Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of moaning about Thieves/Elies being OP and just as many Rangers/Necros being Underpowered then there is Youtube …

It took me less than 5 seconds to come across dozens of Ranger, Engineers and Necro WvWvW videos showing the taking on small groups and winning easily …

This guy – very annoying but his ranger owns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaWcAek5_JE

So, if these (lesser) WvWvW classes can own (easily in some cases) the more powerful builds, then maybe all classes are balanced and all down to player skill?

Short answer: no, we don’t.

Culling still makes thieves generally much more lethal than they should be, and mesmer portal bombs make that particular class far too much of an individual game-changer. And there are other elements as well.

But you’ve highlighted rather well why I think people are rather mistaken in their perceptions of both necro and ranger (though both could use some buffs to their minion/pet systems to make them more viable in real PvP fights). Engineer, though, is generally lackluster to be perfectly fair to the people posting complaints about them. Their niche at the moment seems to be “do everything with technology but in a less efficient fashion than raw magic”, which isn’t a good niche.

They probably lose 99 out of 100 battles and only posted the winning one.

I’ve personally had really good 1v1’s with every profession. Some professions are simply easier to play well than others, so players flock to them.

I had 1 vs 1 engi, rangers necro and they own, i think WvW performance cannot be measured by 1 vs 1 capabilities tho. Even when this classes have very viable and strong duel builds, they lack of group sinergy a bit and that i think is the main problem. For example a warrior or a thief are terrific for burst damage, a ele or a guardian are awesome for tanking and party support, mesmer is just, a must have cuz of the portals and so many good control/AOE damage skills. The other classes are just in between, some can deal good damage but not as good as warrior/thief, some can support but not as efective as ele/guardian. I think that’s it.
I do think 1 v 1 the classes are pretty good balanced tho, may be the warrior would be the weakest in 1 vs 1 sutiations cuz of it lack of Condition control skills but warrior can compesate that by dealing incredible damage in groups.

Class balance in WvW? No. Why would we even want that?

If anything I’m bothered about is mesmer interaction with golems(portal, as if that’s not enough mass quickness so golems do double damage…), as well as ability to move zerg inside already captured towers/keeps.
I think in this way mesmer IS currently superior to other classes. Because he’s providing unique benefits to key wvw aspects.
Rest feels pretty balanced. Crying about thieves won’t help at all because you know, it’s not true at all. Good player can begin dodging exactly after first hit. Can you say a thief will take you out in 1 single attack? No way. In a combo of 3 attacks like steal+C&D+backstab, maybe. But the moment he steals you… you already know he’s here. React now, and not 0.5 seconds later.
Also, what’s not so balanced is level scaling. I can almost feel sorry for that lvl 7 thief in wvw who tried to kill me with shortbow… Even though I was running damage-orientied spec, I was still basically standing in place using /laugh because it would take eternity for him to kill me. On a contrary a couple of attacks chopped him down completely.

It has class balance but to a lesser extent than pvp. And by balance i don’t mean 1 vs 1 wise i mean overall.

Depends on what you mean by balance.

Symmetrical balance like Chess? Hell no.

Asymmetrical balance like Rock-Paper-Scissors? Close, but we’ve still got a ways to go.

People will always kitten because Mesmers are too tricky, or Thieves are too elusive (they will kitten and moan even after the culling is fixed), or Guardians are too darn tough, or yadayadayada…

In WvW, there will never be perfect balance because the number of players on either side will never balanced.

Sigh, honestly people need to just not kitten and let arena net do their thing, there are some flaws and A Net knows that, but the balance is really not that bad right now. Most of the time its either in WvW where one player outnumbers or out gears another, or its a l2p issue in spvp. Yall criers just need to put your big girl pants on.

I don’t know, I loathe WvW on my ele and play pretty exclusively on my ranger and engy. Compared to thieves and warriors, they’re not DPS classes (especially engy) but I feel pretty good about playing them. My only complaint about thieves is the stun/lose over half your health from stealth meta…even then they don’t generally kill me on my 80s with exotics (had problems while leveling my engy but she scares them off now). WvW is intended to be unbalanced and I don’t anticipate any kind of balancing specific to WvW. General balancing is an on-going process that will continue for the life of the game.

