Guild Wars 2

I have now played all classes in PvP quite extensively, and I have noticed that there is a huge difference between them in terms of skill required to play certain builds. I’d just like to sum up my experiences with each class and I’m curious if other people think the same. Please no biased replies, try to be honest about it. I will try to do the same.

Light Armour

Mesmer: Mesmers have some pretty great builds that can confuse the other player to such extent that he just roams and aimlessly attacks your clones while dying. They can use stealth, they can hide and they can support the group in minor ways. Overall, I found that this all requires a good amount of skill to pull off. It took me quite long to stop dying in hammerstuns with this class. And when I got condibombed I flailed and died. In my opinion, dps orientated mesmers have a relatively high skill requirement. The skill ceiling is also high, excellent mesmers are very hard to beat. Kudos to you people out there playing this one offensively and winning, you have skillz!

Necromancer: Okay, so this is a powerful class, but it’s not entirely “lolz faceroll”. Necromancers have very powerful conditions, they can fear for days, they can swamp people in minions and hide in DS while laughing. It’s fun! But then you run into CC and… you’re pretty much powerless. Or you run into a warrior who uses berserker stance and suddenly, your main weapons don’t work anymore and you just run away from giant hammers. However, while it’s not faceroll, necromancer allows the player to make many, many mistakes. I noticed that most necro’s don’t seem to dodge a lot, something I’d learned on thief is sooo important. But when you see the amount of punishment you can take while playing a bunker necro, it’s unsurprizing that most of them don’t think it nessesary. A lot of hate is directed towards necro’s and seeing how fast I could rip people apart with it, it’s unsurprizing if still undue. Unless they were a class that hard-countered me, I could sort of just lay back and melt them. No, I don’t think people playing this have no skill, it requires good timing to beat warriors and you’re a baws if you pull it off, but this one is so much more forgiving than the squishier classes.

Elementalist: Wow, this one is fun! It’s fast, it’s diverse, it’s good at… pretty much anything! It’s also rock hard to play at first. People often say that elementalist is either bunker and do nothing or zerker and die in a breeze. Untrue. Elementalists can be middle of the road and still rock. But it really requires skill, the entry level is maybe not so high but take this into high tier PvP and unless you’re fast, think fast and play fast, you’re going to have a hard time. The skill ceiling is also pretty kitten high, a great elementalist is just… wow! +10 for all of you playing elementalists, fun and rewarding, but wow, no mistakes allowed in this carreer track. Honorary mention for the staff eles, who basically dance in their underwear and die when looked at angrily but can destroy an entire enemy team if played with skill!

Medium Armour

Ranger: This class is so odd, it’s like ranger is both overpowered and underpowered at the same time. I played a Power Ranger – For Zordan! – and while I destroyed people I had so few defensive tools that the skill required was pretty high. A few wrong clicks, standing in the wrong place and you’re in a bad spot. But then you go spirit ranger, and suddenly, you can roll your face over the keyboard and still not die. Pew pew pew, it’s a shame to have to say it like that but it’s true. Spirit rangers are very easy. So I think ranger is sort of a mixed bag. If you play power, you need to be on top of things, if you play condi, you can just take it easy. Kudos to the power rangers!

Engineer: This class is OP. But ho! Does that mean you can just roll it and win? Hell no! This class has so many skills, so many synergies, so many things going on that unless you know what you’re doing, you’re going to die. I’ll admit, I rolled engineer and expected to spam and win but that’s not how it works at all. You need skill to be OP with this, lots of skill! Engineers have – in my opnion – NO skill ceiling, if you’re not so good at it, you’ll be a not-so-good engie. If you’re a godlike player, you wil go 1v4 and they burn and break in your awesome powers. I loved playing it, but I wasn’t OP with it. Gg to all OP engies who beat me and made me rage. It’s not the class, it’s you, you’re amazing!

Thief: Thieves can do insane damage, and while most of what they do is very annoying to the other player, it’s simply using the class as it should be played. They’re so squishy it’s not even funny. They melt in condi’s so fast and only shadowstepping is the direct way to staying alive in the condi meta. I wasn’t good at this class, I’ll openly admit that I was pretty bad at it. The skills requirement to not suck on a thief is very high, but players who master the class can become machines! It still has its limits though, low base HP will do that to you. Again, thumbs up to you people playing this one as a stealth, zerker!

