Guild Wars 2

King Cephalopod.7942:

Obtena.7952:

I also encourage that because the kind of player that only wants to play to win shouldn’t care what class they are playing anyways and this game actually accommodates them with fast (even INSTANT) leveling and easy character swapping.

This is a game. You play to win the game. If I just wanted flavor, I could read a book. Or watch a movie. But I want to win with flavor. And that I can’t (moreso that people better than me can’t) is where the problem lies.

Not everyone plays to win, or has a different idea about winning than you do. Some of those ‘wins’ don’t depend on how your class performs.

Even when they do, go back to the statistics lesson I handed out a few posts back. It’s completely unreasonable to expect ‘win’ with underperforming professions and there is no way to avoid having underperforming professions in the game. You have options.

My new Dragonhunter

Well, fortunately for you, Chronomancers got the bulk of their savage reaming last quarter so they may stay about where they are for at least 6 months.

The dead sea is the second saltiest place after this thread.

Ragnarox.9601:

My new Dragonhunter

Now that you mention it.
Some say that guardian shouldn’t have a larger health pool because blocks and heals.

But mesmers have evades for days which are better than blocks becuase when you evade, for example, you can’t get condibombed. They have escapes on demand + heals with shatters and low cooldown utility heal.
All that and a higher health pool? Why?

The fact that mesmers are still pretty fragile and easily killed indicates that they need whatever evades they can get.

redcomyn.4651:

The fact that mesmers are still pretty fragile and easily killed indicates that they need whatever evades they can get.

Easily killed by whom? Chuck Norris? Godzilla? Maybe Sauron?

Mesmers are considered as the best class in 1v1 fights and if you are not one of the three guys mentioned above, you should have some difficulties in killing a decent mesmer. In the upcoming pvp-season this will be even more true, because most of the other meta-classes got nerfed, but mesmers not.

Obtena.7952:

Not everyone plays to win, or has a different idea about winning than you do. Some of those ‘wins’ don’t depend on how your class performs.

Even when they do, go back to the statistics lesson I handed out a few posts back. It’s completely unreasonable to expect ‘win’ with underperforming professions and there is no way to avoid having underperforming professions in the game. You have options.

Like I said, if class performance doesn’t matter then you could just do similar with a book or movie. In which case whatever happens to class balance doesn’t matter to you, and you should ignore it.

Your statistics are like so many basic biological models: too simple, therefore wrong. If builds didn’t exist and nothing was customizable you’d be right. But different builds exist and so different builds on different classes should have niche strength.

King Cephalopod.7942:

Obtena.7952:

Not everyone plays to win, or has a different idea about winning than you do. Some of those ‘wins’ don’t depend on how your class performs.

Even when they do, go back to the statistics lesson I handed out a few posts back. It’s completely unreasonable to expect ‘win’ with underperforming professions and there is no way to avoid having underperforming professions in the game. You have options.

Like I said, if class performance doesn’t matter then you could just do similar with a book or movie. In which case whatever happens to class balance doesn’t matter to you, and you should ignore it.

Your statistics are like so many basic biological models: too simple, therefore wrong. If builds didn’t exist and nothing was customizable you’d be right. But different builds exist and so different builds on different classes should have niche strength.

My statistics are wrong? So half the classes aren’t performing less than average? You know what average means right? Let’s skip the academics because it’s clearly not understood. This is very simple:

If you stick with your class despite changes to it you don’t like, then you’re main motivation to play that class isn’t performance. If you don’t stick with it, then performance is your thing. You have options. You can’t be unreasonable and expect BOTH the concept you want to play and the performance you think it should have. When it happens, it’s nice but it’s not something Anet can target. What doesn’t make sense there to you? Maybe you think it’s easy to get performance and concept to the level players want for every class? I’m not sure why anyone would think that, unless they have almost no experience playing MMO’s.

redcomyn.4651:

The fact that mesmers are still pretty fragile and easily killed indicates that they need whatever evades they can get.

