Guild Wars 2

Currently(and even more so with the next patch) the three classes with the least ability to help their team/zerg in current WvW meta are the three medium armor classes, anyone noticing a trend here? And please correct me if I am wrong, but engeniers, rarely see those guys do anything at all, rangers situationalyl with one build, one soso large group build.

it’s all about Guardians Warriors, Mesmers, Necros Elementalists

What the hell are rangers and engineers?

Engineers=the most skilled players and ballsy players

This is false. Rangers in particular have many great builds in WvW, from trap bombing / CCing or tanking the zerg and doing massive damage with whirling defense. I know a few guilds in Tier 1 have been pairing them with Necros or Mesmers for massive condition bombing. Plus Drakes now do AoE damage every attack and a Ranger can actually put on the hurt in zerg vs. zerg. Engineers have some of the best AoE damage in the game and apply massive conditions to everyone they hit as well as zerg busting abilities like their bomb kit F skill. Thieves aren’t fantastic in zerg vs. zerg, but they at least have Daggerstorm, Blast Finishers, and good AoE ranged damage. Plus they make fantastic roamers / small ops players. Don’t confuse underrated / undervalued with not being useful.

Go check out the Engie forum

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Engi-March-State-of-the-Game/first

Not sure what kind of engineers you’ve been facing, most of the ones I’ve come across are pretty kitten good.

The OPs point is that medium armored classes are LESS desirable than the other classes.

And he has a point tbh…

Hes not saying that Engineers, Rangers and Thieves are not wanted at all hes saying that COMPARED to the other classes they are at the bottom of the list. For example if u had a choice between a skilled Guardian or a skilled Ranger which would u take?

Any class is great with a skilled player behind the controls but if u compare them all side by side there will always be a pecking order of importance and i think the OP is right to say that medium armored classes are somewhere around the bottom for importance in the zerg…

Endemonadia.8593:

The OPs point is that medium armored classes are LESS desirable than the other classes.

And he has a point tbh…

Hes not saying that Engineers, Rangers and Thieves are not wanted at all hes saying that COMPARED to the other classes they are at the bottom of the list. For example if u had a choice between a skilled Guardian or a skilled Ranger which would u take?

Any class is great with a skilled player behind the controls but if u compare them all side by side there will always be a pecking order of importance and i think the OP is right to say that medium armored classes are somewhere around the bottom for importance in the zerg…

Thanks for this, I blame a certain holiday for not being fully able to write what I wanted to say but you did that rather well xD

Nobody really said it, but I think the problem here is op/others is/are looking at things through the lense of a zerg and even though zergs are pretty dominant in wvw, having a good havoc squad or two on map can change everything, of which all three are pretty good for and defending something on my grenade engie ranks in my top 10 for favorite things to do in this game.

Thief is only class in game that has a blast finnisher not restricted by cooldown. Then obviously also Daggerstorm and top tier mobility.

Daggerstorm only kills bads, lol. Daggerstorming Thief is also an easy kill – out of stealth until low health and any AoE finishes them.

Endemonadia.8593:

The OPs point is that medium armored classes are LESS desirable than the other classes.

And he has a point tbh…

Hes not saying that Engineers, Rangers and Thieves are not wanted at all hes saying that COMPARED to the other classes they are at the bottom of the list. For example if u had a choice between a skilled Guardian or a skilled Ranger which would u take?

Any class is great with a skilled player behind the controls but if u compare them all side by side there will always be a pecking order of importance and i think the OP is right to say that medium armored classes are somewhere around the bottom for importance in the zerg…

I wouldn’t exactly classify it as a conspiracy, but I see your point here. I think its more of a issue of the traditional roles that occur in RPGs.

There are 2 different outlooks to WvW, imho. There’s the tower and keep game, and then there’s the supply and field game. Obviously, Heavy and lights are going to excel in the tower and keep game, because its based on a strong beefy front line for tanking and a glass back line for damage. It makes sense that they would design the classes that wear heavy and light armor to fit this.

Medium armor, on the other hand, has always been relegated to the more elusive, loner, and self sufficient types of roles. That’s why engies can control areas so well, thieves are so slippery, and rangers only rely on their animal companions. They are the masters of the small game, and usually flip camps more efficiently solo than heavy and light wearers can. They can usually take a hit or two and yet still dish out the dmg needed to flip the camp or sentry before the enemy knows it.

Would I like medium wearers to be able to contribute more than they do? (I’m looking specifically at thieves, here) Sure, but the archetypes that so many of the developers think by have been proven to be sound, and its hard to reinvent the wheel. Not to mention it would require a major shift in the lore and ways we think about leather wearers in fantasy games.

Thieves are not just roamers. They can be a vital part of group battle. They just need to spec out of anything even resembling stealth. I have a wicked bleed/life drain tanky build that works exponentially better the more enemies I am attacking. For a while I was our front line leading the charge. Now I am a rDPS with other group oriented skills and traits.

