to me to say a profession has a high or low skill floor in itself (a build yes, not a profession)

With that perception you’re wrong, there are classes which are easier to play, no matter what weapons you chose.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

I do not agree it would be a good idea to clearly make a profession, regardless of how tricky it can be to master with it’s hardest builds, potentially inherently better.

I didn’t quote the rest of what you wrote but I refer to it:
If you make all classes equal at pro level, then again some classes wouldn’t be played, such as thief or engineer who are a lot harder to master than others.

And how many really good players are there anyway, so would it make a difference when all of them chose to be an engi or thief?

Just a flaw in your reasoning, I don’t really have an opinion on that as I can see why lower skilled players might be afraid of both classes and maybe that isn’t right. The approach anet took though, to make both classes basically unviable isn’t right either.

From my experience with all professions, depending on the context you are speaking of, all professions have easy builds and harder ones. Sure, not all equally hard to master but the judgement about what is or not the most difficult is so dependent on context and players preferences of play and past habits that it really becomes a futile argument.

If all classes are equal at pro level than they would all be played because they would ultimately all be equally viable. Only the time required to reach that level would differ. If your argument is that players would always go for what is easier it says a lot about you I think. I personally always seek what is more fun to play and it’s almost never what is easy.

Some like to drive automatic transmission because there is less to think about while others prefer to do it manually because it give the an active driving experience. But in the end, they can both reach the same speed and get you where you want as fast.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

From my experience with all professions, depending on the context you are speaking of, all professions have easy builds and harder ones. Sure, not all equally hard to master but the judgement about what is or not the most difficult is so dependent on context and players preferences of play and past habits that it really becomes a futile argument.

I also have all classes and in my opinion most of them are really easy to play, no matter the setup – if you chose only useless traits then it becomes harder, sure, but compare that to a thief with only useless traits, oh wait..
And no, my perception is that all classes but engi, thief and guard (because I don’t understand it at all) are easy to play. From what I see when facing these classes the perception stays the same. With the difference that guard looks pretty easy.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

If all classes are equal at pro level than they would all be played because they would ultimately all be equally viable. Only the time required to reach that level would differ. If your argument is that players would always go for what is easier it says a lot about you I think. I personally always seek what is more fun to play and it’s almost never what is easy.

Hey, I quoted a psychologist who gives me a free analysis, isn’t that great?
That was basically your own argument from the different point of view, to show you the flaws – and yes a lot of people chose what is easier to play, even though they could chose the harder to play class (skill wise).

I also have all classes and in my opinion most of them are really easy to play, no matter the setup – if you chose only useless traits then it becomes harder, sure, but compare that to a thief with only useless traits, oh wait..
And no, my perception is that all classes but engi, thief and guard (because I don’t understand it at all) are easy to play. From what I see when facing these classes the perception stays the same. With the difference that guard looks pretty easy.

Really? Because I can tell you right here and now that no matter the thief I play they all have it infinitely easier than I do at solo roaming while on my zerk staff ele. On a cele d/d ele tho that is extremely different I agree. But the point remain that the context and build determine what is harder not the profession alone. There are contexts where the zerk staff will enjoy a far easier time than pretty much any thief but not when dueling or roaming for sure I can tell you that.

Hey, I quoted a psychologist who gives me a free analysis, isn’t that great?
That was basically your own argument from the different point of view, to show you the flaws – and yes a lot of people chose what is easier to play, even though they could chose the harder to play class (skill wise).

My point is, don’t assume all of them would make that choice. Specially not if they desperately are the kind who want to prove they are the best… that ego is such a kitten… If the builds are all overall equivalent in potency, logic won’t be the factor to decide what is good or not based on a profession, which will bring diversity.

Jana.6831:

-snip-

I’m glad you’re not a dev.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Jana.6831:

-snip-

I’m glad you’re not a dev.

I am too, but you guys obviously failed to understand my point.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Really? Because I can tell you right here and now that no matter the thief I play they all have it infinitely easier than I do at solo roaming while on my zerk staff ele. On a cele d/d ele tho that is extremely different I agree. But the point remain that the context and build determine what is harder not the profession alone. There are contexts where the zerk staff will enjoy a far easier time than pretty much any thief but not when dueling or roaming for sure I can tell you that.