Heavy Armour

Warriors: What to say? I have played it a LOT and… it’s easy, it’s very easy. If you have even the slightest clue about what you’re doing, you’ll be beating people of your own level pretty easily. Warriors have a low skill requirement and a medium skill ceiling. The simple fact is that many of a warriors abilities and skills are “Click and Forget” or happen automatically. Healing Signet, Cleaning Ire, they just work whithout me needing to keep them in mind. Warriors are both powerful and not hard. I love playing one, but I feel so bad about it when I beat an ele just because he misses a dodge and my evis hits him for 8K.

Guardians: Mixed bag, much like rangers. Bunker guardians are surprizingly easy. You heal like a beast, you support like a beast, and you have acces to so many defensive skills that for anything somebody throws on you, you have a counter to negate its effect. Other than condibombing, there’s really no answer to a bunker guardian. Then there’s DPS guardian and suddenly whoop, you’re squishy and have only few answers to pressure. People saying DPS guardian is as easy as bunker because it has good defence skills probably don’t know that unless traited for it, guardian have very few defensive skills. So, as with rangers, kudos to the dps guardians, that’s actually skill right there!

I don’t mean to say that if you play X build you’re unskilled and if you play Y build you’re awesome. GW2 allows you to be awesome at everthing. But it was so obvious to me that some classes are just… so much harder than others to play. Going from Warrior to thief is a world of difference, no more facetanking everything, no more easy condi-removal, suddenly it’s learn to dodge or die. You all have you own main class, did I get it wrong, or are skills requirements per classes really different?

You are right. While I find your post not to be earthshattering news, it is a clear statement of how each class works.

I play mesmer, thief, warrior and engineer, mostly in WvW though.

I agree on your views of mesmer. Thief as well.

Regarding engineer though, you have to differ between the condibunker/decap engie and the power engie. The first two are IMO quite easy to learn, a bit harder to master. you will start out rather weak, but when you learn the ropes just a little, you will be beating people that are essentially more skilled. After mastering it, you will be unstoppable, OP even.
Not so much for the Power engineer. Not being able to invest so much into defensive stats will make your engie go from unkillable to difficult to survive. I also feel that the power engie has to be very accurate, or you won’t do significant damage at all. Unlike thief for instance, who has the ability to keep up high burst at all time even if he misses a portion of it (disregarding survival, off course).

About warrior, you hit the nail right on the head. It is easy to learn, probably the easiest class. Skillcap is reached when you have learned to reliably hit your burst, with hammer or axe for instance, and when you can effectively time your utilities. I feel utilities on a warrior are more important then on other classes, as without them, you will often not be able to even hit your opponent.
However, this medium skillcap also means that warrior is the weakest class in a duel (bar maybe a ranger, don’t know what this patch did for them in that area). In tPvP, duels are less important as there will be more then 2 people fighting in most battles. In WvW or other forms of PvP, this actually becomes painfully clear.

tl;dr Warrior is the easiest class to master, and also the easiest class to master how to counter. Strictly 1v1 speaking off course. Their team fighting capabilities are great.

Aedrion.6483:

I noticed that most necro’s don’t seem to dodge a lot, something I’d learned on thief is sooo important.

I am pretty sure that has nothing to do with their skill level or that they don’t like dodging but with not having vigor or any weapon evades.

Aedrion.6483:

I don’t mean to say that if you play X build you’re unskilled and if you play Y build you’re awesome. GW2 allows you to be awesome at everthing. But it was so obvious to me that some classes are just… so much harder than others to play. Going from Warrior to thief is a world of difference, no more facetanking everything, no more easy condi-removal, suddenly it’s learn to dodge or die. You all have you own main class, did I get it wrong, or are skills requirements per classes really different?

The basic skills: positioning, timing your abilities and dodges and rotating between capture points are pretty similar for every class, skill rotations are not particularly hard and you learn them in a couple of hours.

Thief is somewhat different (that is probably while many people find it hard to play or play against): It does not have cool downs but instead you have to manage your initiative and as a result it profits less from weapon swapping.
Going from thief to anything else is a “world of difference” too, no more evade spam, no more abusing teleports, no more absurdly high mobility etc, Mesmer is probably closest to thief in terms of abusing game mechanics.

