Guild Wars 2

1. Elementalist
2. Engineer
3. Mesmer

As far as PvE goes, there is my opinion…

1. Engineer
2. Ranger
3. Necromancer

Albeit, i’ll talk mostly about the engineers.
Imho, the engineer should be reviewed in lieu of its fixed penalities applied to optional traits/utilities. It is no surprise that people use kits: their main weapon is nerfed in its dps to begin with (at least according to the balance philosophies) and they have a single weapon to start with – basically starting at a disadvantage compared to any other class. Sure, elementalists too have no weapon swap…but their mechanic is basically having four themed weapons. Without kits, the engineers find themselves with a single weapon and utilities comparable or worse to any other class (turrets and most gadgets aren’t that good, and even elixirs aren’t much good unless traited).
Thus relying often on the poor autoattack. Sure, there is the toolbelt – but any other class has got its mechanic, too. Guardians have got basically 3 signets. Is a single additional mini-utility – they aren’t comparable in effects as utilities, after all – as important as a second weapon? I doubt about it.

Also, balancing kits around their traited version just forces players using their traited version or avoid using it at all – that’s what happens with grenades, since they’re almost useless when untraited. No single weapon/utility should get specific grandmaster traits, they’re just prone to utter unbalancing – as they have to get really strong effects to get that slot, but yet they risk making a balanced weapon too strong to be considered balanced. Imho, such traits should be at most master ones (and they usually are, except for engineers and a necromancers’ one).

And i would add…there are too many traits about kits, and almost nothing about the actual class mechanic and gadgets.

1. Ranger needs the most help BY FAR.
2. Engineer needs help, but not as much as Ranger
3. Necro – needs a slight toning down. Not as important as 1 or 2.

as an aside, necros dont need any “help” outside of PVE. currently, necros have multiple viable and fun, condi and power specs in WvW roaming, GvG/GvZ and spvp. so people requesting help for the necro should specify “pve only”.

1. Ele (Everything)
2. Ranger (Pigeonholed, VERY LITTLE build diversity)
3. Warrior (Needs rehab, too much steroids)

1. Elementalist
2. Ranger
3. Necromancer

1. Ele
2. Ranger

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
3. Necromancer

1.) Ranger – Broken profession mechanic, lack-luster weapon design(I’m looking at you bows and axe), dependent on Utility skills and Traits.
2.) Elementalist – Needs more skill flow and skill purpose. Interactions between different elemental skills to encourage swapping and skillful play. Currently feels like a jumble of random effects thrown onto a weapon or Utility skill.
3.) Thief – Counter-intuitive weapon skills, lack-luster utility skills, Shortbow=utility=/=weapon, trait dependency, and lack of counterplay.

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist

This is very unclear. Are we talking Quality of Life issues, buffs on said classes, or some overhauls on the way things work? Since I lack this information I will provide a brief summation of what i think needs to be changed.

1. Rangers. This class has the potential to be one of the most tactical and fun classes. Positional requirements and proper skill usage are always fun However many encounters leave the pet to be a hindrance and problem rather than an asset. Our traits focus too heavily on the pet itself yet with the plethora of boss mechanics that neuter our pets usefulness they aren’t worth it. Can we be given the option to stow the pet and be given a small damage boost to ourselves to compensate? Not enough to replace the pet in encounters where the pet can be used effectively, but enough to give us an option to not feel slighted on encounters where the boss’ targetting is a major concern ( like jade maw’s lasers or bosses that have to be dragged through stuff.) Many of our utlities are lackluster in the PvE environment as well. This mostly stems from our traits being all over the place and lacking the same sense of focus many other classes have. We have a ton of pet talents and random defensive abiltiies shoved in the damage traits sections. We also have some must get talents too early in our trees. Maybe give us the same treatment you gave eles recently and warriors not too long ago. The less reliance on the arcane tree and stopping of being pidgeon holed into 20 arcane and water was great.
2. Engineer. Engineer has many of the same problems as ranger. Turrets are awkward and too easily nullified by many of the bosses in the game. The suffer from some trqait issues as well. It’s hard to find a reason to play an engineer as they expend twice as much effort to under perform when compared to many other classes.
3. Elementalist. The highest skill capped class and one that is very fun to play. They mainly need quality of life changes and maybe some fine tuning as far as numbers are concerned. y on staff and main hand dagger. Some of the skills just don’t seem to flow well and semm out of place. interactions and benefits for attunement swapping need to be more focused. Many of the earth skills seem awkward especiallAs well as maybe some of the glyphs. Also the earth trait line isn’t quite in the right spot.