Yes, try to play thief with only dagger mainhand and compare that to staff ele.
Edit: Or maybe more accurate: SB thief vs Staff ele.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

My point is, don’t assume all of them would make that choice. Specially not if they desperately are the kind who want to prove they are the best… that ego is such a kitten… If the builds are all overall equivalent in potency, logic won’t be the factor to decide what is good or not based on a profession, which will bring diversity.

You assume they wouldn’t. My best friend in this game started out as a main thief and switched to guard because it’s easier – and he wasn’t bad by any means.
And you can’t change the mechanics of the classes- take a warrior, easy to play,no matter what build, harder to master, still he can allow himself a mistake against an equally skilled opponent, no matter the class and he doesn’t have to know all the classes’ mechanics in comparison to a thief.

Again: My point was to show you the flaws in your thinking, I don’t have an opinion (yet) on the OP.

Jana.6831:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Jana.6831:

-snip-

I’m glad you’re not a dev.

I am too, but you guys obviously failed to understand my point.

I believe others get your point. I know what I don’t get, is how you assume your subjective opinion is fact, in your argument. For example, I find thief to be one of, if not the easiest profession to play. Yet you post with the assumption that everyone agrees with you as to which professions have specific skill floors or ceilings. Of coarse, your not the only one in this thread working under that same inaccurate assumption.

dancingmonkey.4902:

I believe others get your point. I know what I don’t get, is how you assume your subjective opinion is fact, in your argument. For example, I find thief to be one of, if not the easiest profession to play. Yet you post with the assumption that everyone agrees with you as to which professions have specific skill floors or ceilings. Of coarse, your not the only one in this thread working under that same inaccurate assumption.

I think I included “in my opinion” everywhere -mind to quote me where I didn’t? ;)

Thanks everyone for the replies. Just a quick disclaimer though, I was only speaking from my experiences playing the game, so what I consider the hardest classes to play may be different than yours.

I want to change my main statement though a little bit: I think what I should have said originally is that, because the top tier engies and thieves were very very OP at one point, but also very hard to run from, they got nerfed. However the problem I have is that a thief and a warrior being played by people of equal skill would have unequal success. In order to be a “decent” thief you have to be in the top 25%. In order to match that thief on a warrior, you don’t really have to be that great.

I can speak to this form personal experience; when I got my warrior to 80, I geared him up and hopped in wvw right away. I ran into a couple thieves from FA who usually give me a pretty kitten good fight when I’m on other classes. First day in wvw on a warrior that I used tomes to level, I was able to stomp them pretty bad. I was a bit disappointed that a novice warrior like myself managed to kill a very skilled thief even though I consistently missed my stuns and attack combos. I pretty much killed them by spamming one on GS and timing a block or two correctly.

Thanks everyone for the replies, a lot of great stuff!

1.) Necro isn’t easy to be “good” at in WvW….I’ve never once died to a necro on any character because I’ve never encountered a good one.

2.) I agree with you on mesmers, their power creep was/is just too much and that’s coming from me as a previously mesmer main.

however, I don’t believe thieves are suddenly worse…I think it’s just that glass builds aren’t good enough, and good riddance to just glassy burst builds. I still see amazing thieves everywhere who can take down most classes except mesmer.

If you’re looking for an entry level class, warrior is as basic as it gets. You won’t be the hero of the battlefield, but you can get things done with no previous game knowledge and you have enough safety buttons that you can bungle things a bit.

If a class is so powerful at entry that it has a huge impact on the meta, then it’s a problem. The idea is that new players can be useful, not the line by which everything else is measured.

Jana.6831:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Really? Because I can tell you right here and now that no matter the thief I play they all have it infinitely easier than I do at solo roaming while on my zerk staff ele. On a cele d/d ele tho that is extremely different I agree. But the point remain that the context and build determine what is harder not the profession alone. There are contexts where the zerk staff will enjoy a far easier time than pretty much any thief but not when dueling or roaming for sure I can tell you that.

