I miss world pvp and feeling there was an “enemy” faction like we had in swtor and wow, if this game had this i would deem it perfect, but ey close enough i guess.
I would settle for “enemy” guild faction. Similar to what Tera did. That is, allow your guild to declare war on another guild, and then you’d be mutually PvP-enabled anywhere (except possibly capital cities, though in WoW you would remain PvP-flagged even in capital for 5 mins after entering, only sanctuaries were secure, and last I played there was only one in the whole game).
You know, as in GUILD WARS? Wars? Between Guilds? In a game called “Guild Wars”? Or does that make too much sense?
- Open World PVP – Yet another thing which blasted WoW to the unreachable top where it is for many years. To some this may seem unnecessary, the fear of getting killed at any one moment and that’s ok – there were servers with PVP Off.
Agreed. One of the biggest downfalls of GW2, if you ask me. Huge mistake. HUGE.
I think back to WoW and having to do my warlock pet quest at level 30. For those who don’t know, it sent you halfway across the world and into enemy territory (Thousand Needles for Alliance, Southshore for Horde). Try doing a quest inside a cave full of hostile centaurs that is a spitting distance away from the Horde outpost. Yeah, it’s nail-biting. Possibility of griefing? Yeah, I suppose. But also very, very memorable and a major accomplishment when finished.
Similarly, druid aquatic form quest. No quest markers. Vague clues. Took me days to get it done. It also sends you halfway across the game world, and once again into hostile territory. And the game had no fast travel. You had to travel across multiple PvP-enabled zones, dodging enemies and NPCs and hostile towns. You had to take a boat ride, where you were PvP-enabled and vulnerable. And this is level 20 content!
Really nothing I experienced in GW2 comes even close to the “epic” feel of that journey.
OK, please, explain… how the HELL do you consider the engi downstate useless!?
HOW!?
Compared to a Thief’s and Mesmer’s downstate for avoiding a stomp? Do I need to draw it for you, in crayon?
It’s the same as every other MMO, just with a twist.
In your personal story you make unique choices that affect the game in various ways (who lives and who dies), which is fairly unique. Can’t think of another MMO that does that. AoC had similar instancing, but the plot was always the same regardless of class (but in the beginning based on archetype – warrior, mage, priest). So this part was kinda true.
The game world itself varies a bit in who controls what – your faction or the enemy. This is also fairly unique. But also utterly pointless, because if everyone leaves the area, an hour later the enemy will take over, and then you take it back, and then they take it back, rinse, repeat. I look at it as a “long respawn” or equivalent of WoW’s phasing – where for you village looks as it is in a huge battle, because you have a quest in it, while for everyone else it looks at peace because they already did it. WoW’s approach is frankly better – more control with phasing allows for MUCH better storytelling and control of the events.
Also the quest variety is rather lacking, as is interaction with the world objects. Terrain in this game is good, but very little effort was made to make truly memorable terrain (think Thousand Needles, Zangarmarsh, Vash’ir, etc.) All of this could have improved the PvE experience significantly.
I mean, it’s not bad per se. For what the game cost, and no sub fee, it’s more than worth the money for me. But beyond that the game as a whole is still very lackluster – little variety, lots of repetitive PvE with very weak lore outside of personal story chain and near-dead PvP (conquest mode only sPvP and broken WvW).
If they nerf Backstab, people will still complain but then they’ll continue to complain louder about Death Blossom. Once Death Blossom is nerfed people will continue to complain about Thieves downed state. Once that is nerfed people will complain that Stealth is far too long. Once that is nerfed…
You know what’s funny about your post? Most people, even those playing thieves, consider ALL of those to be valid complaints about thieves.
ANet themselves said downed state (of all classes) needs to be looked at. Some classes have virtually useless downed states (Engi, for example), while others have near-godly downed states (Thief, Mesmer).
Stealth probably needs to be looked at. Not so much because of thief, but because of mesmer. Their ability to create 3 phantasms relatively quick, and then hop from stealth to stealth while still doing a large portion of their normal damage and remaining invulnerable is a game-breaker. Also, in no other MMO could you regain stealth in combat so often.
And Backstab and Death Blossom are self-explanatory.
In general I agree with you.
However, a lot of the issues people complain about are not 2 months old. Some of them have been reported since the first beta weekend…back in APRIL!
The lack of communication is also really hard to excuse. It doesn’t take hours to just sit down and type out a quick “we’re aware of this, this and this, and will likely do that, that and that”, even if it is subject to change.
The way they handled bugfixes and balancing so far is…atrocious. I’m sorry. I can shrug off most things, but when a class has a TON of bugs, traits that don’t work, bugged abilities, etc., to NERF that class (or buff it, however the case may be) before fixing those bugs is…how shall I put it gently…not smart? Fix first, balance later. How can you balance something that never even worked in the first place? All it means is after fixes you’ll have to do a whole new iteration of rebalancing when stuff that didn’t work kicks in and starts working and makes a difference.
Off the top of my head, there’s two classes where just fixing traits will make them considerably more powerful than they are now. Just purely making traits work, not bug or cancel each-other like they do now.
Bottom line, as much as I would like to stay positive, I find myself logging in less and less. In fact, this past week, I must have played 2 hrs total. The game just no longer appeals. And I’m not alone, because the last time I’ve been put in overflow was weeks ago – so total population of my server is definitely dropping.
Perhaps in a while after they fix stuff up, people will come back. But right now ANet is dropping the ball in a major way. Case in point – this Halloween stuff. Not that many people care, to be honest. Skins from chests you have to buy keys for with real money? Vanity items? Who cares about those when most classes are suffering from a myriad of bugs negatively impacting the gameplay? Fix those, then worry about vanity stuff.
I said this in another thread, but having spent some time in GW2 sPvP I actually MISS SWTOR PvP pretty badly.