Glenstorm.4059:

Thedenofsin.7340:

1. Mesmer
2. Warrior
3. Elementalist

You’ve voted at least five times on this thread, lol.

I hope whoever’s tallying up these votes keeps track of who’s voting.

AGREED! Hope the devs have the time to weed-out people who vote more than once!

PvE:

1) Ranger;
2) Engineer;
3) Necromancer.

PvP/WvW:
1)Thief;
2) Elementalist;
3) Ranger.

1. Elementalist
2. Mesmer
3. Ranger

1.Elementalist(PVE base weapon skills dont do enough damage compared to other classes therefore we get locked builds like (LH to spam auto atack to deal comparable dmg to warriors, or we get might stacking build and be buffer of the party), some weapon skills are down right useless on scepter(fire auto atack, water auto atack, shatterstone etc) pretty much still no build variety, useless in PVP dont fall into any particular role, gets rolled in PVP by thiefs if you go burst, (warriors have greater survivability stuns and dmg at the same time), if you go bunker you dont have inuf survability or dmg compared to other bunker types. And on top of broken skills and what not ele has been overnerfed and right now the weakest class in the game.
2. Necro needs some buffs when relating to PVE and bug fixes.
3. Ranger changes to PVE and prevent the auto atack spam builds.

1. Ranger

1) Ranger… They need help desperately! please!!

2) Elementalist – I don’t even know what to think about this anymore

3) Engineer … So much good and wrong with this class it needs a good thorough discussion first IMO

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Elementalist

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
3. Necromancer

1. Mesmer
2. Ranger
3. Elementalist

1. Engineer. Two reasons: The first is turrets and turret traits, which have been bugged since beta. I have a feeling they just need to be completely remade. They also have too little HP for PvE zones. Necrominion health was increased in PvE to compensate for the same issue, but turrets did not get this. Having a quarter of the engineer’s utility skills horribly bugged makes the profession impossible to balance. The second is the matter of ascended weapon damage versus kits. Simply put, kits cannot benefit from the 5% extra damage that comes with ascended weapons even though engineers lose a weapon toggle in exchange for kits. One suggestion is to give all ascended weapons a passive bonus: +5% damage to kits. This would mean that kit engies can benefit from ascended weapons, but they still have to work for it like any other profession. This change would presumably also benefit things like warrior banners and elementalist conjured weapons.

2. Ranger. I have a level 80 ranger, though I haven’t used them for awhile. When I was levelling and even now, I see people joke a lot about this profession. Since a large chunk of the ranger’s power is pushed onto their pet, the ranger himself is weaker. This makes sense, but I think making the ranger’s pet more active by way of improved pet utilities would be a good start.

3. Thief. This is mainly a PvP deal I suppose, but I think some thought needs to be put into how stealth interacts with enemies, e.g. what should cause stealth to be removed, what shouldn’t.

I know this thread is just asking for a vote on who gets worked on first, but I also think another overarching problem is hit point totals for players in PvE. The health tiers are way too far apart. I don’t think they should all be made equal, but the gaps between low-mid health tier and mid-high health tiers need to be partly closed in PvE.

Ben K.6238:

With a script it’d be easier. Unfortunately it’s tricky enough to read through the non-standard posts without keeping track of who’s voted too.

Oh, I mean whoever from Anet is tallying up the votes. But I do appreciate your hard work too! Thanks.

1. Ranger: they need a rework in sw, better pet management, ai improvements make parts more responsive when using f2. We have too many passive abilities in traits and skills, we need better synergy with pets and skill/trait setup, more aggressive skill in the utility bar.
2. Elementalist: we need better sustain in all game modes. Lower cooldows on our current sustain skills. Un-nerf some healing that we used to have.

3. All other classes that I pay are good. Based on feedback necro

1. Ranger (needs help in every game mode. Only pvp spirits work and that is a build run not because it’s fun but from lack of other options)
2. Thief (not a bad class, just a lack of diversity)
3. Warrior (needs serious nerfs in every game mode. Too high health, defense, trait synergy, mobility, damage … basically too high everything)

1. Engineer
2. Ranger
3. Elementalist

1. Necromancer (bug fixing)
2. Engineer
3. Ranger

1. ranger – broken pet mechanic, chaotic traits, sword #1, Bows in general, …
2. necro – DS delay, no healing in DS, DS in some builds useless, broken/useless traits, Vampiric is underpowered, …
3. engi – a bit everywhere

Warriors should also be looked at, but they don’t need help

Ben K.6238:

Out of interest I decided to collate votes from pages 1-7.
Second or third votes for a class were ignored. Only one top 3 per poster, so where more than one was provided I chose buff lists where available. PvP/PvE/WvW posts I had to skip.