Thief+Mesmer portal is over powered only due to culling. Even then, maybe they could be toned down a bit, but culling is the issue.

No I do not think there is balance but then again I feel like balance is better kept in sPvP :P
Id rather classes have different roles (and can change them depending on how they are specced), but just knowing their strengths helps in countering them
For example know that thieves and d/d eles are king of 1 on 1 so walk around in groups. And that Necros are great at flipping conditions on you so applying conditions on them could lead to your downfall.

Cloud.7613:

Thief+Mesmer portal is over powered only due to culling. Even then, maybe they could be toned down a bit, but culling is the issue.

No, that’s only half the problem.

The fact that people have to sweep the keep looking for ONE specific class so that they don’t have a 50-man army dropped into their brand new keep is indicative of a clear problem. The mechanic itself is a great one, but it’s got some issues. No one player should be able to turn the tide of a battle that radically unless everyone has a way to provide their own massive, unique dangers in WvW combat.

There’s balance. Balance in GW2 is a lot like RPS. Except it’s not.

Thieves and Mesmers are Scissors, Guardians are Rock and Eles and warriors are Paper. Engineers and Rangers are…Mushrooms.

Scissor beats paper and Paper beats the other paper. Paper and Rock sometimes come close to beating scissors but then scissors disappears and comes back to try again later.
Rock beats nothing and nothing beats rock and everything beats Mushrooms.
That together is perfect class balance.

By anet own words Wvw was never suppose to be balanced, you want balance play spvp

I don’t think it’s actually balanced. I try to observe things and be as neutral as possible but I still see a lot of problems…

Thieves

-make skill spaming less rewarding (progressive initiative cost/damage reduction with the repeated use? also add combo bonuses to encourage and reward people building their play more than playing their build)
-Fix stealth (lag on apparition +people not appearing for a short period of time when hit as originally intended)
-Make people leave stealth when they use an attack skill instead of when it hits (if you miss you should have a penalty…not an other try for free…)

Warrior

-apply adrenaline cost when the burst skill is used and not when it hits (same reason)

Mesmer

-decrease portal uses to 10 and make it needs a walk-able way between the entry and exit (like every teleport of the game)
-apply a 10 uses limitation on veil (stealth an entire zerg with a single non elite skill is not acceptable)
-fix the trident clone attack (currently every single attack apply one stack of confusion)

Elementalist

-make that caster targeted AoE are placed when the skill is used and don’t follow the caster after being placed (it’ll break the churning earth+ flash combo)

Rangers

-rework pet’s AI and stats balance

General

-Make siege golems immune to stealth and forbid them to be tp (so no portal or waypoint tp)
-create a reparation mechanic for siege weapons
-make a uniform rule for siege projectile (with no exception like the elementalist is…same rule for everyone)

Of course this list isn’t exhaustive, only concern class balance and is only based on my personal experience…But I think it’s a good summary of what should be done to make WvW fun for every class…

Intellectually honest answer: Yes, we do, for the most part.

All classes have a very effective spike build and a stall build, and are all pretty balanced with each other.

Generally speaking though, bad people tend to play “easy” classes more and therefore you won’t see many good players playing say a Ranger.
But that doesn’t mean Ranger itself is bad, a well-played one is something to fear.

Luckily Anet does not listen to complaints but look at facts and do changes based on them so I don’t really feel worried about class balance issues.

To me all classes are equal against the 30 man Zerg. So it’s balanced in it’s own sick way.

Unless u are talking about 1on1 s though.

But then again 1on1s don’t matter in wvw so it’s still for the most part balanced

Like I said On the guardian forums. I head for the nearest tower when I’m alone and see thieve/Mesmer/ele in the distance.

My strength lies in Zerg fights. The trick is just to choose your fights and engage only when you can apply your class strengths.

RE: silvos

Take it from a Mesmer:

Veil – used in the way earlier mentioned – takes a BUTTLOAD of squad unity. If anything, why is Veil uncapped when our freaking ELITE stealth eats a 5-person AoE limit?

Towers – our ability to hide in a tower/keep is nowhere near infinite. Indeed, -iirc- the perma-stealth on thieves is a known CnD > wall abuse. Do keep this in mind, please.