Many people seem to measure how “easy” or “difficult” a class/build is by the amount of hits it can take, however, I think that it is wrong because you also have to take into account the amount of active defense you can afford to fail and how many skills you have to save your butt when you do a crucial mistake. For instance: Thief has much more dodges/evades (teleports can serve as evades too), therefore it less dramatic if you waste one as for instance a Necromancer. Every class that has a blink (Nec only if you have placed the Wurm in a decent spot before you engaged) can afford to get caught out of position more often than for instance an engineer or even warrior. Everyone that runs two stun breaks (or skills that can serve the same purpose e.g. lightning flash, mesmer staff 3 etc.), can afford to get stunned more often than people who have only one and so on.

Aedrion.6483:

People often say that elementalist is either bunker and do nothing or zerker and die in a breeze. Untrue. Elementalists can be middle of the road and still rock. !

People who says this refers to WWW obviously.
Skill is not applied when your opponent has little interest defending a point and instead can escape at will with no downside and no way to follow him.

Obviously it has something to do with RTL and dagger that was nerfed to prevent ele to do what most other profession do normally.

Cygnus.6903:

Regarding engineer though, you have to differ between the condibunker/decap engie and the power engie. The first two are IMO quite easy to learn, a bit harder to master. you will start out rather weak, but when you learn the ropes just a little, you will be beating people that are essentially more skilled. After mastering it, you will be unstoppable, OP even.
Not so much for the Power engineer. Not being able to invest so much into defensive stats will make your engie go from unkillable to difficult to survive. I also feel that the power engie has to be very accurate, or you won’t do significant damage at all. Unlike thief for instance, who has the ability to keep up high burst at all time even if he misses a portion of it (disregarding survival, off course).

Couldn’t disagree more. All of the engineers ranked in the top 100 run power. As a power (soldiers) engineer who demolishes condi bunkers and CC locks the condi decaps, I think you have to get out of the limited grouping you have been playing with.

Part of the problem is this complete myth that professions like the engineer or necromancer are so strong with conditions and are lesser with power. yet in recent complaint threads about conditions, a vast many players posted video comparisons along side the math of damage comparison. Showing that in the case of the soldier geared necro, they will have the capability to deal out more damage and faster in soldiers gear. Similarly they have shown congruent results with the soldiers gear engineer. Just because the band wagoners adhere to what they read someone once, was OP, and flock to it, does not make it the best. Just because every body is doing it, doesn’t mean it is optimal, it simply means everyone herded like sheep to it.

Depends on your build so much, honestly. I have only got 4 classes to 80, and only truely play 2 of them (Ranger and mesmer).

I play my mesmer in full zerker as a PU phanstasm build and honestly its just so easy. I play it when i want to kitten , go around trolling people and bursting them down before they know whats going on. I wouldnt ever claim to be a great mesmer, but I stil lwin over 80% of 1v1s I get into, and even the ones I lose I usually survive.

With that said though, I did breifly try a shatter spec and I couldnt get my head round it. I am sure with some practice I could, but its clearly much more involved than just kitten ing around in stealth with OP phantasms, and thats not what I play mesmer for.

So yeah.. just an example of how even within classes, its can be played in easy mode or in “hard mode”. The main problem I think with this game is that the “hard-mode” specs often arent even much better than the easy ones (see PU mesmers, like me, Spirit Rangers in PvP, D/P thieves in WvW, etc).

Mesmer require lots of skill?.. what?

I am sorry but any class who pretty much run on auto pilots with their pets are about as brainless as any of the easy classes such as guardian and warrior. Thats why necro/ranger (especially spirit build)/mesmers are easy.

Thief is hard to play in spvp but in wvw they are extremely forgiving as they have a million ways to get out of any bad situation so roaming with thief is pretty much idiot proof. They remind of the vanilla WoW rogues , you can pretty much duel and beat almost anyone (sometimes even 2 shot people) but if you somehow found your match, you can simply vanish.

coglin.1867:

Couldn’t disagree more. All of the engineers ranked in the top 100 run power. As a power (soldiers) engineer who demolishes condi bunkers and CC locks the condi decaps, I think you have to get out of the limited grouping you have been playing with.

