Guild Wars 2

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

I would actually want ArenaNet to balance out the skill spam that Elementalists and Engineers have access to before they try to give that kind of skill spam out to yet another class. It is bad enough having to deal with two professions that can spam almost twice as many skills as you have access to without adding to that particular problem.

On the other hand, if this was part of a revamp of profession mechanics to bring the number of skills available to all professions to a level comparable with the Elementalist and the Engineer, then I am all for it. Although I could see both Elementalist and Engineer players balking a bit at losing their advantage in the number of skills they can spam.

Thanks.

did you even read what i wrote?
how is this skill spam?
all of them have shared recharge.

once i exit a shroud, all other shroud is on recharge, i can’t enter another shroud immediately.

once i use a shroud skill 2 – 5, all other shroud skills 2 – 5 will be on recharge.

please tell me how is that skill spam.

thank you.

KK, maybe skill “spam” was the wrong way to describe having access to more skills. Your proposal would limit the time between accessing the extra skills and that is one step towards balancing them.

And I did say I was all for it provided it could be balanced. Having long cool-downs between the different “Death Shrouds” would be a good step towards that balance.

Thanks.

Eight O Eight.8257:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

The Guardian is a melee character who supports up at the front lines. They do not do really well on their own, but do quite well in groups. Their DPS is OK, but where they really shine is supporting others.

.

Don’t let the Guardian community hear you say this. As a Guardian (main) for the past 2 years I have done quite well for myself, solo, thank you very much!

Yes, I know they are not total weaksauce solo, but compared to the other professions they are just not designed to be as good on their own. They can be kited quite easily, only have one real source of condition damage (which is useless in areas where the MoBs are immune to burn), and have a very low health pool for being a melee class.

Where they really shine though is in supporting groups. The Guardian is designed very much like the Paragon from the original Guild Wars; OK alone but really good in groups.

And yes, I have played a Guardian since release except I was not aware at the time I choose the profession that it was one of the designated support classes for Guild Wars 2. I only learned that through playing the profession and seeing the “class design philosophies” that were released after I choose the profession. They are not a bad choice for a profession especially since the OP wants a support role, but you can get a lot more power and viability solo from the other professions.

Thanks.

Both the Guardian and the Elementalist are the designated support professions for Guild Wars 2. Both of them will synergize really well with a Warrior. I think your decision will come down to your play style.

The Guardian is a melee character who supports up at the front lines. They do not do really well on their own, but do quite well in groups. Their DPS is OK, but where they really shine is supporting others.

The Elementalist is a caster character who supports from afar. They can do well either solo or in groups and their damage is some of the best in the game at the moment. They also have access to almost twice as many skills in combat as the other professions (with the exception of the Engineer), so you can continually spam your skills while the other professions are waiting on their cool-downs to proc. This profession is more than likely similar to the “healer” class you played in WoW.

The other professions can offer some support in their own way, but these two are the ones that ArenaNet designed to be the support professions for Guild Wars 2.

Thanks.

I would actually want ArenaNet to balance out the skill spam that Elementalists and Engineers have access to before they try to give that kind of skill spam out to yet another class. It is bad enough having to deal with two professions that can spam almost twice as many skills as you have access to without adding to that particular problem.

On the other hand, if this was part of a revamp of profession mechanics to bring the number of skills available to all professions to a level comparable with the Elementalist and the Engineer, then I am all for it. Although I could see both Elementalist and Engineer players balking a bit at losing their advantage in the number of skills they can spam.

Thanks.

If you have a dedicated group or guild you know you will run with, then Guardian is a good choice. The Guardian is designed as a support class and works like the Paragon did from the original Guild Wars. I.E. good in groups, but not so great solo. They also suffer quite a bit against ranged combatants. The only thing easier to kite than a Guardian would be an actual kite.

If you are going to be doing a lot of solo play or solo queues in sPvP, then Necromancer is definitely a better choice as they are far more self contained as a profession than the Guardian is. They can do well at range or close up and have far more health than a Guardian has. They also have more choices when it comes to traiting their profession.

Incarmine.1953:

2. The design of the necro class forces one to commit their build and utility slots to either power and damage with wells, or to condition damage and spreading them, or to minions. There’s too much separation among these three necro styles and the skills and traits don’t really synergize well with one another. Whereas in a guardian almost all skills and traits can contribute in some form to whatever playstyle you pick, and the weapon skills are fun to use and are quite useful.