Yes, try to play thief with only dagger mainhand and compare that to staff ele.
Edit: Or maybe more accurate: SB thief vs Staff ele.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

My point is, don’t assume all of them would make that choice. Specially not if they desperately are the kind who want to prove they are the best… that ego is such a kitten… If the builds are all overall equivalent in potency, logic won’t be the factor to decide what is good or not based on a profession, which will bring diversity.

You assume they wouldn’t. My best friend in this game started out as a main thief and switched to guard because it’s easier – and he wasn’t bad by any means.
And you can’t change the mechanics of the classes- take a warrior, easy to play,no matter what build, harder to master, still he can allow himself a mistake against an equally skilled opponent, no matter the class and he doesn’t have to know all the classes’ mechanics in comparison to a thief.

Again: My point was to show you the flaws in your thinking, I don’t have an opinion (yet) on the OP.

For your first point, how many players with 2 weapon slots do you know that uses only one? Your reply is as ridiculous as me saying I play my ele with a focus only.

Now for your other point, I did not assume nobody would go for what is easier. I know many will. I said not everyone think in these terms. If there is a flaw in my thinking about this it wasn’t what you say I said as opposed to what I actually said.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

For your first point, how many players with 2 weapon slots do you know that uses only one? Your reply is as ridiculous as me saying I play my ele with a focus only.

Now for your other point, I did not assume nobody would go for what is easier. I know many will. I said not everyone think in these terms. If there is a flaw in my thinking about this it wasn’t what you say I said as opposed to what I actually said.

I already edited it, so I don’t really see your point, sorry.
No, you assumed that people would play what’s the most fun for them and for some that would be the easier option (= class), so make harder to play classes equally rewarding and a lot of players will go for the easier class – as seen with mesmer, for example – so your point that if you make harder to play classes more rewarding would lead to an imbalance is wrong in my opinion and I explained in now three posts why.

Edit: Grammar

Jana.6831:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

For your first point, how many players with 2 weapon slots do you know that uses only one? Your reply is as ridiculous as me saying I play my ele with a focus only.

Now for your other point, I did not assume nobody would go for what is easier. I know many will. I said not everyone think in these terms. If there is a flaw in my thinking about this it wasn’t what you say I said as opposed to what I actually said.

I already edited it, so I don’t really see your point, sorry.
No, you assumed that people would play what’s the most fun for them and for some that would be the easier option (= class), so make harder to play classes equally rewarding and a lot of players will go for the easier class – as seen with mesmer, for example – so your point that if you make harder to play classes more rewarding would lead to an imbalance is wrong in my opinion and I explained in now three posts why.

Edit: Grammar

Your edit was still bad. A thief has 2 weapons at a time not just one like ele. So short bow and something else was expected not just short bow or one dagger.

As for my assumption I must disagree. I said “I personally always seek what is more fun to play and it’s almost never what is easy” and that my point was “don’t assume all of them would make that choice”. I for one would not and I know I would not be alone.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Your edit was still bad. A thief has 2 weapons at a time not just one like ele. So short bow and something else was expected not just short bow or one dagger.

As for my assumption I must disagree. I said “I personally always seek what is more fun to play and it’s almost never what is easy” and that my point was “don’t assume all of them would make that choice”. I for one would not and I know I would not be alone.

So an ele has got 4 attunements and can heal himself with water, a thief can’t. an ele also has got invulnerability which a thief hasn’t.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Why? Because it would meant that, if we accept your opinion (which I certainly do not) of thieves and engi being the profession who would have the highest potential because of their highest skill floor, all pro players would invariably seek to play them because they ultimately lead to the best potential. Nothing in competition but thieves and engi? Really? That sux. I’m sorry but that is the mother of all bad ideas.

So you didn’t say that, I’m sorry.

Edit: Lets just agree to disagree, I hope those who are able to remember their own words and know wvw/pvp get my point.
And btw: There was some kind of balance before the june patch – the classes and weapon sets the hardest to play usually hit the hardest as well, with a few exceptions and without taking condi builds into account. Now nearly every class is face roll. That again isn’t directed to you just my final statement on this matter.

Jana.6831:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Your edit was still bad. A thief has 2 weapons at a time not just one like ele. So short bow and something else was expected not just short bow or one dagger.

