Guild Wars 2

Science.4207:

They did betas 1-3 right.
Whatever they did at release, it wrecked the balance.

This. Unfortunately.

*They changed the scaling on engineer kits (regardless of amulet all kits have the same base damage, meaning condi builds have access to direct damage for free). Most kits received base damage buffs of 40-70%.

*They buffed the pewp out of engi rifle base damage and scaling.

*They blindly buffed mesmer phantasms (making “phantasm” builds viable), increased the damage of shattering back to BWE1 levels, added more CC options, stopped clones from overwriting (meaning you don’t have to manage phantasms/ illusions anymore, just set it and forget it), and buffed the shattering effect so clones chase non stop until they reach the target (meaning you often need to dodge 2x to effectively “dodge” a shatter). Essentially the handful of good mesmers from the BWEs are long forgotten as the class was buffed blindly from the ground up.

*They blindly buffed random thief abilities seemingly without a goal or vision in mind (poison share applying on AOEs, stun lock chains with PW, solo guild lord kills with fat stack of bleed from LDB, etc.). I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface on the potential number of broken thief builds that revolve around 3 buttons. It’s almost like they asked some terriblykitten thief what buffs he would like to the class, then they actually implemented it.

Essentially it feels like they scrapped the balance from the previous BWEs and rushed buffs to classes that needed it, while nerfing the previous classes who were used as the “standard” of what is top tier.