Part of the problem is this complete myth that professions like the engineer or necromancer are so strong with conditions and are lesser with power. yet in recent complaint threads about conditions, a vast many players posted video comparisons along side the math of damage comparison. Showing that in the case of the soldier geared necro, they will have the capability to deal out more damage and faster in soldiers gear. Similarly they have shown congruent results with the soldiers gear engineer. Just because the band wagoners adhere to what they read someone once, was OP, and flock to it, does not make it the best. Just because every body is doing it, doesn’t mean it is optimal, it simply means everyone herded like sheep to it.

We disagree on a lot of things.

Taking math into consideration wether condi’s are OP or not is just talking about 1 factor, which is obviously not the reason why conditions are in fact overpowered.

I don’t want to participate in yet another discussion on conditions, this is completely off topic. I’d rather just wait for the inevitable and justified nerf.

@Cygnus
Then why did you make an effort to differentiate what you feel power vs condition builds can do on a profession if it is off topic?

Anyway, I think more defensive power builds are extremely under rated while condi builds are over rated. I also feel a balanced ele in something like celestial gear is under rated.

Personally I feel the thief is next easiest profession to play behind warriors. Sure, there is a difference between just playing one, and playing one well, but you would be kidding yourself if you didn’t believe that is the case across the board in all professions.

This isn’t about conditions versus Power builds. It’s about skill ceilings and requirements.

Aedrion.6483:

I noticed that most necro’s don’t seem to dodge a lot, something I’d learned on thief is sooo important. But when you see the amount of punishment you can take while playing a bunker necro, it’s unsurprizing that most of them don’t think it nessesary. A lot of hate is directed towards necro’s and seeing how fast I could rip people apart with it, it’s unsurprizing if still undue. Unless they were a class that hard-countered me, I could sort of just lay back and melt them. No, I don’t think people playing this have no skill, it requires good timing to beat warriors and you’re a baws if you pull it off, but this one is so much more forgiving than the squishier classes.

What a stupid statement. Do you expect Necros to dodge a lot, with no access to Vigor and limited access to energy sigils?

It seems like you’re only talking about MM, since you’re not going to “lay back and melt” anyone with any of the other builds.

Xahz.8406:

What a stupid statement. Do you expect Necros to dodge a lot, with no access to Vigor and limited access to energy sigils?

It seems like you’re only talking about MM, since you’re not going to “lay back and melt” anyone with any of the other builds.

I noticed they have little acces to vigor, but I also noticed that many players who play necro do not dodge, at all.
Example. On my warrior, when I used Evis, many classes would dodge it, Guardians, Mesmers, Engineers, even some warriors. But Necromancers would always just get hit by it, as if they’d never learned to reflex to dodge giant hitting attacks.

I pointed that out because I suspect that while they do not have access to Vigor, they could still get sigils of energy but simply didn’t because the massive healthpool and relatively good armour allowed them to soak that damage instead.

Those would be more commonly be known as “baddies”. I’m willing to bet those same players wouldn’t have dodged it on a Warrior either.

Aedrion.6483:

I noticed they have little acces to vigor, but I also noticed that many players who play necro do not dodge, at all.
Example. On my warrior, when I used Evis, many classes would dodge it, Guardians, Mesmers, Engineers, even some warriors. But Necromancers would always just get hit by it, as if they’d never learned to reflex to dodge giant hitting attacks.

I pointed that out because I suspect that while they do not have access to Vigor, they could still get sigils of energy but simply didn’t because the massive healthpool and relatively good armour allowed them to soak that damage instead.

I can think of three reasons why they wouldn’t dodge:

1. Learning to dodge on reflex is useless if you can’t have enough endurance to dodge at the required moment. Most classes have easy ways to augment their dodges so when they “dodge on reflex”, they will get rewarded more often. Necromancers on the other hand will not and therefore will give up on dodging and search for other defenses.

2. The necromancer thought it was benificial to take the hit for various reasons. Necromancers are designed for taking hits and punishing enemies for it, the amount of skills/traits that revolve around it are enormous. In fact I had once a fight with an ele and decided to eat it’s churning earth just to send back all the bleeds to the enemy. Ele died soon after. I did not dodge the highly telegraphed move but was it less skillfull?

3.He wants to save the dodge for when you pull out your mace, hammer,… .

On a final note I think that you make a mistake by considering dodging as the indicator of skill, I believe that resource management is equally (if not more) important and I believe necromancer is the class that require the most resource management or at least high on the ladder.