The Guardian really only has two specs to choose from. You either go Meditations to be a glass-cannon DPS, or go with Shouts to be a tankier support class. As the Guardian is designed as a support class, the Meditations build is usually only used in PvP.

As a side note, you can create both professions and once you are done with the tutorial chapter, you can take them to the Heart of the Mists where they will be level 80 with all their skills and most of their traits unlocked. You can experiment with both of the professions there and see what each can do. There are some “spirit” versions of each profession to fight and some of the harder boss-type MoBs there that you can have a look-see with each profession.

Thanks.

Raven.9603:

Mayama.1854:

Like seriously why do people whine so much about meta builds like celestial or condi bunker specs. Saying those builds are lame or unfair. Thats basicaly like saying that the winner of a car race is lame and unfair because he has the best car / best team.

Not using the best horse you have available for a horse race and than complaining that you cant win is rather childish.

When the game first came out, there was a very carefully constructed amount of conditions that each class could apply, with fairly limited max durations. there were certain gear types that simply did not exist; namely Dire, Apothecary, Settlers. Likewise, every class had a carefully selected number of condition removals. Some classes had enough that condition based enemies were no threat (if they spec’d them), and other classes had very few because they were designed to be weak against conditions.

this was great because

• Condi specs were very viable, but some classes could counter play them by taking builds that had more clears
• Condi gear selections had a weakness. If you went rabid you werent going to have a lot of health. If you went carrion you werent going to have a lot of toughness. niether were heavy on healing power so they didnt have too much sustain.
• While you can’t exactly counter power builds with trait and skill selections, gear has existed since launch that counters power builds very hard, namely soldiers, knights, clerics.
• Condi food did not exist, so conditions that were balanced around lasting 10 seconds lasted 10 seconds.

Now…

• Introduction of perplexity runes, torment runes, torment sigils, and certain class changes have dramatically increased the amount of conditions normally applied. Despite this, the amount of condi clears did not really increase with very few exceptions. This means NO CLASS IN THE GAME (with the possible exception of necromancers) has enough clears to flat out counter a condition user anymore.
• The items above also introduced powerful conditions to classes that did not normally posses them, namely perplexity runes. Now necromancers are applying a ton of confusion stacks on fear, p/d thieves can spam interrupts until their application is successful, and classes that already had access to confusion now had approximately double the amount. further, it took forever for these blatantly OP runes which should have been removed to even get a cooldown. the game was not designed around necromancers applying a ton of confusion stacks.
• the introduction of condition duration food amplifies all of these problems, making conditions last for huge durations forcing the victim to eat a counter food to normal it out (which in turn leads all condi users to use the duration food, less they go against someone who ate lemongrass and find themselves less effective, further excarbating the cycle).
• the amount of stats needed to be successful as a condition player was much, much lower than their power based counter parts (no need for ferocity, and only with the introduction of on-crit conditions have condi users found a minor need for crit), which allows them to concentrate much more on survivability. while this was previously countered by lack of condi bunker armor, the introduction of the armor gave them the green light to stack condition damage, and their choice of healing power, toughness and vit without having to mix, match and sacrifice like everyone else.

I hope that wasnt too long and that it adequetly covers it. There is nothing wrong with condition users and people dont hate condition users. They hate the state condition specs have been allowed to evolve too, and in a few cases they hate the lack of counter play (eg no one likes p/d thieves, PU mesmers, not because of condis but because it takes so little ability to win and so much ability to defeat, no one likes having 10+ seconds of confusion stacks on them, because unless you have a clear, it basically forces you not to play for that amount of time).

+1

Power-creep…

ArenaNet is just not good with it.

Thanks.

Backpack.8517:

I am the best player in this game. I am 16, I turn 17 in November. My mommy can sign a waver, and I can bring an adult with me as a legal guardian to the event. I have a valid passport and I can speak Mandarin at a semi fluent level. WTF

Well, apparently there is no need for a tournament anymore.

Self-aggrandize much?

azizul.8469:

kids should stay at school….

Yes, and apparently learn the meaning of the word: “humility”

Thanks.

dday.9532:

i got them through playing pvp. very few of the unlocked traits are ever used in pvp anyway.
No one really uses the amulets either.

That’s strange because I have seen some of the builds and I definitely saw some Traveler’s Runes being used. I had to pay gold to unlock those.