Portal/Teleportation/LoS – Do you not realise Mesmer has some of THE wonkiest LoS mechanics currently in game? It is a positive chore for us to attack a tower or keep ( or for that matter, defend one) at this stage in the game’s timeline. Trust me, things my other classes can hit, my Mes will eat a big, fat ‘obstructed.’

Between that, and our low base speed, it’s not the LoS of portal that is the problem. It’s the abuse inherent in culling + # of persons portable. Now, I’m all for: a modest range increase, coupled with a reduction in persons tossed through. Fact is, any smart Mes player can make that work. As is, portal range isn’t as broken as folk seem to think. It’s FAR outstripped in that department by shadow trap teleport (which doesn’t seem to need a LoS either).

Trident’s a known bug, and I’m surprised we didn’t get that fixed with all the other underwater stuff.

Now, as for Ele and l-flash/churning. I’d have to call that a L2P issue. You KNOW Eles can teleport. You KNOW CE is one sloooooooow mother to cast.

Thieves and Initiative. Honestly, I play one on occasion. Fact is, it’s the combo of init + stealth/culling that we want to deal with. Physically, they are fricking SQUISHY.

Rangers – yes, please. But that’s per AI, period. My Necro alt uses no pets for a bleeding reason. Unfortunately, Rangers lack that choice, due to their class design.
Let’s remember that some Pet AI work has been done in the last months, so it’s logical to assume that issue’s still being worked on.

General – Absolutely agreeable. Now, if we want to use a # limit on portals, merely make those huge boys (Golems) = 2 persons/per. They’re definately big enough. Same could be argued for stealth. Siege repairs is something we desparately need.
As for projectile balance, it should be more based around speed of attack inverse to damage delivered. This’d make your real ‘bunker busters’ come with an equivalent penalty. Seems Trebs fire almost as fast as ACs, and that’s arguably whacked.

My propositions are based on two simple ideas:

-Rules should be the same for everyone
-Rules should push people in interesting forms of gameplay

Advent.6193:

Towers – our ability to hide in a tower/keep is nowhere near infinite. Indeed, -iirc- the perma-stealth on thieves is a known CnD > wall abuse. Do keep this in mind, please.
[…]
Between that, and our low base speed, it’s not the LoS of portal that is the problem.

Since I play mostly mesmer and elementalist in WvW I’m well aware of the problems we have with LoS. And personally I don’t have anything against the idea of hiding inside the fortress to make our friends enter later (actually I find it quite a fun thing). The problem isn’t here. The problem is that skill being the only way(out of exploit) to do it. If others professions were able to obtain similar results (using different ways) the question of portal would be a nonsense. But it’s not the case and we all know how important the mesmer has become in term of WvW strategy.

So we have to balance it with other classes by either forbidding this use of the portal skill (LoS being an excellent solution in my mind since it solves the jumping puzzle problem in the same time) or by giving every other class a way to get similar results. And obviously for now the easiest is to shut the portal down (maybe later they’ll be able to create new skills for other profession to do the same and we can have the old portal back).

Advent.6193:

Now, as for Ele and l-flash/churning. I’d have to call that a L2P issue. You KNOW Eles can teleport. You KNOW CE is one sloooooooow mother to cast.

I know that but this particular combo(when used properly) is too powerfull since you can displace it whenever you want…I’d also add the graphic effect is strange. Now I know you can doge it, interrupt it, … But a skill that powerfull is supposed to be placed at the righ moment… Not used randomly and insta-moved to the ennemy spot.

Advent.6193:

Thieves and Initiative. Honestly, I play one on occasion. Fact is, it’s the combo of init + stealth/culling that we want to deal with. Physically, they are fricking SQUISHY.

They are supposed to be squishy…And honestly I think their damages are well balanced too. The problem is they obtain hight results with a low skill level. So what basic needs to be done with them is to rise the skill needed to obtain those results. And that’s done by giving penalty to unskilled uses of the class and reward to skilled uses…

Advent.6193:

Now, if we want to use a # limit on portals, merely make those huge boys (Golems) = 2 persons/per. They’re definately big enough. Same could be argued for stealth. Siege repairs is something we desparately need.