Ps: necros are a light armor class. :p

For those who say mesmer is not a high- skill cap class.
enjoy BamfJoe

Phantasm Mesmer + PU mesmers are an easy way to go, assuming your enemies aren’t so stupid that they leave your phantasms up.

Shatter mesmer is much more challenging, as it requires mastery of timing your bursts.

Shatter is unreliable as a damage source because many players know to dodge the shatter, and they can see a shatter setup from miles away.

Ive noticed a lot of necros just think they can tank everything too. Why not dodge if you have it and it will help you. Most are just used to facerolling is why, but they are the bad ones

While I do agree necro is forgiving and can take a lot of punishment, using how often one dodges as a measure of skill is very false. Due to lack of vigor, dodges are best saved for big hits. Furthermore, necro has very good counter pressure (chill, crip, fumb, fear), and can trade hits well.

Tim.6450:

I can think of three reasons why they wouldn’t dodge:

1. Learning to dodge on reflex is useless if you can’t have enough endurance to dodge at the required moment. Most classes have easy ways to augment their dodges so when they “dodge on reflex”, they will get rewarded more often. Necromancers on the other hand will not and therefore will give up on dodging and search for other defenses.

2. The necromancer thought it was benificial to take the hit for various reasons. Necromancers are designed for taking hits and punishing enemies for it, the amount of skills/traits that revolve around it are enormous. In fact I had once a fight with an ele and decided to eat it’s churning earth just to send back all the bleeds to the enemy. Ele died soon after. I did not dodge the highly telegraphed move but was it less skillfull?

3.He wants to save the dodge for when you pull out your mace, hammer,… .

On a final note I think that you make a mistake by considering dodging as the indicator of skill, I believe that resource management is equally (if not more) important and I believe necromancer is the class that require the most resource management or at least high on the ladder.

Ps: necros are a light armor class. :p

Good points but in example case here, they aren’t exactly applicable.

- True, Necromancers have very bad CC counters and dodges but Evis is a very deadly skill. If you should dodge anything, dodge that, because it hurts. Most of them soaking it doesn’t mean they aren’t skilled but if you don’t dodge Evis, then what do you dodge? Most of the time they were just 1v1 and I didn’t use stuns.
- Evis doesn’t leave bleed, or any conditions, it’s a flat out huge stomp in your face. True, Necro’s can play with condtions, I loved letting them stack high when I needed HP and then eat them all. But unless I missed a skill, there’s really no beneficial effect to eating an Evis.
- I ran, Longbow Axe/sword on my warrior, they didn’t have to worry about hammerstuns. Feels like such cheese playing with that weapon. Boom boom boom, 50% of your HP is gone, Trololo.

True, dodging isn’t the only indication of skill but it’s something some other classes cannot afford to miss. Like I stated in the original post, there were elementalists who missed the dodge and for them, that ussually meant ‘game over’. So most of them dodged it, because their class required it. Necromancers did not always dodge it, because their class allowed them to eat it. Taking this back to the topic subject, that’s a huge difference in skill requirement, right there. Evis is a fast skill and dodging it when the warrior is right next to you is not easy.

dancingmonkey.4902:

@Cygnus
Then why did you make an effort to differentiate what you feel power vs condition builds can do on a profession if it is off topic?

Because conditions are easier to play, and that is on topic.

Erzian.5218:

The basic skills: positioning, timing your abilities and dodges and rotating between capture points are pretty similar for every class, skill rotations are not particularly hard and you learn them in a couple of hours.

Thief is somewhat different (that is probably while many people find it hard to play or play against): It does not have cool downs but instead you have to manage your initiative and as a result it profits less from weapon swapping.
Going from thief to anything else is a “world of difference” too, no more evade spam, no more abusing teleports, no more absurdly high mobility etc, Mesmer is probably closest to thief in terms of abusing game mechanics.

Many people seem to measure how “easy” or “difficult” a class/build is by the amount of hits it can take, however, I think that it is wrong because you also have to take into account the amount of active defense you can afford to fail and how many skills you have to save your butt when you do a crucial mistake. For instance: Thief has much more dodges/evades (teleports can serve as evades too), therefore it less dramatic if you waste one as for instance a Necromancer. Every class that has a blink (Nec only if you have placed the Wurm in a decent spot before you engaged) can afford to get caught out of position more often than for instance an engineer or even warrior. Everyone that runs two stun breaks (or skills that can serve the same purpose e.g. lightning flash, mesmer staff 3 etc.), can afford to get stunned more often than people who have only one and so on.