I mean, it was a total unbalanced mess (and from what I hear still is), gear gave ludicrous advantage, level gave an advantage, etc. But for all that, Huttball was fun, and other battlegrounds had a totally different feel. Capture the nodes, the tower defense, etc.
Even in WoW I had a lot more fun playing games like Warsong Gulch, stealing the enemy flag, hiding it, etc., than the simplistic conquer mode of GW2. Really rather disappointing.
The WvW was supposed to be a major draw. But since level and gear make a huge impact, as does the orb control, it feels just as unbalanced as SWTOR’s PvP. And there’s just too much PvE in WvW for my taste – too close to the PvE race of Alterac Valley in WoW.
OP,
You just have to stop and ask yourself one simple question: have you ever done that with any other class? If you haven’t, odds are Thief is OP regardless of how you may feel. Or the classes with which you couldn’t do what you did on the Thief are UP. Either way, it’s not balance.
You know there's an issue when this is your first game of the day:
in PvP
Posted by: Sabbathius.1465
Merciless, I especially like the kill report on the right.
Thief kills mesmer.
Same thief kills ranger.
Warrior kills elementalist.
Again the same thief kills necro.
Hilarious. And that 10k backstab isn’t even close to the highest backstab I’ve seen. Just wish I had a picture to share.
Class balance plays a huge role in the whole “I get the impression that many player feel that with certainty they should always win” thing.
In many games, the outcome of the battle is decided when you created your character, weeks/months/years earlier. When creating a character, I chose a red triangle, and the other guy chose orange circle. Then, years later, we meet, and he slaughters me. Not because of skill. Not because of gear. But because years ago he clicked on orange circle, and I clicked on red triangle.
Even in games where there are no classes, and you can 100% mix and match all the skills you want, like EVE Online, the system is still broken. The battle is decided before the combatants undock from the station, and is completely random. I choose a ship at random, which happens to be a turret ship. The other guy chooses a ship at random, which happens to be a tracking-disruption drone boat. We run into each other. All else being equal, I die. All because I chose a reddish-brown ship, and he chose a golden yellow ship, before each of us even knew the other person existed.
It’s the same here. You can dance around the issue all you want, but we all know there are certain classes in this game that are both grossly overpowered and easier to play than their weaker counterparts. When class like that runs into a weaker class, all else being equal, the weaker class loses. Which is what people complain about.
This is not about winning. This is about fighting a character that the developers gave an equivalent of a built-in aimbot.
And speaking of PvE mindset, for me personally, it’s the exact opposite. In PvP, I expect to lose 50/50 at least, all else being equal. Just simple statistics. And if I’m unlucky and run into better players, lose a whole lot more than 50/50. But in PvE, which is designed for leveling purposes and, let’s face it, just fodder to drag out the content, when I die I usually rage quite a bit more than PvP. Because in PvE, you often find poorly designed stuff. Like being swamped with impossibly large waves of enemies. Or fighting bosses (for little reward, may I add) that can hit or miss, but you can’t miss once because you’ll get 1-shot. And so on.
(edited by Sabbathius.1465)
Yep, kinda wishing there were other modes as well. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I kinda miss Huttball from SWTOR. It was really unique compared to just about any other MMO. The ability to pass the ball plus the map so heavily laden with deadly traps really made for an interesting game.
I also don’t think I can overstate how satisfying it is to set up all four turrets + three more from a supply drop on an important point. Lots of automatic damage, permanent regen and potential condition removal, 4 knockbacks on demand, and powerful CC in the form of overcharged rockets (knockdown) and nets (daze.)
Which is almost as good what you get on a Mesmer, WITHOUT using up any utility slots, leaving them free for stun breakers, mobility, buffs, etc.
I’m sorry, but comparatively speaking turrets suck. Look at Guardian spirit weapons – good attack speed, totally indestructible, auto-CC AND they’re mobile. Come on dude. “De Nial” is a river in Egypt.
I find most game developers have a blind spot when it comes to destructible/dispellable sources of damage.
What I mean is, in WoW, Blizz devs really didn’t “get” DoTs (Damage Over Time). The difference between a normal attack and a DoT is that with normal attack, you press a button and it does X damage, right now. With a DoT, you press a button and it begins to slowly tick X damage over N seconds. If the target dies, it’ll do less than X damage. If the target gets cleansed/dispelled, removing the DoT, it’ll do less than X damage. And so on, and so forth. Essentially, where normal attack, if it lands, guarantees X damage, with DoT, if it lands, guarantees NOTHING.
Same in GW2, with Engineer turrets, Mesmer illusions, etc. There’s a huge difference between a normal attack, like Blurred Frenzy, and plunking down a turret. Putting a turret down does NOT guarantee any damage. The turret can die, target can move out of range, out of line of sight, etc. So whatever X damage the turret is designed to do, might never happen. Same with illusions – this is especially glaring in PvE. I cast an illusion, like Illusionary Warden, it spawns right next to the mob, and mob immediately 1-shots it before it can even start its attack cycle. Zero damage done. Ability on cooldown for the next 20 seconds. No illusion to burn with a shatter.
Classic design flaw, really. Yet to see a game where devs got this kind of mechanic “right”. Usually takes years. Usually because they keep trying to re-invent the wheel instead of taking a proven formula that works and that took a decade to polish out to that state in another game. Sad, really.
At the risk of sounding like a grouch, I had a few moments that are memorable now. But none that I will still remember years from now. Tybalt character was fairly memorable for me, but only because he reminded me of Hobbes (from Wing Commander) somehow. Gameplay and landscape-wise, it’s been pretty generic. “That other game” had many more memorable moments, NPCs and stories.
Right now it takes far more skill to counter a thief than it does for the thief to win the fight.
I often see people here claim this is irrelevant. Because, frankly it takes far more skill to simply PLAY an Elementalist or Engineer (and I do mean, play, not even win, just play) than it takes a Thief or Warrior or Guardian or Ranger. I mean, let’s face it, sheer number and variety of abilities used on Ele is way, way, WAY higher than any Thief build.