I see absolutely no problem with some classes being better small/medium scale and others being better large scale in general. Of course it also depends on spec but isn’t that class diversity working as intended?

Zerging isn’t the only thing that happens in WvW (pity T1).

Ask Vizunah, think they have a quazillion rangers, all glass canon ofcourse. Standing from a distance trying to range you down. But the meat train just storms em down. Not sure this is because of bad builds or because rangers are just UP.

Engineers have a ton of builds that work in WvW. And I am not talking about 100nades one. They got a lot of healing and protection utilities and can disrupt really good as well. I made an engi that worked really well for roaming. And for defending towers/keeps. He wasn’t that good for open field fights. But they got really good builds for open field too.

And there are tons of thieves running around in WvW, hope the number decreases a bit with the patch.

Thieves don’t have any highly desirable combo field initiators for zergs, but cluster bomb is the most spammable blast finisher by far. The SB in general is amazing for pumping damage and finishing off pockets of downed players. Thieves can also finish off runners and stragglers pretty easily. Using a stealth stack or c&d feeding, you can also easily move around to eliminate players on siege or try to gank commanders, both of which can turn the tide of an otherwise pitched battle.

“100 nade” engis are brutal in the hands of a good player. The build has everything you need for zerg combat…range, massive AoE damage, snares, and a damage spike that can actually be higher than frenzied 100 blades. It’s just a little light on condition removal and combo field initiators / finishers, and obviously it takes quite awhile to learn how to play an engi to maximum efficiency.

Rangers I think get a bad rap from the legions of useless noobs that choose the class. I won’t say anything besides that since it is the one class I have not experimented with at all.

I can’t talk for Theif nor Ranger’s, because I don’t play one! But I have never felt unwanted nor useless when playing my Engineer, I got several builds for different situations! I have acces to great surivablity and support if I want to run with a zerg, and I’m in the mood for attacking and defending towers my grenade kit give me acces to great AoE Damage, I have great moblity with Perma Swiftness if I want to make a roaming build, and can take any class on 1vs1 with a fair chance of winning!

We got a good mix of Combo Fields and Blast finishers aswell if we wish to build for that!

When playing Engineer I actually feel I can do whatever I want in WvW, because being it healing, condition damage or power damage, or just plain old damage soaking I can create builds that work well with that! So yeah, my medium armored little Asura Engineer is doing just fine in WvW atm!

Rashagal.5867:

Endemonadia.8593:

The OPs point is that medium armored classes are LESS desirable than the other classes.

And he has a point tbh…

Hes not saying that Engineers, Rangers and Thieves are not wanted at all hes saying that COMPARED to the other classes they are at the bottom of the list. For example if u had a choice between a skilled Guardian or a skilled Ranger which would u take?

Any class is great with a skilled player behind the controls but if u compare them all side by side there will always be a pecking order of importance and i think the OP is right to say that medium armored classes are somewhere around the bottom for importance in the zerg…

I wouldn’t exactly classify it as a conspiracy, but I see your point here. I think its more of a issue of the traditional roles that occur in RPGs.

There are 2 different outlooks to WvW, imho. There’s the tower and keep game, and then there’s the supply and field game. Obviously, Heavy and lights are going to excel in the tower and keep game, because its based on a strong beefy front line for tanking and a glass back line for damage. It makes sense that they would design the classes that wear heavy and light armor to fit this.

Medium armor, on the other hand, has always been relegated to the more elusive, loner, and self sufficient types of roles. That’s why engies can control areas so well, thieves are so slippery, and rangers only rely on their animal companions. They are the masters of the small game, and usually flip camps more efficiently solo than heavy and light wearers can. They can usually take a hit or two and yet still dish out the dmg needed to flip the camp or sentry before the enemy knows it.

Would I like medium wearers to be able to contribute more than they do? (I’m looking specifically at thieves, here) Sure, but the archetypes that so many of the developers think by have been proven to be sound, and its hard to reinvent the wheel. Not to mention it would require a major shift in the lore and ways we think about leather wearers in fantasy games.

Thats not quite true, in good teams even the light armor wearers such as DD Ele and Wellmark Necros are built tanky as hell so that they can survive when your zerg plows into the enemy zerg. So the reason why mediums don’t fit into the zerg is not because they don’t fit a tank/nuke paradigm, its because they don’t fit as well (in comparison other classes) into the aoe + cc/stability/boon-strip + portal/veil ambush paradigm that is at the heart of current zerg-to-zerg warfare.

I disagree, their arent as many Tanky as hell builds on engi and ranger but if someone decides to tank on them they are harder to kill than anything besides a very Tanky and skilled guardian…the thing is many rangers and eles enjoy using the other builds available to them because it can be even more effective for what will make them enjoy the game