Class / Rank——1—-2—-3 -Total
Ranger_____150__87__39__276
Elementalist__74__78__68__220
Necromancer_43__49__56__148
Engineer_____17__47__55__119
Mesmer_____24__22__28___74
Thief _______15__23__27___65
Warrior______3__11 __13___27
Guardian_____3___2___7___12

Good Job!
I was about to do the same with my data but seeing as we don’t differ too much you just lightend my workload.

1. Guardian – Better shield skills, and different aegis effect for legendary shield. etc
2. Engineer
3. Thief

1) Ranger
2) Engineer
3) Necromancer

1. Ranger
2. Engineer
3. Elementalist

I am sorry to break the rhythm, but from a competitive viewpoint in sPvP, every class has to be looked at. Some are more in need of balance changes. I would also recommend looking at the time frame starting at the 26th of February 2013 and ending at the 25th of June 2013. I know many competitive players liked that meta as it was fairly balanced, with every class more or less represented in competitive play.

My list for urgent balancing consists of these 3 classes:

1. Warrior
2. Ranger
3. Necromancer

(Further adding up to it:
4. Elementalist
5. Thief
6. Mesmer
7. Engineer
8. Guardian
9. Caed :D)

It has to be considered that the sum of certain skills, traits, runes, sigils and amulets (so basically builds) are too dominant in the current meta, over-shadowing other available builds right now. They are just a really decent option to take.
The thing is, certain skills and traits have to be looked at.

• Warriors: Let us talk about the heavily discussed Healing Signet. Guardians have a signet with only condition cleanse every 10 seconds (untraited). Engineers have no signets, basically just active skills. Rangers have mostly active healing skills too, while the Water Spirit has a random chance to heal allies. Thieves have Signet of Malice but their passive heal is only triggered by attacks. Elementalists have Signet of Restoration and that is triggered by use of skills (or spells as said in the tool-tip). Mesmers have Signet of the Ether which passively heals heals of various amounts depending on the illusions they have out. I do not like that design choice since it is a more independant passive heal but it has some restrictions to its effectiveness at least (It also supports an AI build, urgh). Necromancers have Signet of Vampirism which triggers its passive on being stuck by a foe but that can be counterplayed by heavy burst.
  A warrior’s healing signet is the only healing skill which passively regenerates health without any restrictions. Poison on the warrior will reduce it to 274.4 healing per second without 30 points into Defense. That is still a high amount. Couple that with one of the highest base healths, stances like Berserker Stance or Endure Pain, Condi-Removal via Cleansing Ire or Signet of Rage (coupled with Lyssa and possibly Signet Mastery), Dogged March, etc. and you have a powerhouse.
  Passive, unrestricted stuff like this should not be in sPvP. Nor should be hard-counters like Berserker Stance. That is too forgiving.

• Ranger: Spirit of Nature is similar to the Healing Signet. Passively heals for 480 right now even though it should be 320. It also clears conditions coupled with probably 30 points into Wilderness Survival for Empathic Bond and 30 points into Nature Magic for Spirits. Rangers still run any of these options: Shortbow, Sword, Dagger, Axe, Torch. There is a lot of condi pressure possible especially with Carrion Amulet (I am not sure how much the use of it has differed since June or July last year).
  Spirits are also random with their procs which isn’t a good design choice for competitive play anyway. RNG makes it somewhat more exciting but also takes out control from the player. Control which could allow for more depth and difficulty.
  Melee AI may still be rather easily kited in a circular route without any swiftness or movement increase. I remember e.g. Ravens not being able to kite since they have a different, straight pathing.