That, by itself, already means the game is very badly unbalanced. Imagine two cars. One has a standard setup. Another instead of the wheel has 7 levers – turn left 60 degrees, turn left 30 segrees, turn left 15 degrees, go straight, turn right 15 degrees, turn right 30 degrees, turn right 60 degrees. Which car do you think is easier to drive? Which car do you think will win in a race against each-other? That’s the basic difference between playing Thief vs playing Elementalist. How can t his possibly be seen as fair?
The question is – what can be done about this, without completely scrapping some classes and starting at square one, which ANet won’t do? Is there hope for balance at all? Lately I’m feeling very pessimistic about this whole thing. They basically have a choice – dumb down hard classes, or complicate he heck out of the faceroll classes. And neither will be greeted with a lot of happiness by a large group of players.
OK, you want rational? Let’s be rational.
Currently in sPvP, most teams are very heavy on Thieves, Mesmers, Guardians and Warriors. To name a few. This is not always true of tPvP, especially the higher you go. But as mentioned earlier, such a tiny percentage of population even plays that, that frankly the developers shouldn’t give a tiny rat’s tail about it until the rest of the game is in perfect state, and maybe not even then. You don’t spend a lot of resources to appease a tiny percentage of the population, it just isn’t smart.
Now, when most teams are Thief x3, Mesmer x2, is it rational for developers to do nothing about it? Note, this does NOT mean that Thief and Mesmer are overpowered. This simply means they are grossly overplayed. Corollary of which is that other classes are grossly under-played. Can ANet rationally leave things as they are, without altering balance? Obviously, the answer is no.
Why not? Well, for one, because without variety, the games are boring and predictable. Plus nobody likes being downed in under 1 seconds by 2+ Thieves. It makes the game unfun. People stop playing. Game dies. And they put too much time and effort into this game, and did a fairly good job might I add, to let that happen.
So, what are the choices? Rationally speaking? Nerf Thieves. And/or buff the unpopular classes. I mean, why do you think Eles and Engis are so underplayed? Personally I feel they grossly lack “bang for your buck”. A poorly played Thief or Mesmer is still several orders of magnitude more effective than poorly played Elementalist or Engineer. So, either Thief gameplay needs to be made more complex – which might mean changing the way initiative recovers or functions, adding cooldowns on top of initiative, etc. Or it might mean making Elementalist and Engineer easier to play, which means buffing individual abilities and toning down the importance of attunement-switching.
Whichever route they take, it will be either a direct nerf to Thief, or an indirect one – by making other classes stronger, thus making Thief relatively weaker.
You wanted rational? This is rational.
No, compared to other classes Grenades are absurdly OP. The other stuff can be brought up but Grenades need toning down.
You can’t compare grenades to other skill simply with damage for damage.
For one, all grenades are aimed. There’s no autoattack, and they have travel time. Meaning poor aim, or target changing direction, guarantees a miss. This is not the case with many ranged attacks of other classes. Further, grenades spread in flight. They don’t all land on one spot. Most of the time, only 50% hit.
Toning them down will simply push them past the point where pistols with piercing shot or power rifle builds will become superior, and people will stop using them. Too much hassle and no guarantee of any damage being done PLUS nerfed damage would make the grenade kit obsolete.
Just look at turrets. Crappy damage, destructible, weird target tracking and selection, stationary nature? Almost nobody uses them. Few builds do, but for the most part people just don’t use them. Same thing would happen to grenades if they are nerfed further.
Having said that, I DO believe grenades will be nerfed and soon. Simply because I’m sure ANet’s statistics will show that far too many Engineers use them. This, so far, has been their modus operandi for balancing – find something that works, and nerf it. Instead of fixing all the stuff that doesn’t work.
Well, look at the name – Thief. No Assassin, just Thief.
Currently, Thief is basically an Assassin. Appear, kill someone in 2-3 seconds, disappear. While the class description in the game says things like using stealth, deception, going where they’re not meant to go and traps. Doesn’t say anything about assassinating someone in 2 seconds.
In my opinion, the class should play as Thief. That is, stealth, acrobatics, traps, cheap tricks, etc., but NOT brute I-kill-you-in-2-seconds damage. This, coupled with stealth, is what breaks the game.
And while I’m on this topic, I feel NOBODY should be able to kill anyone else in less than 5 seconds. Even glass cannon vs glass cannon. Any class capable of under-5-second kill should have its burst potential toned down. It just isn’t fun when the game basically plays like an FPS. It has more depth than that, but the insta-gib stuff just…insta-gibs that.
OP,
Your FPS comparison is flawed in that no matter what kit you use, and what gun you have, you still have to aim. If you go with a sniper kit, you need to worry about positioning, concealment, projectile falloff and wind (in some games), etc. If you are close quarter, you need to worry about mobility (strafting), aim (head, chest?) and miscellaneous effects (such as flashlight in the eyes glare). And medium range you have to worry about all that explosive goodness (frag grenades, RPGs, M203s) that are too dangerous in CQC and too short range for sniping.
But all kits share the same basic requirement – your aim has to be good, otherwise you’ll suck with every single kit.
In GW2 this is not the case. You have classes that can do almost passive damage (reflection and retaliation), classes that can do obscene damage with 3-4 keypresses (more than sufficient to kill someone), and then you have classes that have to type like mad monkeys in order to perform mediocre at best.
As an FPS example, imagine a kit that has no full-auto, but also doesn’t gain any extra range or damage. The only difference between you and the other kits is that you need to squeeze off every round manually, possibly screwing your aim, while the other guy can just hold down his mouse button and release bursts or even go full auto. In CQC, you are on uneven footing simply because of it. Similarly, imagine his gun has a 200 round drum, yours is a single shot bolt action. Who’s going to win? The guy who has to reload after every shot, or the guy who can fire 200 rounds without reloading? By this I mean class with cooldowns vs Thief with initiative.