The idea is interesting for the stealth yet I’m still against the idea of golems being able to be moved faster then they’d go by walking…Let me explain

Golem is a very powerfull weapon and it’s the only siege weapon able to be moved. But they also are very slow… In that form they gives player a strategic choice:

-building them in a safe zone and then moving them. With this tactic the golem is safe during the building but can be attacked while moving to his target.
-building them during the attack. This way the golem is immediately in the fight but vulnerable during the building phase.

But if you allow the golem to be moved at a high speed (or instantly with portal) you destroy this choice by making one of the option far more viable then the other…And obviously the more strategic choices are given to the players, the better…

Balance is actually pretty good at the moment. Bunker ele is probably the only class that is a little too strong.

The other classes all have their strengths and weaknesses. There isn’t a particular class that worries me except the bunker ele.

Dagger dagger eles and thieves are easy to kill people with very little skill, although the other classes can be just as much if not more superior based on build and skill.

My point being:

Thieves/eles= easier for a noob to kill other noobs with.

Necros/rangers= Will kill all of the noobs playing other classes if they are skilled, but will not if they are also noobs.

I play quite a few classes, my mains being Ele, thief and ranger, so I have a first hand account of the match ups and skills.

Rangers have been cornered to a single build that is efficient enough to kill certain classes this is the main issue. Necros are extremely good and I don’t know why no one realizes this. they have plenty of good builds to choose from. The only problem about necros is the lack of effectiveness on siege.

nawrasz.6219:

There’s balance. Balance in GW2 is a lot like RPS. Except it’s not.

Thieves and Mesmers are Scissors, Guardians are Rock and Eles and warriors are Paper. Engineers and Rangers are…Mushrooms.

Scissor beats paper and Paper beats the other paper. Paper and Rock sometimes come close to beating scissors but then scissors disappears and comes back to try again later.
Rock beats nothing and nothing beats rock and everything beats Mushrooms.
That together is perfect class balance.

LOL I like this. +1 For you

Lol effective use of veil doesnt need buttload of unity.

Unless of course you consider sticking to the commander pin buttload of unity.

Budchgon.2108:

I see a lot of moaning about Thieves/Elies being OP and just as many Rangers/Necros being Underpowered then there is Youtube …

It took me less than 5 seconds to come across dozens of Ranger, Engineers and Necro WvWvW videos showing the taking on small groups and winning easily …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir-Ggm92Q8U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y3GzVb43X4

This guy – very annoying but his ranger owns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaWcAek5_JE

So, if these (lesser) WvWvW classes can own (easily in some cases) the more powerful builds, then maybe all classes are balanced and all down to player skill?

First,a nd foremost that Ranger is using PAIN INVERTER a racial ability that can easily do over 6000 damage thanks to both Confusion, and Retaliation, stuff no other Ranger has unless they rolled Asuran.

That one ability can take weaker classes like the Engineer, or Ranger, and make them powerful.

Imagine it on a Guardian, where it would give them a perma uptime on Retaliation, or a Elementalist.

I’d wager that 1/3 of the people in WvW aren’t even 80/geared, and the majority of what remains is probably running PvE gear and an equally kittenty build.

Most of the people in WvW are horrible either by default or performance, so it’s not surprising that there are videos for every class showing 1v1 wins. ‘Skill’, whatever that might be, can certainly trump the limitations of a particular class simply because the ‘skill’ of most of the people in WvW is so low.

That being said, I think that most classes have OK solo builds, and class doesn’t really matter when you’re in a zerg, which is where most people are.

“Class balance” means different things in WvW. I consider staff elementalists to be balanced because even though they aren’t that good 1v1 or even 5v5, their utility in zerg vs zerg and the fact that they are kings of destroying siege keeps them useful.

Engineers I feel are too weak because while they can do well in an open field scrum they don’t really stand out and their WvW utility is pretty low. Nobody says, “we really need an engineer here”.

Thieves are clearly broken because stealth is broken. Not sure how much of it is external hacks and how much is culling or in-game bugs/oversights but there are definitely ways to abuse stealth and the abuse is wide-spread. Last night about 8 of us spent 10 minutes having to deal with a hit-and-run thief who was stealthed for literally 9 out of every 10 seconds, even in combat. (That one was almost certainly a hacker because his “Steal” had no cooldown. He would use it + Hidden Thief trait to pop around and stay stealthed full time. Hoping ANet has a means of detecting that, since we eventually managed to report him.)

style.6173:

Balance is actually pretty good at the moment. Bunker ele is probably the only class that is a little too strong.