• Necromancer: Dhuumfire has a similar fate like utility skill spirits. It procs randomly on crit which at least doesn’t include conditions since they cannot critically hit. However, scepter #1 is still spammy and can proc Dhuumfire for example.
  It is good to move it to Deathshroud but I am not sure if it is a good choice. I think Signet of Spite is also being looked at by now. (I sadly did not duel any good necromancers since I came back from my break, so I cannot say much about it, although spectral wall and terror used to be broken. Terror got a nerf past June however, if I am not mistaken)

All in all, every class has to be revisited though. There is already a power-creep in the current builds. Things like Diamond Skin should also not be in this gam for example.
Less AoE and more emphasis on single target damage (single target > AoE in damage and effectiveness), less AI and more character-centered play (more control over the options given and therefore a broader playing field), less power creep to conditions and more emphasis on power damage. Less invulnerability and more emphasis on blocks (a good recommendation from Vuh on sPvP-forums about making current evades rather block than give invulnerability) (more error possible and higher skill ceiling due to punishment on more occasions).
And look at key skills and traits in builds.

Edit: Look at Flanking Strike, Larcenous Strike and Evade spam please too.

1) Ranger (Massive build diversity issues, defunct class mechanic due to bad AI, Many underpowered traits and poorly arranged trait lines, some underpowered weapon skills, lack of viability of power builds in comparison to other classes.) The key emphasis I would place is that NO CLASS should have to do 70% of their character damage when they are keeping up with their moving targets but their pets are not equipped to. It will take A LOT more to fix this class than adding some fields on to traps. Suggestions for how to help improve ranger pets without breaking the AI system have already been suggested in the flagged ranger thread in the balance section, please read them.

2) Elementalist (Some significant build diversity issues, and for the nature of their survivability, I think it might need some tweaks and improvements.)

3) Thief/Engineer (Major build diversity issues. They don’t break or weaken the class in contrast to others, but severely limit it in character building)

1. Ranger. Most people cringe when a ranger joins a dungeon group; their pets pull enemies, pets die all the time, they do crap damage, etc.

2. Necromancer. They don’t offer much for the group in PVE, apart from wells which have to be specced into to be made viable. Conditions are also not as effective in PVE as they should be.

3. Engineer. They should be able to be played without using the grenade kit. Turrets need to be fixed.

1. Ranger
2. Ele
3. Engineer.

1. Elementalist.
2. Ranger
3. Mesmer

1. Ranger
2. Necromancer (In PvE)
3. Engineer

1. Ranger
2. Necro
3. Thief

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
3. Engineer

1. Elementalist
2. Necromancer
3. Mesmer

1. Ranger
2. Necromancer
3. Engineer

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
3. Engineer

1. Elementalist
2. Necromancer

1. Mesmer (at least fix the focus and iLeap bugs with terrain…)
2. Ele
3. Engi

1. Elementalist
2. Ranger
3. Necromancer

1. Ele
2. Necro
3. Ranger

In terms of the biggest offenders of class balance:

1. Elementalist
2. Warrior
3. Necromancer

In terms of class design (i.e. the design behind the class really needs to be reconsidered – for example, the ele is a generally well designed class even though it is underperforming)

1. Ranger
2. Warrior
3. Necromancer

As always, I hope the balancing team can get the high skill cap builds to be the apex predators, instead of the low-risk, high reward builds.

1. Elementalist
2. Ranger
3. Engineer

I know you said not to but… food for thought

Give Ele’s weapon swap but make them choose only 2 active elements [This idea has always made me giddy as a build fanatic and may solve a lot of their issues with flexibility seeing as all elements within a given weapon set tend to have a lot of reduntant skills with little to no play variance. Complicated? Yes. Unmanageable. Far from it. Fun, [in theory] kitten yeah!]

Allow Rangers to play without pets and adjust stats accordingly + improve pet ai for pet builds and change the bleed for the shortbow to some other condition… or just a straight bleed… Also… at the very least could you make my pet respond when I tell it to use it’s signature skill instead of 1 minute later? That would be great…

No suggestions for Engi’s, I just understand they need help.

Ben K.6238:

Out of interest I decided to collate votes from pages 1-7.
Second or third votes for a class were ignored. Only one top 3 per poster, so where more than one was provided I chose buff lists where available. PvP/PvE/WvW posts I had to skip.

Class / Rank——1—-2—-3 -Total
Ranger_____150__87__39__276
Elementalist__74__78__68__220
Necromancer_43__49__56__148
Engineer_____17__47__55__119
Mesmer_____24__22__28___74
Thief _______15__23__27___65
Warrior______3__11 __13___27
Guardian_____3___2___7___12

Added formatting.

Hey Anet, can we get some CSS for these tables please?

1. Engineer
2. Ranger
3. Elementalist