I’m sorry, but this game is very poorly balanced right now. You have absolutely unique mechanics (initiative), classes that don’t require “aim”, and at the same time classes that require heavy “stance-dancing” (Elementalists and Engineers) that have to work extra hard just to have similar effect to someone pressing just 1 button.
The future of PVP in GW2 looked bright… until everyone rolled a thief and flooded the server matches with them, and Anet’s announcement of arenas. It’s already looking bleak, there aren’t that many packed servers on the sPVP browser (most matches I get into are 4 vs 4 or 5 vs 5, almost never 8 vs 8 ) and there’s no one standing around the tournament NPC anymore.
I call it the “recon syndrome”.
When Battlefield: Bad Company 2 came out, on many servers at least 3/4 of the team went Recon (BFBC2 equivalent of Thief) and gameplay became SUPREMELY boring. Fortunately some servers simply implemented “no recons” rule, or “1 recon per team” rule, and things became a little bit better.
Sadly so far in GW2 that’s not the case, and people are just getting burnt out with the tedium and repetitiveness of it all. I myself am pretty much moving on. Leveled two chars to 80, did a bunch of sPvP and WvW, but at this point it’s like “why bother”? When most hotjoins are 3/4 thieves + 1/4 mesmers, it just gets boring. And WvW is still a massive zergfest. Could roll another char, but frankly with so many broken or half-broken classes, it’s just not fun any more.
ele is good support other than that every other class beats it with 1-2 buttons use only
This is pretty much my beef with a number of classes in this game. When I play Engi constantly switching between kits, or an Ele constantly switching attunements, and then watch a guardian/warrior/thief do the same content in less time without even swapping weapons once, this is fundamentally broken.
Why is it broken? The game is supposed to be, on some level, an eSport? So how can you pit a class that performs just fine (note: not great, not fantastic, not pro, but fine) without even swapping weapons into the same battleground as someone who has to use significantly more skills and swaps and still performs worse (DPS-wise)? It’s like putting a 90lb nerd into a ring with Mike Tyson and expecting there to be “competition”.
ANet really needs to make a call on this. Either classes are meant to be complex and very skill-dependent. Or facerolls. Right now, we have about 1/2 of the game as faceroll to semi-faceroll, and the remaining 1/2 that feel like an order of magnitude more difficult. Just can’t put these two groups together into the same ring and expect it to be competitive.
OP,
You know what I think? It’s not an example of “meta game”, it’s an example of players coming up with a spec that at least sort of works. And you know what? According to the ANet post in the sticky, they’re keeping an eye on it. They were also keeping an eye on Mesmers. And Mesmers got nerfed. Guess what will happen to this Ele spec pretty soon? Yeeeaaaah…
I guess my point is, this isn’t an example of meta-game. It’s an example of people doing the best they can with what they got. And Elementalists got precious little right now, compared to many other classes. EDIT: When I say “precious little”, I’m not arguing the class is underpowered, I’m just saying the number of possible viable spec is a heck of a lot more limited than many other classes.
Oh, and people in the video were awful.
(edited by Sabbathius.1465)
People can be so narrow-minded sometimes…
Look, Portal is nice. But it’ll get you to where you were, not where you need to be. That doesn’t count.
We have Temporal Curtain and Blink, but swiftness uptime from that is 40% untraited, 50% traited? (if I remember right) Blink is very short and on 30 sec CD, again untraited.
Compare that to Engineer with permanent 33% movement speed, plus Super Speed from Slick Shoes (100% boost for 5 seconds).
Compare that to Thief, with passive 25% from Sigil, plus blinks from the bow. I think you can do 3-6 blinks, back to back, before you run out of initiative, depending on spec.
Compare that to Elementalist. A slew of abilities there, like Ride the Lightning and swiftness-granting abilities. Pretty sure you can have permanent swiftness, not sure.
Etc., etc.
When it comes to travel (from A to B, not from B back to A), Mesmer is ridiculously slow. You can remedy it somewhat (Runes of Centaur), but bottom line is this class is VERY difficult to get back into after you played classes with permanent swiftness. Feels like driving a wheelbarrow loaded with gravel.
Is it “balance”? I guess you could say so. But after this class gets nerfed even more due to all the crying on PvP forums, just remember to ask for more mobility as a tradeoff. Because I’m pretty sure it’ll end up being mediocre at PvP AND still slow as a brick.
I recently got my Engineer to 80 (after first getting Mesmer to 80), and honestly in my opinion, right now you HAVE to like either grenades or mines or preferably both.
If you can’t stand grenades, but do fine with mines, I feel you’ll be fine and have a pleasant time. But if you can’t stand both grenades AND mines, I wouldn’t recommend it. Turrets are too weak and unwieldy, we can’t switch weapons, flamethrower doesn’t work quite right (weird misses that should be hits, and #2 ability is wonky at best).
You could try some builds, find one that seems right. But frankly I feel without mines and grenades you’re kittening your progress too severely. It’s like leveling Thief. You can level easy with D/D, or you can level painfully with P/P. There’s no “right” way. It’s just one will be fast and enjoyable, and the other will be slow and frustrating.
Not that you can kill-/lootsteal in GW2. :P
Yes, you totally can.
You can force a state where enemy dies to your damage before someone else can apply sufficient damage to get a “tap” and thus get loot rights. You don’t benefit anything from it, of course, as everyone gets their own copy of loot. But you CAN totally cripple someone else’s profit margins.
This is especially obvious in heavily camped DEs in Orr, where targets die before they’re fully phased in to no-target-needed AoE damage. It is very common for classes like Engineer to get 90%+ tap rate, while classes like Mesmer are lucky to get 30%, if that.
Simplest example I can give you is, 5 Engis on the same spawn, spamming grenades on spawn point. Mob begins to phase in, and before he is even fully visible/targetable, gets hit with 5 grenade salvos at the same time (and oftentimes 5-10 turrets) and dies. Not much a Mesmer can do.