They really are but once they are traited up atleast in pve they are a wrecking ball, skilled players can take out mesmers if they know what they are doing.

First, I will say that I only do pve. I have found that my mesmer has a much more difficult time than several of my other characters, at least in the HOT lands. In pvp, you are facing real people, who are a lot smarter than the ai, which means fights will be even more difficult. It seems pretty straight forward to me, that if mesmers are fragile in pve, they will be even more so in pvp.

I will add that one of my other characters is a guardian. My guardian is much harder to kill than my mesmer.

Obtena.7952:

My statistics are wrong? So half the classes aren’t performing less than average? You know what average means right? Let’s skip the academics because it’s clearly not understood. This is very simple:

If you stick with your class despite changes to it you don’t like, then you’re main motivation to play that class isn’t performance. If you don’t stick with it, then performance is your thing. You have options. You can’t be unreasonable and expect BOTH the concept you want to play and the performance you think it should have. When it happens, it’s nice but it’s not something Anet can target. What doesn’t make sense there to you? Maybe you think it’s easy to get performance and concept to the level players want for every class? I’m not sure why anyone would think that, unless they have almost no experience playing MMO’s.

Your statistics are wrong because the implementation is wrong. Performing less than average is fine as long as the deviation from mean isn’t too big. But it is.

Do you have selective memory loss or something? I told you that other time how strength and class concept work. Don’t play dumb. The concept SHOULD have performance TO FIT the concept AROUND other classes. That’s the point of adjusting balance, and when things only get further from concept the job’s been done wrong.

King Cephalopod.7942:

Obtena.7952:

My statistics are wrong? So half the classes aren’t performing less than average? You know what average means right? Let’s skip the academics because it’s clearly not understood. This is very simple:

If you stick with your class despite changes to it you don’t like, then you’re main motivation to play that class isn’t performance. If you don’t stick with it, then performance is your thing. You have options. You can’t be unreasonable and expect BOTH the concept you want to play and the performance you think it should have. When it happens, it’s nice but it’s not something Anet can target. What doesn’t make sense there to you? Maybe you think it’s easy to get performance and concept to the level players want for every class? I’m not sure why anyone would think that, unless they have almost no experience playing MMO’s.

Your statistics are wrong because the implementation is wrong. Performing less than average is fine as long as the deviation from mean isn’t too big. But it is.

Do you have selective memory loss or something? I told you that other time how strength and class concept work. Don’t play dumb. The concept SHOULD have performance TO FIT the concept AROUND other classes. That’s the point of adjusting balance, and when things only get further from concept the job’s been done wrong.

You’re telling me I’m wrong but somehow, it doesn’t work the way you’re telling me it should … :/

If you are right, we would see people being able to choose their favoured profession and getting relatively equivalent performance between classes happening all the time. It doesn’t. In fact, almost never, unless you get lucky.

BTW, being too far from the mean? That’s just a matter of opinion. On the other hand, 50% of professions below average is always correct. You can wish things you think should be all you want. That doesn’t make them so. Anet, or any other dev team I’ve played their games, do not balance according to some ranking to the other classes to achieve equal performance levels. If they do, they all fail hard at it.

Obtena.7952:

If you are right, we would see people being able to choose their favoured profession and getting relatively equivalent performance between classes happening all the time. It doesn’t. In fact, almost never, unless you get lucky.

BTW, being too far from the mean? That’s just a matter of opinion. On the other hand, 50% of professions below average is always correct. You can wish things you think should be all you want. That doesn’t make them so. Anet, or any other dev team I’ve played their games, do not balance according to some ranking to the other classes to achieve equal performance levels. If they do, they all fail hard at it.

Either you are a most excellent troll or simply cannot comprehend basic balance. The way other posters have framed the argument is somewhat incorrect. It isn’t about being the 5th “best” class but Anet cannot balance classes close enough to each other than what each class brings is individually important.

For example, condi mesmer is the current king of pvp and the reason is because of its damage. The utility it brings is simply a nice bonus on top of it. Having the mobility of portal AND the best dps makes taking one a no brainer.