How can you get them through PvP?

Thanks.

I was wondering if the Tournament players have to pay for access to the restricted amulets, runes, and grandmaster traits like the rest of us have to do in order to gain access to “balanced” sPvP?

Or is access provided for them? Do they have to run out before the Tournaments and complete the PvE events necessary?

I was a bit surprised to see that certain traits, runes, and amulets were “pay to access” as I thought the whole point of sPvP was that everyone was supposed to have equal access to them to keep things balanced. So, it occurred to me, “How do the players in the Tournaments gain access to these?”

Do they pay? Do they run out and do PvE? Do they just get access to them for free?

Thanks.

Errant Venture.9371:

Take a look through some of the builds from this weekend’s Euro qualifier. Except for dedicated bunker guards, the majority of specs are running Celestial hybrids with Strength, Hoelbrak, or Pack runes.

During the massive condi meta of summer 2013, players complained that stat combos like Rabid allows players to have too much sustain + damage at the same time. Does the stat distribution of Celestial have a similar damaging effect, by allowing players to obtain significant amounts of direct damage, condi damage, and sustain in a single spec?

Well, I for one an amazed at the variety of builds you can use for sPvP. So many choices to choose from, especially for the Guardians. LOL

/sarcasm off

It’s really a shame that they worked so hard to provide all these traits, runes, sigils, and amulet combinations simply to have one or two of them used all the time while the others are never looked at. Such great potential going completely unused.

/sigh

Loading.4503:

Irrelevant but…
On my demi-god I just stand there with my healing sig and adren health and autoattack… If the bleeding gets overwhelming I just clear it with my warhorn

There we go…

Fixed that for you.

I think the OP was asking about how the other professions that don’t have the armor, health, and damage that a Warrior has deals with said Thief. I doubt many Thieves can actually out-damage a Warrior’s heals one versus one.

Thanks.

Rasalhague.8270:

Guardian is a turtle.

When you see a Guardian in roaming wvw or spvp you know that 2 things will happen :
- You kill him because he cannot escape
- You dont kill him but you escape

Its probably the only class that everyone else can kite, even on a GS/scepter/signet build that has 2 immobilization, 1 knockdown, 1 leap.

If its a signet build it wont heal and you can still kite.

If its a meditation he can heal but you can kite him to recover your health – or just permastealth if you are thief/mesmer.

Guardian is the worst roaming wvw profession, because its a full support class only good on zergs, that does not do so well alone, unless the other guy does not knows to play.

Guardians have a good chance beating a ranger, because ranger is as bad as guardian except that meditations give the guard a chance to last longer than a ranger, but again the ranger can still reset the fight by kiting and the use of cripple/kb.

The guardian needs to be buffed, to have a little more mobility to escape or chase, and his cooldowns decreased, only then he will be balanced.

OFFTOPIC:
Imho, the buff ranger is receiving is well deserved but its still too little in comparison to OP classes such as thief/war/engi/necro.

PS : I have 8 character slots, I have all professions

Agreed. The only thing easier to kite than a Guardian is an actual kite, and then, maybe.

The Guardian reminds me in many ways of the Paragon from Guild Wars; great in groups and not so great on their own.

Thanks.

I sometimes aim for some personal victories myself such as successfully soloing a “hambow” Warrior, or knowing that I am not going to win the fight but attempting to keep the point capped or de-capped for as long as I can last against some superior numbers. Keeping three of the opposing team occupied for as long as I can often times gives my teammates the time they need to get some back-caps. Yeah, I lose and die but I am happy I made them work for it.

Thanks.

Mayama.1854:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

And I will never agree with ArenaNet’s stance that having three permanent signets as my class mechanic justifies being the most easily kited profession that is designed to be a melee class, but without the health to actually survive very long in the front lines. Especially when Rangers, Engineers, Mesmers and Necromancers all get more health while safely staying at range.

Frontline? Join WvW and compare how long you survive in the frontline as all those classes compared to a guardian. Guardians have the best defense in the whole game, no other class can endure so much damage like a guardian. Ive seen more than enough solo guardians get swarmed by a whole zerg and still survive for very long time compared to the situation they are in. Please dont whine about the survivability of guardians. Thats like whining about thieves not having enough options to stealth…

/sigh

Quoted out of context again. Ah well, what can you do?

Thanks.