As for my assumption I must disagree. I said “I personally always seek what is more fun to play and it’s almost never what is easy” and that my point was “don’t assume all of them would make that choice”. I for one would not and I know I would not be alone.

So an ele has got 4 attunements and can heal himself with water, a thief can’t. an ele also has got invulnerability which a thief hasn’t.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Why? Because it would meant that, if we accept your opinion (which I certainly do not) of thieves and engi being the profession who would have the highest potential because of their highest skill floor, all pro players would invariably seek to play them because they ultimately lead to the best potential. Nothing in competition but thieves and engi? Really? That sux. I’m sorry but that is the mother of all bad ideas.

So you didn’t say that, I’m sorry.

Edit: Lets just agree to disagree, I hope those who are able to remember their own words and know wvw/pvp get my point.
And btw: There was some kind of balance before the june patch – the classes and weapon sets the hardest to play usually hit the hardest as well, with a few exceptions and without taking condi builds into account. Now nearly every class is face roll. That again isn’t directed to you just my final statement on this matter.

I don’t understand why you bring the fact ele has 4 attunements, can heal with water and has invul in the context of my reply. It changes nothing to what I said and I could point out that Thief can spam weapon skills as long as he got initiative and can stealth. Two things ele can’t do but really what has it to do with the topic or what was discussed?

As for admitting your mistake and agreeing to disagree I think it is the way to go. It’s ok to make mistakes and see things differently. No harm in that.

Straegen.2938:

Balance is probably the wrong way to go about this. Diversity is a far better ideology.

Anet should be analyzing traits and skills that are used too frequently and too infrequently. If some trait or skill is relied on too much, it should be adjusted downward. Likewise if some trait or skill isn’t used at all, it should be improved.

Essentially they should use the economy of player builds to guide the population into a diverse build set. What hurts GW2 isn’t balance as much as it is the inevitable boring play that results from unused and overused build elements.

That is a terrible idea.
That philosophy is why ranger shortbow went from being a solid weapon to a complete piece of garbage. Rangers and shortbow weren’t op in anyway whatsoever but because too many rangers were using shortbow over longbow they decided to nerf it into the dirt to make the longbow more appealing. What happened instead was rangers were left in a (even more) broken state for years until they buffed the longbow.

You make adjustments according to what is unbalanced, not according to what is popular.

Also for those of you claiming condi necro is faceroll…. The only thing condi necro is ”faceroll” against is other condi builds. Quit rolling such cheesy builds and you won’t have a problem.

Jana.6831:

With that perception you’re wrong, there are classes which are easier to play, no matter what weapons you chose.

Jana.6831:

And you can’t change the mechanics of the classes- take a warrior, easy to play,no matter what build, harder to master, still he can allow himself a mistake against an equally skilled opponent, no matter the class and he doesn’t have to know all the classes’ mechanics in comparison to a thief.

Mechanics determine, how easy or hard a class is to learn. But once you know all mechanics and tricks and whatsoever about your class, those mechanics are not what makes your class hard or easy. It depends more on how good/effective (in a specific situation) your class is in comparison to other classes. Just take mesmer – they were considered a “hard-to-play” class very often. Now, after they got buffed, but still have the same mechanics, the are considered “easymode”.

Also if a warrior (or another “easy” class) doesn’t need as much knowledge as a thief to win a fight or whatever he wants to achieve, this does not say, a warrior can’t has as much or even more knowledge as the thief. And maybe he needs it in an other situation.

Robert.6790:

However the problem I have is that a thief and a warrior being played by people of equal skill would have unequal success. In order to be a “decent” thief you have to be in the top 25%. In order to match that thief on a warrior, you don’t really have to be that great.

But if you make a perfectly played thief stronger than a perfectly played warrior, it would be unfair again, because even if both player put the same effort into playing their class, the warrior would be worse. To get the same reward, the warrior would have to play better than the thief -> it would be automatically harder for the warrior than for the thief.

Just like I already wrote “the better a class/build is at something, the easier it becomes to be sucessfully at something”.

Currently thief feels/is hard to play, because it is weaker than most other classes in 1vs1/fights in general.

Can a mod move this thread to PvP forum where it belongs please.