The other classes all have their strengths and weaknesses. There isn’t a particular class that worries me except the bunker ele.

I feel as if this only happens after a good build is thrown out there.

I’m going to be real with you, my bunker build was made to heal my guild in WvW and not in fact to kill people.

After showing up in spvp a little, I started getting PM’s and also after fighting people at fight club and stuff from people looking for my build.

Now, a couple months later it seems to be the flavor not and therefore because it is more prominent, it will probably get nerfed because everyone is doing it now.

You create 1 successful build that is easy to play and then everyone bandwagons.

Now I have to go back to my stealth build thief. (Which people told me would never be good when backstab was still around, but not everyone and thief mother wants to do that too.) Just kidding though, I’m never going back even when they nerf Ele’s

I don’t understand why people can’t simply play their own style verses playing someone else’s to win. Kinda getting sick of every class I play getting nerfed and/or bandwagoned or both.

I’m gonna go guardian. It seems to be the most stable class that people wont complain about because they can tank just as good as bunker ele’s but no one complains because they are actually expected to tank.

Ranger could use some buffs, but honestly necro is an awesome class with someone who knows how to play it. Even rangers can hold their own with certain builds, but overall they do feel weaker than other classes.

It’s more difficult to play with some classes but it’s not like a necromancer or a ranger will automatically lose a 1v1 against a thief or an ele. The player skill and build has to be taken into account.

Is it easier for a player of similar skill level to beat another class with thief or a D/D ele? Probably.

TheGreatA.4192:

It’s more difficult to play with some classes but it’s not like a necromancer or a ranger will automatically lose a 1v1 against a thief or an ele. The player skill and build has to be taken into account.

Is it easier for a player of similar skill level to beat another class with thief or a D/D ele? Probably.

^ this is what I mean.

It’s a shame because I actually really enjoy the classes independently of the fact that they are easy as hell to play.

They are both intense movement classes and that’s what I really love about them.

Also, cloth skins and medium skins are WAAAAY better than plate skins in this game.

Those videos don’t show balance, they always show people stomping less skilled players. Also some builds shine in 1v1, but are awful in group wvwvw. Can’t really take that into account. If you play spvp you’d realize that classes are fairly balanced, just need some minor tweaks. Arena net allowing food and other crazy stats into wvwvw leads to more glaring imbalances and things that seem overpowered

nawrasz.6219:

There’s balance. Balance in GW2 is a lot like RPS. Except it’s not.

Thieves and Mesmers are Scissors, Guardians are Rock and Eles and warriors are Paper. Engineers and Rangers are…Mushrooms.

Scissor beats paper and Paper beats the other paper. Paper and Rock sometimes come close to beating scissors but then scissors disappears and comes back to try again later.
Rock beats nothing and nothing beats rock and everything beats Mushrooms.
That together is perfect class balance.

And the Necros get nothing. Forgotten as usual :p

The two BIG things in my opinion are:

D/D ele’s combination of mobility and healing

Confusion is too hard of a shutdown and completely ruins small scale engagements. Needs scaling coefficient scaled back.

silvos.3092:

I don’t think it’s actually balanced. I try to observe things and be as neutral as possible but I still see a lot of problems…

Thieves

-make skill spaming less rewarding (progressive initiative cost/damage reduction with the repeated use? also add combo bonuses to encourage and reward people building their play more than playing their build)
-Fix stealth (lag on apparition +people not appearing for a short period of time when hit as originally intended)
-Make people leave stealth when they use an attack skill instead of when it hits (if you miss you should have a penalty…not an other try for free…)

Warrior

-apply adrenaline cost when the burst skill is used and not when it hits (same reason)

Mesmer

-decrease portal uses to 10 and make it needs a walk-able way between the entry and exit (like every teleport of the game)
-apply a 10 uses limitation on veil (stealth an entire zerg with a single non elite skill is not acceptable)
-fix the trident clone attack (currently every single attack apply one stack of confusion)