It’s not kill-stealing per se, but it is griefing of sorts. Just poor design, that’s all. The “it’s not killstealing if you are not even aiming at it” analogy doesn’t really work. They’re not aiming at it either, they’re aiming at the ground where it will appear. Only they get loot, and you don’t.
Please don’t, those bombs are really bad. A scrap of damage is nothing compared to something that can eat an attack for you, or turn into damage, conditions, or a moment of invulnerability.
Damage is considerable. And they too apply conditions. And getting +1 second of invulnerability is nice, but is predicated on 60 sec cooldown ability. Which you will not have every fight, so it’s a clutch ability at best.
Eating an attack will buy you a tiny bit of time – but that also means it’ll drag out an engagement. Slower to kill -> less efficient. Simplest example is, you have 100 health, enemy has 100 health, you roll, mine goes off, he dies. On a Mesmer, same scenario, you roll, a clone appears, clone gets aggro (or not, 50/50 chance it seems), gets 1-shot, condition gets applied, wait, condition ticks, then he dies. Either way, immediate AoE damage + condition of the bomb is superior.
Clone just gives potential flexibility. I say “potential” because if your shatters are on cooldown, that clone is useless. If he doesn’t pull aggro/get killed, he is again useless, he won’t eat an attack for you. It’s a potential resource, but it is far from guaranteed that you’ll be able to get any use out of it. But a mine, it WILL go off. You know when, you know what the radius will be, and then depending on spec and whether it crits or not, you get conditions to boot. I mean, with my spec, you get 5 sec of vulnerability no matter what, just because it hits. Doesn’t do much good against ranged opponents, but with a mine kit the whole idea is to get on top of someone and shove a pack of mines down their throat, so it rarely happens, and Engi is a short/medium range class.
In theory, the clone is great. In practice, on average, a guaranteed to go off predictable effect is better. If I want invulnerability, I’ll pop Elixir S. If I want conditions, I’ll drop condition mines. It’s a lot more controlled, compared to a Mesmer. When it works, it’s great. When it doesn’t, it sucks. And it’s totally random.
OP, I totally agree. So far, the attempts at balancing have been weak, nonsensical whack-a-mole. Things that should have been nerfed aren’t, things that didn’t bother anyone are, and almost nothing that’s broken ever gets fixed. And we’re rapidly approaching the 2-month mark since release.
Personally, I’m definitely in the “making me want to leave” boat. In fact, I pretty much decided to give them one more chance – until next patch. If I don’t see changes that make sense or can be explained, and more fixes than just nerfs, I’m going to take a nice long break from this game. Luckily with recent releases over the past 3 weeks there’s TONS of games to play, and more coming in the next month or so.
The game is very, very promising, but so far I feel they’ve handled things terribly. Almost no communication, senseless changes that don’t solve anything (like the recent Mesmer nerf that really didn’t accomplish much), etc. Just getting tiresome.
On my necro used S/D and just drop AE that snares and kills stuff.
On my Thief spam C&D and if its AE spam dagger throw and strafe.
Mesmer is about as hectic as ele.
Ranger send pet and kill stuff lol.
That’s the main issue I have with this game in general. It totally lacks “bang for your buck” element.
What I mean is, in many other games, if you play mediocre – you perform mediocre. And if you play flawless, the payoff is that you totally annihilate whatever is in your way. That is, player skill pays off. The better you play, the better you perform.
In GW2, this is really not the case. I can roll my face on the keyboard, or mouse-click, and perform better on a warrior than I can working my butt off on an Elementalist. Which is really, really sad. Some classes (Ele, Engi, etc.) have to work very, very hard to even approach the performance of some other classes played mediocre at best.
whats wrong with having to press more buttons? appreciate that mesmers takes more skill to play. i could understand this argument if mesmers can’t have that much burst potential, but they can. i dont see the problem.
Wait, wait! Are you saying Engineer is less buttons than Mesmer? 4-kit Engineer build would like to have a word with you. In sheer number of abilities and actions per minute it is an order of magnitude higher than playing a Mesmer.
Though I get what you’re saying. When it comes to mop tapping and DEs, I haven’t found anything better than Engineer. Grenades with 1500 range, a turret here, a turret there, and you are practically guaranteed to tap everything in every spawn, even when they appear on different sides of the camp.
Just don’t go spreading rumors like Mesmer is harder to play. In DEs where an Engi can just spam 1 skill, maybe. Anywhere else, Engi is considerably more complex on every level. And yes, I have both at level 80.
I found the mesmer more complex then any other class so i stuck with it.
Try an Engineer with 4 kits. You really have no concept of what “complex” is until you do that. Right now you’re just playing a 3-string balalaika.
And the patch really wasn’t so bad. In fact, I would rank it as “pointless”. It really didn’t solve any issues or alleviate any concerns that people had with the class.
smh
This might be the first time I have truly encountered a learn to play issue I felt was actually L2P. Despite all that is said about other classes these are builds not classes. Everyone muddles their way through PvE but we all do it differently. Not all Guards run retal or warriors GS/LB or engis run grenade/bomb or thieves run SB/DB etc. My point is AoE is not the making of a good PvE player just survive the content. Right now Mesmer has the most amount of builds that can be tossed together and work. You have so many tools at your disposal that its ridiculous. If any player cant get it to work that’s on them. While it requires a delicate touch its one of the easiest classes to play if not the easiest. If your mesmers sucks in PvE its you. If your mesmer sucks in PvP its you. If your mesmer sucks at any aspect of this game guess what its you.
In a very limited way, you are right. But at the same time, very, very wrong. I specifically picked my Engineer to be the same race/background as my Mesmer, just to re-play the same content/story and compare. And frankly, there’s no comparison.