Asking for classes to be OP because you have trouble playing them? No thanks we already have endless mesmers doing this don’t need more classes doing the same.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Mechanics determine, how easy or hard a class is to learn. But once you know all mechanics and tricks and whatsoever about your class, those mechanics are not what makes your class hard or easy. It depends more on how good/effective (in a specific situation) your class is in comparison to other classes. Just take mesmer – they were considered a “hard-to-play” class very often. Now, after they got buffed, but still have the same mechanics, the are considered “easymode”.

Also if a warrior (or another “easy” class) doesn’t need as much knowledge as a thief to win a fight or whatever he wants to achieve, this does not say, a warrior can’t has as much or even more knowledge as the thief. And maybe he needs it in an other situation.

A warrior at his max level will still have his heavy armor, still have the same adrenaline and health regen, still have his passive buffs reapplied – that is what I mean with “can’t change mechanics”.
And that’s why a warrior doesn’t need the knowledge because his class is easier to play to start with..
Mesmers are nowadays easymode because they’re ranged, have their clones, have stealth (more than thief) and have passive applied invulnerability. Before the patch they hadn’t even half of that, so they had to be careful about what they did – that is “hardmode”. Still the mechanics were there and a good mesmer was really powerful (but hard to play).

Heavy armor/adrenaline/passive buffs/invuln won’t help the warrior much, if other classes would be just stronger. And even if a warrior doesn’t need the knowledge to achieve the same as a thief, he would be better with this knowledge. To be played to his full effectivity, he need the knowledge as much as the thief.

And mesmer always had (aktive) invuln/evade (they don’t have passive invuln now), clones, stealth (less than now, but thief can have perma stealth and therefore has still more), ranged attacks … Exactly the same mechanics, yet once “hard”, now “easy”.

Illusionary membrane, Chaotic dampening – but that’s probably not what I mean, maybe I should play mesmer myself to see how they get it.
And I explained to you why they’re now easy ;)
And if a warrior is interested in learning other classes’ mechanics that’s great – he doesn’t have to though because his mechanics are strong enough to allow himself the one or other mistake. And yes “if they were stronger” was the point of this thread ;)

Those mesmer traits grant protection, not invulnerability. And yes, i know, why they are easier now – not because of their mechanics.

Warrior isn’t the most op class right now, so even if he doesn’t need the knowledge against thief, he might need it against mesmer or ele (Actually i think, thief has an easier time than warrior against mesmer, at least at “pro level”).

The point of this thread was “hard to play classes should be stronger than easy classes”. I said, this won’t work, because stronger classes would be automatically easier.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Those mesmer traits grant protection, not invulnerability. And yes, i know, why they are easier now – not because of their mechanics.

Warrior isn’t the most op class rith now, so even if he doesn’t need the knowledge against thief, he might need it against mesmer or ele (Actually i think, thief has an easier time than warrior against mesmer, at least at “pro level”).

The point of this thread was “hard to play classes should be stronger than easy classes”. I said, this won’t work, because stronger classes would be automatically easier.

Agree. For me it would be a mistake to aim for the ‘harder to play = ultimately better’. Once you are at master level of your profession it is no longer hard to do what you need to do. The only thing that should differ is how long it took you to get there.

Any profession will have difficulties vs some builds and contexts but also have it very easy vs other builds and contexts too. Balance should be about risk vs reward and rock/paper/scissor mentality. Any build that is ultimate because harder to master is inherently badly designed IMHO. It would only lead to all players eventually all playing that same thing.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Those mesmer traits grant protection, not invulnerability. And yes, i know, why they are easier now – not because of their mechanics.

Warrior isn’t the most op class right now, so even if he doesn’t need the knowledge against thief, he might need it against mesmer or ele (Actually i think, thief has an easier time than warrior against mesmer, at least at “pro level”).

The point of this thread was “hard to play classes should be stronger than easy classes”. I said, this won’t work, because stronger classes would be automatically easier.

