Burst classes are so squishy, you really have zero trouble killing them in full out tank builds. They negate none of your damage so you still hit like a truck vs them. The more people start building tank the more likely people will cease to spec bursty simply because tank trumps burst in pvp.
This may completely change the game as we know it as people become more knowledgeable about what a PvP build actually is (hint it isn’t glass cannon).
It’s the three B’s. Burst, Balanced, Bunker.
Burst has the raw sudden damage to take out burst and balanced with relative ease, but not bunker.
Balanced is susceptible to Burst, but has the sustained damage and raw staying power to whittle down a Bunker.
Bunker is impervious to Burst, and can hit them like a truck (thanks Adaneshade for the imagery) despite their lower damage output, but cant handle a Balanced toughness while the same Balanced whittles them down.
That’s the theory anyway. The trick is finding the builds that accomplish this, and the devs balancing the mechanics accordingly.
Yay in theory but it NEVER works. There is a reason for the old saying the best defense is a good offense and your entire post also outlines the whole problem. Stepping aside from the whole “thief” drama, in any PVP game where there is a class with “avoidance” mechanics this becomes a massive force multiplier on their whole dmg/vs tank paradigm.
Super run speed is another example that breaks PVP in the same way stealth does. If I can run much faster than anyone in the game then I decide when and where PVP occurs. I can joust the other guy and it gives me a massive force multiplier advantage. If I am the only class with snare in the game it creates the same problem because now I can kite everyone and again I control the PVP.
Let’s take another example, suppose for arguments sake one of the GW2 classes had immense endurance regen as part of their “flavour” to the point where they could dodge roll almost continuously. This would break the game in similar ways to stealth. I could go glass cannon without caring about the consequences. If you don’t believe how effective this would be go and take the Thief trait Feline Grace and watch your survival rate quadruple.
So these types of classes are freed from the consequences of the dmg vs tank decision making process and can effectively glass cannon without the downsides, or at least with severely reduced downsides. This was the case in Aion with the Ranger and Assassin, with extreme stealth abilities all they had to worry about was offense, defense didn’t matter. You are free from having to make the burst vs bunker decision whereas everyone else is forced to make it and then their decision is also made for them, they must choose bunker because burst affords them no utility against a target they can’t engage.
So then a force multiplier for your character also becomes a skill multiplier. Two equally skilled players, the one with the force multiplier will win 8 of 10 matches. A lower skilled player can use an advantageous class to clownshoe his way over other players and think he’s doing great.