There’s been lots of missions where my Mesmer would get absolutely swamped with 8-12 frenzied Risen. Was it impossible or a L2P issue? No, I killed them all. It just involved a very long time (comparatively speaking) and a boatload of kiting. On Engineer it involved pistol, grenade kit and bomb kit, and was done in about 1/4 of the time without ever even having to dodge. Simply put, superior AoE damage plus defense via stacking blinds made content that was challenging and time-consuming on a Mesmer into a total cakewalk on Engineer. Hence the whole “My god Mesmer is bad in PvE” argument. Because it’s true. Comparatively speaking.
Same with a Warrior or Guardian. And I’m sorry, while not every Guardian is retal, you can hardly break wind with that class without accidentally gaining retaliation. And coupled with all the passive defenses (regen, aegis, etc.), on top of heavy armor and offense/defense combo abilities, the content that you HAVE to kite/CC/evade a lot with (which IS slower than standing still and spamming damage), you can just stand and annihilate in seconds.
Let me give you a very simple example. You get to 40 on a Mesmer. You get clone-on-dodge trait, which most here feel is a game-changer. And it is pretty nice. But it is still a clone. It can be 1-shot, it does little/no damage, etc. What do you get on the same level as Engineer? You drop a bomb on dodge. This bomb cannot be destroyed, it will almost certainly (90%+) hit whatever enem(y/ies) you dodged, plus it’ll apply conditions. And the damage is guaranteed and virtually immediate. Two classes, but one is vastly superior at dealing with multiple hostiles, and much more reliable.
So, as much as I’d like to toot the same horn as you with the whole “L2P” and “it’s you” routine so many pull on this forum, I have yet to see any proof, in game or on video, of Mesmer being superior to at least 50% of other classes in PvE. I simply haven’t seen it or experienced it myself. Regardless of the class I play.
P.P.S. For some reason the stupid forum won’t let me edit.
Someone else mentioned we have good regen/vigor uptime. But to continue the Mesmer comparison, they can be easily traited to give regen to everyone close to any phantasm. Further, getting regeneration also grants protection. And shatter grants vigor and retaliation if traited for it. Bottom line, you can have an obscene regen/protection/vigor/retaliation uptime. PLUS you can spread them all to all nearby allies with Signet of Inspiration, which is a pretty big game-changer in team combat. The only thing Mesmer is short on is swiftness.
Bottom line – I think I can safely say downing my Mesmer is a whole lot harder than downing my Engineer, considering the amount of stealth and misdirection I cap put forward.
Bouncing blind, knockback, net…several things that knockback pulse ae blind etc on several of our abilitys. We have access to two blocks (3 if they’re ranged as both shield abilitys will block all incoming damage from ranged another from toolkit). And just several ways to make the other person unhappy.
The thing is, you also have to keep in mind what other classes can do. Like you mention we have access to 2 blocks. Well, a Scepter/Sword Mesmer has access to 2 blocks as well. First one can double as a blind in a line (secondary skill), and creates a clone on a successful block. The second block also creates a clone, and as secondary has a line daze. And the cooldowns? 12 seconds and 15 seconds without any traits.
We have the ability to deflect projectiles, on 30 sec CD. Well, Mesmer’s Temporal Curtain can be traited to do the same thing. Except it doesn’t CC you as well – Engi has to stop and hold the shield up for reflect to work, while Temporal Curtain allows Mesmer to maintain damage. Further, Illusionary Warden (with the same trait as Temporal Curtain) will also reflect projectiles. These 2 abilities have 25 and 20 second cooldowns respectively. The secondary of Temporal Curtain is also an AoE pull/knockdown.
We have Net Shot, on 10 sec CD. Mesmer has Illusionary Leap→Swap on 12 sec CD. Only it also creates a clone, and Leap is a snare while Swap is a root, so it can translate into 4 seconds of hampered movement (2 seconds slow, 2 seconds root), to our Net Shot’s 2 seconds of root, though it has a bit of a range advantage.
And then realize that to get those kits, you give up utility slots. Slots in which a Mesmer can put things like Null Field (removes conditions/boons from people inside the cone for 10 seconds, effectively nullifying condition damage), or Feedback (reflects projectiles for 6 seconds, 40 sec CD) in an area. Coupled with Temporal Curtain and Illusionary Warden that’s three reflects, adding up to about 18 seconds of projectile reflect, with a single trait and a single utility slot. Etc., etc.
In other words, while Engis can do a lot of things to make people unhappy, other classes have plenty of means to make people unhappy as well. Arguably more unhappy.
P.S. This is not a Mesmer whine post, my first 80 was a Mesmer and second 80 was Engineer, so it’s just easier for me to compare and contrast those two since they’re very fresh in my mind.
The thing is, my feeling has always been that the game HAS to be balanced 1v1.
My logic for it is very simple. What is “group PvP”? It is NvN, where N > 1. In other words, it is 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5, etc. But what is 2v2? It is 1v1 + 1v1. And 3v3 can be 1+1+1 v 1+1+1. Not necessarily, but this often happens.
Best example are current sPvP maps. What happens when one person from Team A and one person from Team B end up contesting the same point? Well, if Team A has a strong 1v1 class, and Team B does not, then Team B loses. But what happens if each team sends one more person? But once again, Team A’s reinforcement is stronger in 1v1 than Team B’s reinforcement? Odds are very good that Team B will once again lose, even in a 2v2 scenario.
Consider some hypothetical 2v2s as well. Which IS group PvP, technically. Suppose one team is 2 Mesmers, the other team is 2 Warriors. Who’s going to win? My money is on the Mesmers. I feel most of the people here would agree.
In other words, if the game is badly balanced 1v1, the game will be badly balanced for group. Just harder to see and prove. That, so far, has been 100% accurate in my experience.
Consider WoW, after 9 years of repetitive balancing iteration. They said, from the beginning, that the game would NOT be balanced in 1v1 PvP. As a result, the game is still badly imbalanced in group PvP.