Ok, so it’s invulnerability to white damage, better? And it’s still passively applied and every mesmer seems to have it now which they hadn’t before.
I took warrior as an example and I don’t think that anyone has got an easy time against mesmers right now, cause mesmers are the most OP class right now, still a lot of other classes have got so much passive stuff applied that they are pretty much faceroll as well.
Yeah, that is the point: A squishy class has got a hard time to land a hit, so it should hit harder, otherwise the easier to play class is “OP” and the harder to play class doesn’t have a chance.

Protection = 33% direct dmg reduction. Invuln would be 100% reduction. Mesmer had access to protection prepatch too, maybe less, but it is still no new mechanic. And yes, it is passive and yes, it is strong.
And yes, there is too much passive stuff in the game.

I would not talk about squishy classes, every class can have builds with more or less survability. Some classes can have better survability though, but they have to build for it. Their survability is not class inherent (yes, there are some basic differences in armor and hp, but those things are not as crucial als traits/skills – just look at ele). Also survability is not the only thing, which decides how hard to play a class is.

Puck.9612:

That is a terrible idea. That philosophy is why ranger shortbow went from being a solid weapon to a complete piece of garbage.

Actually this example kind of makes the point. If a weapon/skill/trait is under utilized it should be adjusted upward (slightly). If it is over utilized, it should be adjusted downward (slightly). In this case if they go too far and people stop using it, they would adjust it upward realizing they went too far.

The Ranger Shortbow (I mained a ranger for a long time) was a series of nerfs some inadvertent (the animation nerf) and some just plain stupid (the range nerf… this one still kittenes me off) but there is no mechanism in place to correct those nerfs. Same with P/P for thieves. When they removed Ricochet because it didn’t fit into the new trait line well, they effectively removed an entire play style from the game. There will be no hurry to “fix” that issue since it doesn’t effect “balance”.

In the “balance” mentality when players stop using a weapon/skill/trait, it effectively becomes balanced because it is no longer upsetting balanced play so it isn’t perceived to be a problem. This is why almost every class has weapon sets, skills and traits that few experienced players select even after years and hundreds of updates have gone by.

After years of trying to “balance” builds in WvW, might be time to try a different method which will create more diversity of builds and thus more enjoyable play.

Straegen.2938:

Puck.9612:

That is a terrible idea. That philosophy is why ranger shortbow went from being a solid weapon to a complete piece of garbage.

Actually this example kind of makes the point. If a weapon/skill/trait is under utilized it should be adjusted upward (slightly). If it is over utilized, it should be adjusted downward (slightly). In this case if they go too far and people stop using it, they would adjust it upward realizing they went too far.

The Ranger Shortbow (I mained a ranger for a long time) was a series of nerfs some inadvertent (the animation nerf) and some just plain stupid (the range nerf… this one still kittenes me off) but there is no mechanism in place to correct those nerfs. Same with P/P for thieves. When they removed Ricochet because it didn’t fit into the new trait line well, they effectively removed an entire play style from the game. There will be no hurry to “fix” that issue since it doesn’t effect “balance”.

In the “balance” mentality when players stop using a weapon/skill/trait, it effectively becomes balanced because it is no longer upsetting balanced play so it isn’t perceived to be a problem. This is why almost every class has weapon sets, skills and traits that few experienced players select even after years and hundreds of updates have gone by.

After years of trying to “balance” builds in WvW, might be time to try a different method which will create more diversity of builds and thus more enjoyable play.

The problem with that is they are far too slow with their balancing, and as thief pistol and ranger shortbow have shown us, they aren’t too eager to admit their mistakes. What will end up happening is weapons and builds that are perfectly fine will end up being nerfed, the ”buffs” they give to other builds will be poorly thought out and the profession will be left in a terrible state for months or even years.

Robert.6790:

Both these classes have incredibly high skill caps to be effective.

This game does not have a high skill cap… The only thing that even has a half decent skill cap in this game is tPvP (played as a proper team), and then the thing that gives it some sort of skill cap is map awareness and making the best decisions on rotations to create favourable matchups, the combat is secondary and has only become less and less skilled as the game has gone on, and more passives, more RNG have been added.

Go play SC or CS if you want to experience something that actually has a decent skill cap, better yet go play chess or tennis to experience things with an actual “incredibly high skill cap”, GW2 is a low skill cap joke in comparison, especially WvW.