Because anet gives every class a bit of everything and does not flesh out utility mechanics for each class means that the only thing that matters is raw dps and survivability. Noone cares about reflect because either a class has it or they can survive without it. Noone cares about group condi clear or heals unless they are so powerful that they outvalue the loss of dps (ele,druid). Balance needs to be decent enough where it should be harder to say a single class is significantly worse than the others. Currently it is not hard enough to say that.

So with this in mind, guardian or dragonhunter specifically has never had great survivability or utility outside bunker (and even bunker guard would be considered the weakest bunker to have existed in the game) so they have usually been given a variation of a thief’s role of burst dps. Even then thief is better due to raw mobility.
So please tell me how having kitten utility, low mobility justifies taking away the barely competitive dps we have? If they wanted to appease noobs then actually put some effort into fixing the rest of the class.

Tie heavy light trait proc to deflecting shot.
Spread out LB5 damage instead of backloading it
Move glacial heart into a trait spot
Give guardian two handed weapons some defensive capabilites even if they are minor.
(Guardian two handed weaps are the only ones in game that offer no defense or mobility, if you consider gs3 to be mobility then idk wtf to tell you)
Fix sword auto

They haven’t done anything for many years and anyone who has been here for a while knows they probably will not so any outrage is justified by the fact it is going to be a straight nerf with no compensation.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

They haven’t done anything for many years and anyone who has been here for a while knows they probably will not so any outrage is justified by the fact it is going to be a straight nerf with no compensation.

I can see where some people are coming from, but when people post things that aren’t true, then it makes it simple to respond. I skipped right to the end of your post to see if you had a summary. It’s a good thing I did because I figured your post was unreasonable … and I was right. I don’t see truth there. There isn’t anything to really discuss with you if you’re just going to make up things.

Just because you dislike how the class has evolved doesn’t mean you need to invent “haven’t done anything for years” and “straight nerf with no compensation”. Good day.

Obtena.7952:

Manimarco Devil.1790:

They haven’t done anything for many years and anyone who has been here for a while knows they probably will not so any outrage is justified by the fact it is going to be a straight nerf with no compensation.

I can see where some people are coming from, but when people post things that aren’t true, then it makes it simple to respond. I skipped right to the end of your post to see if you had a summary. It’s a good thing I did because I figured your post was unreasonable … and I was right. I don’t see truth there. There isn’t anything to really discuss with you if you’re just going to make up things.

Just because you dislike how the class has evolved doesn’t mean you need to invent “haven’t done anything for years” and “straight nerf with no compensation”. Good day.

Aside from the personal attacks he is actually more or less right.

They tried to buff shouts a bit by reducing cool downs but is in no way nearly enough to make the other nerfs worth it.

There have also been many many problems that have existed since launch that have never been addressed and whats worse is that Anet have never even acknowledged they exist despite it being clear as day that they do.

There isn’t anything more or less right about "haven’t done anything for years” and “straight nerf with no compensation”.

I GET it … people don’t like the changes, maybe never like them, see things they want fixed that Anet has never even looked at but those kinds of statements are flat out lies. They have no place in a reasonable discussion and I can assure you, no dev takes them seriously. In fact, those are the kinds of things that would make me simply continue doing what I felt was the right thing to do as a dev. Think about it.

I mean, if you truly believe that, then we actually have a happy equilibrium; players don’t think Anet can do anything right, so Anet might as well do what they want because no matter what they do, players don’t like it. See how that works?

Obtena.7952:

There isn’t anything more or less right about "haven’t done anything for years” and “straight nerf with no compensation”.

I GET it … people don’t like the changes, maybe never like them, see things they want fixed that Anet has never even looked at but those kinds of statements are flat out lies. They have no place in a reasonable discussion and I can assure you, no dev takes them seriously. In fact, those are the kinds of things that would make me simply continue doing what I felt was the right thing to do as a dev. Think about it.

I mean, if you truly believe that, then we actually have a happy equilibrium; players don’t think Anet can do anything right, so Anet might as well do what they want because no matter what they do, players don’t like it. See how that works?