Elementalist

-make that caster targeted AoE are placed when the skill is used and don’t follow the caster after being placed (it’ll break the churning earth+ flash combo)

Rangers

-rework pet’s AI and stats balance

General

-Make siege golems immune to stealth and forbid them to be tp (so no portal or waypoint tp)
-create a reparation mechanic for siege weapons
-make a uniform rule for siege projectile (with no exception like the elementalist is…same rule for everyone)

Of course this list isn’t exhaustive, only concern class balance and is only based on my personal experience…But I think it’s a good summary of what should be done to make WvW fun for every class…

I love how necromancers are totally forgotten. :P

On topic. Some classes are easier to play, higher ceiling and more noticeable. Other classes are harder to play, lower ceiling and less noticeable.

To test things for wvw, they need to pick out the top 10 players of each class in the world. So that’s a total of 80 players. They then need to randomly select 40 into each team, to form 2 teams. These two group of 40 players would fight each other and their stats recorded. Then change up the teams and repeat the experiment for 30 times.

With this, Anet would get a much clearer picture of who is OP and who is UP.

It seems touchy, while some classes are underwhelming in WvW like the Necro, it seems they are one of the more popular classes for SPvP. So to answer your question, no we do not have perfect balance for WvW, but if they tweak things the wrong way, they break the class for a diff part of the game.

I mainly play WvW, I also realise whats good for WvW may hurt SPvP or PvE, its a delicate balance that I’m sure they are constantly trying to improve.

Nuzt.7894:

It seems touchy, while some classes are underwhelming in WvW like the Necro, it seems they are one of the more popular classes for SPvP. So to answer your question, no we do not have perfect balance for WvW, but if they tweak things the wrong way, they break the class for a diff part of the game.

I mainly play WvW, I also realise whats good for WvW may hurt SPvP or PvE, its a delicate balance that I’m sure they are constantly trying to improve.

Necro is popular in spvp because of Signet of Undeath, condition spreading and condition removal. Think of the Random Arena in GW1, but with only necromancers having a resurrection signet.

In WvW its different.

Resurrection in wvw isn’t as game changing as in spvp. In a 30vs30 zerg fight, having one extra guy alive rarely make a huge difference. In a 5v5 fight, yes huge difference.

Condition spread by Epidemic sucks in wvw because of the 5 target AoE limit. In spvp that limit doesn’t apply. And in a 30vs30 zerg fight, those that got hit by conditions can hide behind their zerg to recover, meaning no kill. In spvp there is no zerg to hide behind, so condition (damage over time) are more lethal.

Condition removal, one form or another, is very common in wvw. So common that the group would rarely have any condition, with or without the necromancer.

if you build your character from the ground up with the goal to defeat thieves, you can do well as any class in WvW.

WvW is all about burst direct damage. No one wants to play a condition class unless it is an ele (with super high survivability/mobility) or a thief (with stealth) or a mesmer (with blink and stealth). Condition necro is great in WvW, but its not fun getting rolled over by zergs or even large roaming groups, and being a cog in a massive zerg, and that being your only viable function.

I love that necro video, but it is very clearly a gank video, where if you took ANY class in a zerker build it would be able to gank people running around alone, and would be able to do that much more safely. What do you think that necro does when he runs into a group of 4 people? yes… runs or dies… I hadly take that to prove that the necro class is fine.

That being said, as was already mentioned, necro is much more fun in Spvp, because there are no zergs, or real reasons to need stealth.

Engineer is most certainly least represented in WvW though… I will literally go an entire evening and not see one.

For people who post solo Thief and Ele videos doing 1vN, the enemies they fight are all awesome at their profession. So, they are obviously OP.

Every time any other class posts a 1vN video their enemies are noobs who don’t know how to play. They must be right? Because the people playing those profs watching those videos can’t imagine doing that.

No more Q.Q if they strip everything out and achieve …

real balance … sounds fun

I feel its balanced just fine. Every class can play their role.

People always complain about thieves:

Personally I find thieves to be pretty useless in full battles, unless you can find a really good thief who knows how to pick off stragglers in an open field battle. In a 15+vs15+ battle the thief is the least of my concerns, I’m looking for the Ele, mesmer or hammer warriors.

But their strength comes in when they are roaming alone or with a small squad.