This post has it right imo.

Cygnus.6903:

dancingmonkey.4902:

@Cygnus
Then why did you make an effort to differentiate what you feel power vs condition builds can do on a profession if it is off topic?

Because conditions are easier to play, and that is on topic.

How so? I would like a detailed explanation on this if you can. Conditions still require the same button press to act, and the same need to land the skill to apply them, that a direct damage skill does. Only the direct damage skill has the advantage of being instantly applied. The condition attack runs the risk of being cleansed and negated fully or only applying half damage in the case of something like melandru+lemongrass comb. With those facts in mind, I find it diffucult to see merit in your claim.

In the scope of skill, neither power or condition damage is more or less conducive to skill then the other as a whole. Personally I feel specific builds and the weapons/utilities in said build much more skill related then a specif damage type. As well, I feel the skill level varies with in a profession, based on the type of build set up.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Cygnus.6903:

dancingmonkey.4902:

@Cygnus
Then why did you make an effort to differentiate what you feel power vs condition builds can do on a profession if it is off topic?

Because conditions are easier to play, and that is on topic.

How so? I would like a detailed explanation on this if you can. Conditions still require the same button press to act, and the same need to land the skill to apply them, that a direct damage skill does. Only the direct damage skill has the advantage of being instantly applied. The condition attack runs the risk of being cleansed and negated fully or only applying half damage in the case of something like melandru+lemongrass comb. With those facts in mind, I find it diffucult to see merit in your claim.

In the scope of skill, neither power or condition damage is more or less conducive to skill then the other as a whole. Personally I feel specific builds and the weapons/utilities in said build much more skill related then a specif damage type. As well, I feel the skill level varies with in a profession, based on the type of build set up.

Conditions are higher damage per attack (not second, don’t get confused there), which puts greater pressure on enemies, have greater access to control condis, and are somewhat easier to land in general (read: marks are really, really easy to land, being essentially non-projectile 1200-range AoEs with very similar appearances to each other that can additionally be unblockable, and hit instantly after cast).

P Fun Daddy.1208:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Cygnus.6903:

dancingmonkey.4902:

@Cygnus
Then why did you make an effort to differentiate what you feel power vs condition builds can do on a profession if it is off topic?

Because conditions are easier to play, and that is on topic.

How so? I would like a detailed explanation on this if you can. Conditions still require the same button press to act, and the same need to land the skill to apply them, that a direct damage skill does. Only the direct damage skill has the advantage of being instantly applied. The condition attack runs the risk of being cleansed and negated fully or only applying half damage in the case of something like melandru+lemongrass comb. With those facts in mind, I find it diffucult to see merit in your claim.

In the scope of skill, neither power or condition damage is more or less conducive to skill then the other as a whole. Personally I feel specific builds and the weapons/utilities in said build much more skill related then a specif damage type. As well, I feel the skill level varies with in a profession, based on the type of build set up.

Conditions are higher damage per attack (not second, don’t get confused there), which puts greater pressure on enemies, have greater access to control condis, and are somewhat easier to land in general (read: marks are really, really easy to land, being essentially non-projectile 1200-range AoEs with very similar appearances to each other that can additionally be unblockable, and hit instantly after cast).

Your necro marks example isn’t exclusive to conditions builds. Power necros can use staff very well Leeto V has good videos showing what staff does in a power build and still gets good use of the conditions it applies.

I would say that in general power builds benefit better from “extra” damage they get from conditions then condition builds get from any little bit of power they have.

Also, the “higher damage per attack” is demonstrably false. Conditions tend to have lower damage per attack than a similarly offensive Power build. There are some exceptions, but not many.

dancingmonkey.4902:

How so? I would like a detailed explanation on this if you can. Conditions still require the same button press to act, and the same need to land the skill to apply them, that a direct damage skill does. Only the direct damage skill has the advantage of being instantly applied. The condition attack runs the risk of being cleansed and negated fully or only applying half damage in the case of something like melandru+lemongrass comb. With those facts in mind, I find it diffucult to see merit in your claim.

In the scope of skill, neither power or condition damage is more or less conducive to skill then the other as a whole. Personally I feel specific builds and the weapons/utilities in said build much more skill related then a specif damage type. As well, I feel the skill level varies with in a profession, based on the type of build set up.