Liewec.2896:

guardian healing? cute.
i play a warrior shout bunker in pvp,
we enjoy 409 hp every second, plus 167 hps from adrenal healing when you don’t need the condi removal of cleansing ire. (which honestly isn’t very often with a shout warrior, due to shouts removing conditions.)

thats 576 hps without needing to click or activate anything.
thats 34k passive regen a minute without even mentioning the shouts…

now the shouts,
upon using all of my shouts i heal all allies within 600 of me for 9,316 and remove 6 conditions.

used back to back my shouts grant 446.35 HPS (26,781 health a minute)
and remove 17 conditions per minute.
yes…17 condi removals and 27k health to all allies within 600, every minute.

so my personal healing is 1022.35 HPS (61,341 health per minute.)
it takes a bizarre amount of poison spam to take me down,
i even run both generosity and purity runes, since poison is the only danger.
without poison just save your time and go elsewhere

edit: i also should have mentioned that i use Settler’s Amulet giving me 3,5k toughness,
and plenty of condi damage, i primarily use s/s for both the block and damage,
i usually deal around 2k-2.5k dps, which eats through most people fairly quickly.

Wow. You can out-heal and out-support a Guardian while still having the highest health pool and can still wreck face?

I so chose the wrong profession to play at release. It must be nice to actually be able to support and still be a threat to someone. I always have to make a choice as to whether I want a chance to kill someone or want to support, heal, and bunker.

I guess the people who state that the developers must not play this game have a bit more insight than I gave them credit for in the past.

Do you think ArenaNet will ever offer a profession change option in the Gem Store?

Thanks.

You do have one other option, but only for certain professions. You can try to lay down tons of AoE around you and where you think the Thief might be.

Unfortunately, that method is really only viable for Elementalists and Engineers as they are really the only two professions that can continuously spam AoE attacks.

Other than that, it is as others have said. Your two best weapons are prediction and luck as you try to play “whack-a-mole” with the Thief.

May the Force be with you…

Thanks.

Carighan.6758:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

KK, the problem with this video is that you chose to fight a Warrior, the only profession that ArenaNet has chosen to have no weaknesses or drawbacks. If you want to show the issues a Mesmer has, you really should choose to fight one of the other professions so you are on more equal footing.

Thanks.

Are you seriously telling people to look to 1v1 to get their balance input? Really?

Not at all.

All I am saying is that fighting against a profession that has no drawbacks is not a good example with which to show imbalance as you have already started on an un-level playing field.

I am quite aware that PvP balance is based off of just a few players at the very highest competitive levels and that the rest of us just simply have to adjust around that.

Thanks.

Ross Biddle.2367:

You did remind me of this though. Full zerk gear, typical phantasm build in a 1v1 vs warrior. While it doesn’t address the question adequately it does express an example in the meta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrpfPrWMRWo

KK, the problem with this video is that you chose to fight a Warrior, the only profession that ArenaNet has chosen to have no weaknesses or drawbacks. If you want to show the issues a Mesmer has, you really should choose to fight one of the other professions so you are on more equal footing.

Thanks.

Ynna.8769:

I just came back after not playing for ages and the same stuff is still being posted.

See, the Guardian is really good at some things.

Team support, we’re awesome at. No question about it. As long as I’ve got a team-mate with me, we’re close to unstoppable. The Guardian you can totally serve as a power multiplier.

Grabbing and holding a point, we’re good at too. With the right build and good use of your skills, you can hold a point for way longer than anyone else. As I said, I haven’t played in ages and I can still knock someone off a point for long enough to cap it.

But here’s the thing:

That’s it. And it’s not enough. I can draw out fights forever, especially in 1v1 or even 2v1 (depending on my opponents) or help my team-mates stay alive, but it won’t kill him. If I invest in living long enough (and with a low starting health pool, you kinda need to) I can’t reach the damage required to take someone down. And to be honest, if you could choose between taking a point without killing its defender, or killing the defender and then taking the point, it’s not hard to figure out what you should prefer.

And if you play in an organized group, this can be mitigated by good communication. A quick: “Hey, I’m at the keep holding off two guys, could use some help,” should sort things out just fine. But not everyone plays at that level of organization and it isn’t fun that you *need*¨that level of organization to play effectively.

QFT.

I love my Guardian, but he feels too much like the Paragon from Guild Wars to me. I.E. Really great in groups or teams, but really poor on his own.