The point is: Every class has its place to a certain extent.

There certainly are problems with certain classes(perma stealth/culling), but I’m not super concerned about some thief being able to kill me in the open field when I am alone. He’s not helping his team a bunch. Now if he’s soloing camps or killing yaks…awesome! But he doesn’t need perma stealth for that.

I feel that rangers could use a boost of some sort, but I honestly got tons of bags on my ranger. Entangle ftw.

The mesmer obstructed issue is lame to be honest. If I can see 75% of a norn over the lip of a tower wall, WHY is he obstructed? lol broken.

Well, silvos – I have to hand you a win on why portal + golem’s arguably a bad thing.
And, I do agree more tactical options are frigging necessary. One of the reasons I have issues with the 5-cap on AoE. That, in a sense, punishes tactics. Hopefully, they find a good balance between dps/targeting.

As for Churros, my comment on Veil presupposes that the zerg being stealthed is large enough to need additional management. Gotta get folk through the Veil-line before it disappears.

CrassBlippy – That’s a definite point, RE: food. Although, part of this problem is that – for whatever reason – we have a PvP/PvE rules/mechanics split. If it were up to me, they’d function interchangeably.

Tiglie’s comment on Confusion’s a hard one. Hard since we don’t want to completely frag a major part of Mesmer play, but at the same time it can wreck faces. Another problem is that to fully rock a Confusion Mesmer sticks a body with -arguably- our two worst weapon choices. Perhaps easier stacks, less duration? It’d then make it more of a counter-agent, than a straight-up “Yer frelled!” situation? (I, personally, would’ve preferred GW1-style Mes, where you had to read the target more, to decide what to counter/interfere with …).

jkctmc is correct regarding Pain Inverter’s strength. Fact is, that is one scary racial skill. I’d have to say, that some racials are far stronger than others. And, this is hopefully a thing what shall be eventually evened out.

No such thing as class balance in a game where the combat system is zerg v. zerg and the class distinctions are flavor bits rather than concrete roles integral to combat and team play.

fivekiller.1432:

if you build your character from the ground up with the goal to defeat thieves, you can do well as any class in WvW.

This way of thinking has led me to many fun times in WvW.

ofc there is w3 ballance.

there is nothing your enemy can do that you can’t do yourself if you would play the same class. the enemy doesn’t have races or classes or abilities that your realm doesn’t have.

Anet just needs to get it over with and put “arrow cart” in the class selection list.

Acelerion.6820:

Anet just needs to get it over with and put “arrow cart” in the class selection list.

or make it a weapon selection … i’m switching from dagger/dagger to arrow cart. reminds me of an armsmen who claimed to have specced 50 rams/50 pour oil /26 dodge oil. :p

CHIPS.6018:

I love how necromancers are totally forgotten. :P

As I said that list is based on my personal experience and is not exhaustive. The list would have been too long and incomplete anyway (since I don’t perfectly know all classes.). So I silenced a lot of problems I judged “minor” to focus on problems with more impact on the game, by making some fights feel unfair or pushing players in a unique strategy… As an elementalist I could have talked about gust, tornado or glyph of elemental for example. Skills that need rework in different ways but can wait. Same thing for the gardian lack of distance…since I believe the only solution to that problem is a new weapon it’ll have to wait a little…

However I have to say I never had problems with my necro in WvW. It’s not even lvl 50 and I can already take on opponent I would never dream to attack with an elementalist of the same level… So if there is a big problem with the necro I’m sorry but I didn’t experienced it yet(and I could speak for my friends too). But I experience new problems every day. Just yesterday I discovered how OP is Ride the lighning and how it participate to the power of D/D ele (If you wonder why I didn’t know before it’s just because I play my own build which is not D/D and probably answer to that problem without me noticing…). And this one should be added to the list (obviously unfair for most other classes)…

Advent.6193:

One of the reasons I have issues with the 5-cap on AoE. That, in a sense, punishes tactics. Hopefully, they find a good balance between dps/targeting.

I agree but on other hands the 5-cap guaranty AoE not to become too much of a problem in every gamemode and removing it would kill single targeted approach for obvious reasons. That’s quite a problem but for now the only solution I see is to rely on siege weapon and improve them against large concentrations of players…We would need another brain on this problem…