Simplest proof – one of the most popular teams in Arena Season 1 was rogue/mage/priest. All three classes are VERY strong 1v1 (priest only as shadow back then, but that’s beside the point). I just went and looked at top 10 3v3 teams, without checking first. Out of those teams, there’s 7 rogues, 5 mages, 5 priests. So out of 30 people, 17 (more than half) are those three classes. STILL. Nearly 6 years since the first season, and the game is still badly unbalanced. Why? No 1v1 balance was ever attempted. Now, absolute 1v1 balance may be impossible. BUT some games have totally lopsided balance. GW2 is sadly one of them.
Further, the amount of “work” you do is grossly out of whack. For example, when I play my Engineer, the sheer number of keystrokes I need is about 3x more than on my Mesmer, to accomplish the same task. And about 5x more than on my Warrior/Guardian. That is hardly fair. More work has to come with higher payoff. Or other classes need to be forced to work more. Or Engineer has to be made simpler (or at least more user-friendly).
Bottom line, I feel lack of 1v1 balance is the root of all evil. Until it is addressed, the game will always be a mess. Any game.
Mesmer sucks in PvE. COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING! I cannot stress this point enough.
Some people, usually those who played precious little of other classes, will come and say they have plenty of AoE with shatters and whatnot. But comparatively speaking, other classes have TONS more AoE. This is really not even debatable. Since I leveled my Mesmer to 80, I already got an Engi to 80 and a slew of other classes about halfway or more. And simple truth is, classes like Guard (Retal, AoE), Warrior (insane AoE), Engi (insane AoE + blind chain in lieu of tanking), Thief (insane AoE + conditions + invulnerability while doing it) have considerably more AoE damage.
I have never been in a situation or seen anyone else playing a Mesmer that could outpace those 4 classes in kill speed. Both single target and AoE. I saw it playing my Mesmer. I saw it while playing other classes alongside other Mesmer. I have never seen anything to disprove this.
There’s tons of videos, like “mesmer is fine in orr”, showing well geared shatter build soloing multiple risen in Orr. Well, on my Engi I can kill more and in about half the time, wearing “I just turned 80” gear. How’s that for damage? More reliably too, because on occasion illusions get 1-shot, preventing a shatter, which drags out the engagement.
I’m sorry, but comparatively speaking Mesmer sucks in PvE. Is it the worst class? Probably not. Frankly I dislike both Necro and Ele more. But Mesmer is fine in PvE? That’s bunk. Compared to at least 4 other classes Mesmer is a joke in PvE.
Would like to know too. From personal observation, none of the clothies can come even close to farming speed of warrior or thief. Simply put, burst rules.
Well, mostly because ANet made it clear they’re happy with where Warriors are right now balance-wise. They feel the class is balanced. So everyone else is pretty content to leave Warriors alone as a “yardstick” and try and put their own classes to be balanced in line with them. At least that’s my interpretation.
Or possibly because Thieves are so insanely over the top right now that very few people even notice warriors any more. It’s like having one eye looking at the sun, and another at a candle. You won’t give a toss about the candle until you can stop looking at the sun. Thieves are the sun.
The skill curve should be adjusted to be the same for all classes, this is the balance that needs to be reached.
This is most likely utterly impossible.
Engi, Ele, Mesmer, etc., have way more abilities than most other classes, and require a much higher skill curve. I mean, Engineer in just sheer number of unique abilities you can use, outshines every other class nearly 2:1 (remember, each time you switch to a new kit, you get a new toolbelt ability for that kit as well, plus the kit’s own 5 new abilities).
The “problem” as I see it is, in other games high skillcap classes usually come with a reward. That is, if played right, they’re absolute monsters. Unfortunately in GW2 it is the other way around – classes that take little to no skill, pressing under 5 buttons per engagement, that are the monsters. And when played correctly, mostly via just luck and/or better positioning and synchronization with other similar classes, become unstoppable.
This could be addressed. For instance, it is VERY hard to hit a player with Engineer’s grenade. Parabolic trajectory makes flight time slow. Area where they will land is marked, giving you an easy heads-up on where to dodge. It has to be manually targeted, which is hard to do against a moving target at range, especially when kiting/rolling/etc. All that work has to pay off in a major way. Unfortunately #1 autoattack of many classes will do comparable damage. No payoff for a lot more work.
“AND please address the flamethrower. Outside Dynamic events (which they are outshon by grenades). It is utter garbage. Equip it in pvp, and its like saying "hey kill me first, I’m kitten "
Confirms immediately that this is a L2P rage thread.
Tip, flamethrower has 2 useful skills in pvp, the 3 & 5, for blowback & blinding respectively. They give you survivability if used correctly.
Yeah, but that’s 2 out of 5. Or 40%. The remaining 60% should really be buffed and/or fixed.
The basic attack misses a LOT. Everyone knows this. It is also a really stupid thing to use in PvP against anyone who could have retaliation, because it hits so many times. You could instantly kill yourself just by using #1 ability and hitting a few people with retaliation up, while barely scratching them in return.
The #2 attack is also a PITA to use. Usable, but a PITA. And for the cooldown it has and the damage it does, it is fairly lackluster.
And #4 does pathetically weak damage, doesn’t work as area denial. It is just a combo field, really.
I’m sorry, but I’m totally agreed with the OP that the Flamer kit needs to be seriously looked at. I tried using it, and it was just way too unreliable and potentially self-harming for the payoff it provides.
John Peters plays he necro, he should be our advocate, one that we can talk to, not some hated pariah.
Yes and no. The whole situation reminds me of the first year of WoW, where Blizzard assigned “Class Representatives” to every class.
I was playing a Hunter at the time, and the class had tons of incredibly crippling issues. Like it was the only class in the game that had to pay gold for ammo to PvP with, and needed pet food to keep the pet happy (prevent it from running away and disappearing forever) each time it died. And it died a lot in PvP. Also in PvE the class was an absolute mess at level 60.