Its not so much that they didn’t give compensation.
They tried to they really did, but the compensation is negligible at best.

And while its not exactly true that they haven’t added anything in years, there is tons of stuff they have just neglected that was meh at launch and aged very very badly.

Been following this awhile now. I play Guard and really enjoy the class. Having dealt with Anet’s shenanigans concerning balance (both good and bad imo) since 2005, nothing they do will ever surprise me short of waking up one day and seeing the servers permanently shut down. Because of the constant changes to all classes, for me it is important to learn as many as possible.

I agree with Obtena on some things and some I do not. But when blanket statements are made regarding a class it kinda puts the truth somewhere in the middle. To me blanket statements can overshadow real specific problems because when everyone is saying this class is and has been crap it almost sounds like someone crying wolf. I encourage the guard community to be very specific as to what and why there is a problem, as some has done here. Even better when someone can offer “reasonable” suggestions to make it comparable to other classes.

Now sure I would love to see the guard over the top way op nothing can stop me now. But that’s just being ridiculously selfish.

I don’t agree that all classes cannot be balanced equally. Of course that assumption is made by me without any knowledge of numbers/programming. I believe in Yin and yang though.

danielrjones.8759:

Been following this awhile now. I play Guard and really enjoy the class. Having dealt with Anet’s shenanigans concerning balance (both good and bad imo) since 2005, nothing they do will ever surprise me short of waking up one day and seeing the servers permanently shut down. Because of the constant changes to all classes, for me it is important to learn as many as possible.

I agree with Obtena on some things and some I do not. But when blanket statements are made regarding a class it kinda puts the truth somewhere in the middle. To me blanket statements can overshadow real specific problems because when everyone is saying this class is and has been crap it almost sounds like someone crying wolf. I encourage the guard community to be very specific as to what and why there is a problem, as some has done here. Even better when someone can offer “reasonable” suggestions to make it comparable to other classes.

Now sure I would love to see the guard over the top way op nothing can stop me now. But that’s just being ridiculously selfish.

I don’t agree that all classes cannot be balanced equally. Of course that assumption is made by me without any knowledge of numbers/programming. I believe in Yin and yang though.

People have made very specific threads detailing the potential balance reworks, minor adjustments, etc. for pretty much as long as I’ve been on the forums (~1 year). Pretty much none of it has been implemented or even acknowledged. There have been kitten ideas and great ideas but they’re all ignored equally, and the given product is continual DH nerfs (first traps now LB) and minute buffs (last quarter being the quarter of “add 1”). The city library allows open submissions of conceptual miniatures having received obscene funding for a total rebuild to encourage young people to read. Why put in the effort to craft a complete miniature model akin to Versailles when it receives the same attention as a pit in the ground, and the final building is just a mound of dirt with bookshelves?

Edit- changed “hole” to “pit” because unintended censorship

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Obtena.7952:

There isn’t anything more or less right about "haven’t done anything for years” and “straight nerf with no compensation”.

I GET it … people don’t like the changes, maybe never like them, see things they want fixed that Anet has never even looked at but those kinds of statements are flat out lies. They have no place in a reasonable discussion and I can assure you, no dev takes them seriously. In fact, those are the kinds of things that would make me simply continue doing what I felt was the right thing to do as a dev. Think about it.

I mean, if you truly believe that, then we actually have a happy equilibrium; players don’t think Anet can do anything right, so Anet might as well do what they want because no matter what they do, players don’t like it. See how that works?

Its not so much that they didn’t give compensation.
They tried to they really did, but the compensation is negligible at best.

And while its not exactly true that they haven’t added anything in years, there is tons of stuff they have just neglected that was meh at launch and aged very very badly.

That’s perhaps true and more reasonable, which brings me back to everything I observe leading me to think that devs don’t balance classes according to a performance target relative to other classes.

… or if they do, they aren’t very good at it, should probably stop trying and concentrate on delivering top of the line skills that fit the class concept.