We are still getting into the whole condi vs direct damage discussion, and I feel we are both biased. I am well aware that I am, for one.

I will give a short explanation.

I found playing both conditions and power builds (on every class I play except mesmer), that I had to invest significantly more into offensive stats on my power build (precision, ferocity, especially after the HUGE nerf) to be able to kill opponents. I am talking strictly WvW.
That left my condition builds with enormous EHP. It feels indestructible, really.

Combine that with the nature of conditions (ignoring toughness, lot’s of aoe skills, and sure, you can walk out, but not without the condition yet on you, the panicky effect of condi’s, the insane amount of soft CC with increased durations that can be applied like spam) and I came to the conclusion that conditions were easier to play then power.

There are a lot of theorycrafty arguments coming from the condition-camp right now, it is hiding behind numbers that have no significance. I came to my conclusions while playing, which beats theory in my opinion.

coglin.1867:

Cygnus.6903:

Regarding engineer though, you have to differ between the condibunker/decap engie and the power engie. The first two are IMO quite easy to learn, a bit harder to master. you will start out rather weak, but when you learn the ropes just a little, you will be beating people that are essentially more skilled. After mastering it, you will be unstoppable, OP even.
Not so much for the Power engineer. Not being able to invest so much into defensive stats will make your engie go from unkillable to difficult to survive. I also feel that the power engie has to be very accurate, or you won’t do significant damage at all. Unlike thief for instance, who has the ability to keep up high burst at all time even if he misses a portion of it (disregarding survival, off course).

Couldn’t disagree more. All of the engineers ranked in the top 100 run power. As a power (soldiers) engineer who demolishes condi bunkers and CC locks the condi decaps, I think you have to get out of the limited grouping you have been playing with.

Part of the problem is this complete myth that professions like the engineer or necromancer are so strong with conditions and are lesser with power. yet in recent complaint threads about conditions, a vast many players posted video comparisons along side the math of damage comparison. Showing that in the case of the soldier geared necro, they will have the capability to deal out more damage and faster in soldiers gear. Similarly they have shown congruent results with the soldiers gear engineer. Just because the band wagoners adhere to what they read someone once, was OP, and flock to it, does not make it the best. Just because every body is doing it, doesn’t mean it is optimal, it simply means everyone herded like sheep to it.

While direct damage may potentially serve a higher damage sustain on a necro/engy, a condi build does seem to be a tad more effective most of the time. This is because you can unload conditions as a necro/engy to such a great extent, all you have to do after you have lit up your target is purely play defensively. I’d assume most of the top ranked players use power because conditions can be hard countered, and most good teams will have great condi clearing methods for their team.

This is my personal ranking system, when it comes to playing spvp. 1st tier being the hardest to play, last tier being the easiest. This is a generalized list.

Tier 1
-Ele
-Thief
-Engy

Tier 2
Mesmer
Necro

Tier 4
-Ranger
-Warrior
-Guardian

play styles with the highest skill cap IMO are Staff ele and Sword/dagger Thief.

Grimreaper.5370:

This is my personal ranking system, when it comes to playing spvp. 1st tier being the hardest to play, last tier being the easiest. This is a generalized list.

Tier 1
-Ele
-Thief
-Engy

Tier 2
Mesmer
Necro

Tier 4
-Ranger
-Warrior
-Guardian

play styles with the highest skill cap IMO are Staff ele and Sword/dagger Thief.

I agree mosty with your list, though shatter mesmer goes in T1, along with burst guardian. Staff ele is deffo T1, D/D ele is tier 2; it’s not as hard if you have the right build. Power ranger goes in T2 in my opinion, not easy, but not hard either. Necro, warrior and Spirit ranger are the easiest.

Like somebody pointed out earlier, a lot plays into how easy or hard a class is to play. The build you run, the skills you use, the people you fight, but overall, in PvP, having a lot of health and a lot of control makes the playstyle much easier and forgiving than having no control and low HP.

Aedrion.6483:

Grimreaper.5370:

This is my personal ranking system, when it comes to playing spvp. 1st tier being the hardest to play, last tier being the easiest. This is a generalized list.