Well, after a bit of silence, the class rep basically said on the forum “I got to level 36 on my Hunter, and I feel the class is fine, and that’s what I’m going to tell other devs.” At which point she was practically skinned alive on the forums, and quickly quit the position.
You see, that’s the main problem with having a “representative” that is not necessarily as knowledgeable or effective in both PvE and PvP as some players. Who likely spend way, way, WAY more time playing the game. In WoW’s case, the class rep was basically…well…clueless. She did PvE some, didn’t do any PvP, and felt the class balance was fine and dandy. This could very well happen here. If a Dev plays a Necro, and feels the class is just fine the way it is…well…you’re SOL (three letter acronym for “S…. out of Luck”).
In this respect, I feel EVE Online’s approach is a little better. Player-elected representatives, with an election every year. Though again it’s imperfect as votes from alt accounts count, and it’s pretty much “whoever has the most alts and friends with most alts wins”.
Having said all that, this is no reason to be mean. This is just a game after all. Though I do wish the Devs paid more attention to class balance. Currently it is pretty atrocious with clearly AAA-tier classes and clearly FFF-tier classes. There’s also a HUGE gradient in class strength in PvE, starting from simple leveling. So when they say “balance is pretty good”, I’m sorry, but it’s neither pretty nor good. Needs more cowbell. Way more.
Just to make sure, you aren’t comparing sPvP Confusion and PvE Confusion, right? sPvP Confusion is actually much weaker (halved) then PvE Confusion.
It’s hilarious that they did this in the first place. They either need to do this for all classes and their skills, or none. What makes Mesmer class so “special”?
i do think it was a ninja-nerf too, besides, they hate all the classes exept warrior, who hasnt been nerfed the last 2 couple of patches
I’m of the same opinion that there was a ninja nerf of some kind. Or maybe they changed how the random portion of the spread works. Sometimes it is just ridiculous – against a stationary target maybe 1-2 hit, the rest miss. Especially obvious with the larger-radius throws.
Speed was indeed nerfed, but I think spread was either changed, or bugged a bit. I mean, so far for every change they made they also introduced a bug, so it makes sense. I was just thinking about this last night in the Straits, getting tons of unwanted underwater aggro from grenades spreading all over the place.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s such a big deal. The class needs FIXES more than changes.
For instance, talking of WvW sieges…Engineer has Mortar. But it sucks. Needs fixing.
Area denial? Engineer can build a ton of turrets, performing various tasks. But they suck too. Needs fixing.
Etc., etc.
Once turrets scale, target and track properly, mortar doesn’t perform worse than grenades, etc., the class will be just fine and fit the role well. And Devs, on the off-chance you’re reading any of this, I do NOT mean “nerf grenades”, not until you fix the rest!
Would help if you double-checked your stuff. For example “Leap->Blurred Frenzy: Illusion leaps at you, mesmer swaps places, stands still and does a series of rapid sword attacks.” Leap slows you, Swap roots you. Can’t dodge Blurred Frenzy while rooted. Which is what makes this chain so effective in the first place.
Mirror Blade is a sword, not an axe. If you are far enough away (600+), bounce won’t happen at all.
Engineer’s Big Ol’ Bomb has such a long fuse that you can easily walk away from it, even slowed. No need to burn dodge on that.
You could also add Moa Morph to the list of Mesmer skills to dodge. Too bad it has a 1 sec cast time, and you could easily confuse it with a phantasm cast which is 3/4 second time. Giving you a 0.25 sec window to realize it’s a Moa and try and do something. Which won’t help you, if he does Decoy->Moa, by the time he comes out of stealth, assuming you’re looking straight at him, there’ll be 1/10th of a second left before you’re a bird due to stealth lag.
(edited by Sabbathius.1465)
You just don’t put Assassin characters into PvP games. They’re predicated on killing people unfairly, or so quickly it forces everyone to treat them like mini-bosses.
I think they’re aware of that – which is why they named the class Thief and not Assassin. They just screwed up on the implementation. The class should be about tricks, stealth, evasion, acrobatics. Not brutal out-the-wazoo damage that melts things in under 2 seconds.
Man this is getting annoying “thiefs” is not plural for more than one thief that would be thieves.
Maybe it should be thiefs. English language is very weird and often counter-intuitive.
For example:
Thief → Thieves
Elf → Elves
Dwarf → Dwarfs?! Say what?
Fun fact: when I made my thief, ALL the people in Tutorial area were thieves except one person.
I feel this is BY FAR THE BEST solution to the Thief issue. Everyone makes a Thief.
Worst case scenario: They realize that playing a Thief is not all mai-tais and yahtzee.
Best case scenario: 50%+ of active players end up as thieves, which will finally force ANet to do something to address the issue. Unless they want to rename the game Thief Wars 2.
Yeah, this is one of those times, which happens in pretty much every MMO, where you sit there and wonder “What are they thinking?”
This is very much in line with what went on with WoW a few years back, when they gave low level rogues Shadowstep and Ambush. Level 10-19 PvP battlegrounds basically became you getting 1-shot. Or, in absolutely worst case, 3-shot. Really, regardless of the class. And if memory serves, it went on like this for a very, very long time. Of course by then I was out of WoW for a while, but it’s still worth noting.
And guys, there’s REALLY no need to argue on whether or not this is too much. Form your own opinion on the topic. It’s what ANet thinks, but more importantly what ANet DOES about it, and WHEN, that’s important. If they do nothing, draw your conclusions from that, reroll or move on. Luckily the game doesn’t have a sub, so you can walk away and come back in 6 months and see if things changed.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter. Make a char and start playing. If you enjoy the gameplay, regardless of how strong or weak the class is right now, you’ll enjoy the leveling process. And by then, who knows what state Necros will be in. They could be godmode by then for all we know. Or completely nerfed to crap. It’s the risk we all take playing an MMO.
It’s entirely possible you just won’t like the gameplay. Something about this class really irks me, even though I can’t put my finger on it.