Tier 1
-Ele
-Thief
-Engy

Tier 2
Mesmer
Necro

Tier 4
-Ranger
-Warrior
-Guardian

play styles with the highest skill cap IMO are Staff ele and Sword/dagger Thief.

I agree mosty with your list, though shatter mesmer goes in T1, along with burst guardian. Staff ele is deffo T1, D/D ele is tier 2; it’s not as hard if you have the right build. Power ranger goes in T2 in my opinion, not easy, but not hard either. Necro, warrior and Spirit ranger are the easiest.

Like somebody pointed out earlier, a lot plays into how easy or hard a class is to play. The build you run, the skills you use, the people you fight, but overall, in PvP, having a lot of health and a lot of control makes the playstyle much easier and forgiving than having no control and low HP.

I rated the classes with how hard it is to execute skills with optimal efficiency in mind. Even if some classes are easier than others to win on, it still may be hard to play optimally. After 1300 hours on my ele I still practice d/d combos to this day. There are actually quite a few potential combos that do take quite a bit of skill. Like activating shocking aura and then using the burning speed + Lightning Flash combo as soon as your opponent is stunned, this will allow you to make your opponent eat more of the fire trail.

Grimreaper.5370:

After 1300 hours on my ele I still practice d/d combos to this day. There are actually quite a few potential combos that do take quite a bit of skill. Like activating shocking aura and then using the burning speed + Lightning Flash combo as soon as your opponent is stunned, this will allow you to make your opponent eat more of the fire trail.

Ele is a class that is able to be good at a lot of things. It scales well with skill level indeed. I heard about the Lightning Flash and burning speed combo from a friend too, it’s so hard but so good

Meanwhile other classes can just whack a button and do the same damage :S

Aedrion.6483:

Grimreaper.5370:

After 1300 hours on my ele I still practice d/d combos to this day. There are actually quite a few potential combos that do take quite a bit of skill. Like activating shocking aura and then using the burning speed + Lightning Flash combo as soon as your opponent is stunned, this will allow you to make your opponent eat more of the fire trail.

Ele is a class that is able to be good at a lot of things. It scales well with skill level indeed. I heard about the Lightning Flash and burning speed combo from a friend too, it’s so hard but so good

Meanwhile other classes can just whack a button and do the same damage :S

And the question becomes, should the others be made more difficult or should the elementalist be made easier?

Aedrion.6483:

Medium Armour

Ranger: This class is so odd, it’s like ranger is both overpowered and underpowered at the same time. I played a Power Ranger – For Zordan! – and while I destroyed people I had so few defensive tools that the skill required was pretty high. A few wrong clicks, standing in the wrong place and you’re in a bad spot. But then you go spirit ranger, and suddenly, you can roll your face over the keyboard and still not die. Pew pew pew, it’s a shame to have to say it like that but it’s true. Spirit rangers are very easy. So I think ranger is sort of a mixed bag. If you play power, you need to be on top of things, if you play condi, you can just take it easy. Kudos to the power rangers!

Engineer: This class is OP. But ho! Does that mean you can just roll it and win? Hell no! This class has so many skills, so many synergies, so many things going on that unless you know what you’re doing, you’re going to die. I’ll admit, I rolled engineer and expected to spam and win but that’s not how it works at all. You need skill to be OP with this, lots of skill! Engineers have – in my opnion – NO skill ceiling, if you’re not so good at it, you’ll be a not-so-good engie. If you’re a godlike player, you wil go 1v4 and they burn and break in your awesome powers. I loved playing it, but I wasn’t OP with it. Gg to all OP engies who beat me and made me rage. It’s not the class, it’s you, you’re amazing!

Thief: Thieves can do insane damage, and while most of what they do is very annoying to the other player, it’s simply using the class as it should be played. They’re so squishy it’s not even funny. They melt in condi’s so fast and only shadowstepping is the direct way to staying alive in the condi meta. I wasn’t good at this class, I’ll openly admit that I was pretty bad at it. The skills requirement to not suck on a thief is very high, but players who master the class can become machines! It still has its limits though, low base HP will do that to you. Again, thumbs up to you people playing this one as a stealth, zerker!

i was in complete agreement until your vernacular made it obvious you favor thief. you mention so many more pros and cons about the other classes but when you came to this it’s just about how they’re squishy. QED, they have as much hp as guardians, can stealth more than any rogue class ever invented by an mmo developer providing the best escape mechanic in the game.