And I will never agree with ArenaNet’s stance that having three permanent signets as my class mechanic justifies being the most easily kited profession that is designed to be a melee class, but without the health to actually survive very long in the front lines. Especially when Rangers, Engineers, Mesmers and Necromancers all get more health while safely staying at range.

I would be quite happy to have more options with a Guardian than I currently do. What I am allowed to do, I do quite well but the profession is definitely pigeon-holed as far as diversity and choice goes.

Thanks.

Liewec.2896:

Rozbuska.5263:

Lol so many so called “experts” on dps:-D I must always smile when warriors thinks they are actualy good in dps:-)

you’re obviously playing a different game.

Wow. I am actually more impressed with the survivability rather than the damage. Hardly any use of utility skills, no use of adrenalin burst that I saw, and only one dodge needed in the entire fight. If only every class could just facetank bosses like that.

Most impressive.

Thanks.

kirito.4138:

if its been 2yrs then its no longer a bug, but a feature.

working as intended

Yes, after two years it is what is commonly known as an “Undocumented feature” in software. That usually means the programmers have no idea how to actually fix it or fixing it would break other things.

Maybe time to sing “Happy Birthday” to it?

Thanks.

NeXeD.3042:

I kill that healing turret as fast as I can. Thumper and rocket can be problems but thumper has too much hp and rocket is usually in a decent spot if the engi isn’t just afking. If your condI just don’t do it unless your on a class that can properly pressure from range

Wow, you actually get to target the healing turret? Most Engineers simply drop it then destroy it to keep their nearly unlimited regeneration refreshed every twenty seconds. The only one I can usually destroy is the one from Supply Drop.

You must have some really good reflexes.

Thanks.

Monkman.9508:

People need to start posting their builds with actual DPS parses.

Except for you, right? You are just going to give us your two opinions on the two professions you think do the most DPS.

Are you by any chance a politician?

Thanks.

style.6173:

Engis have become the easiest class to play. That says a lot given that hambows are still around.

This…

I find it noteworthy that when the game first released, Engineer and Mesmer were the two lowest professions played numerically. Now, they are everywhere, like rabbits only worse as rabbits are at least cute and fluffy.

Thanks.

Bring some help.

Like Minion Master Necromancers, I usually never attempt to 1v1 an Engineer guarding a point. I call out to my team and bring at least one other person to try to take them down. With their nearly permanent regeneration ability and access to multiple skills for crowd control, any power based build will have a very difficult time attempting to overcome one on their own.

Remember, you have a team. Get some help!

Thanks.

Thiefz.3695:

I’m 36. I’d be interested in how many of the 40+ crowd played on MUD’s and BBS games back in the 80’s and 90’s. Those were the first online games that I can think of.

Yes, my Commodore 64 came with links for AoL (then called Quantum Link) and CompuServe and they had some MuDs available. The only one I really messed around with was Neverwinter Nights on AoL though as it was a graphical MuD. Time-sharing online at the time was a bit expensive and as a student I really only thought it worthwhile due to the fact that Neverwinter Nights had graphics to it.

I did play a lot of single-player text-based RPG games prior though. I always wanted to mess around with some of the MuDs and links that came with my Commodore 64, but back in the eighties it was pricey as you had to pay for your access by the hour.

Thanks.

Otaur.9268:

Silentshoes.1805:

I am 62, and first played MMOs with Ultima online in 1997. I’ve been writing software since 1981.

I play sPvP exclusively. I enjoy it. Keeps the reflexes and muscle memory in better shape. And the brain connections.

Who is older?

26, Ultima Online 1997 – 2001, DAoC 2001-2003, Shadowbane 2003 – 2004, WoW 2004/City of Heroes/Lineage 2… GW1… The list continues.

Ultima Online was one of the best games ever… Until they started adding all the Eastern Influences to it. Once they turned to Trammel, added the Pet Bonding system, the insurance system, etc, it ruined it. Good times… Baja was my home server until Trammel, then Siege Perilous (pvp only server, 1 character per account). I repeat, Good times…

You started playing Ultima Online when you were only 9 years old?

I am 47 (soon to be 48). My first MMORPG was also Ultima Online, but I did not stay with it very long. I was lured away by the flashy 3D graphics of Everquest and then on to Dark Age of Camelot, which still remains my first great love of MMORPGs.

My first PC (if you could call it that) was an old Commodore 64 I got back in 1982 as a teen-ager and I have been working in IT and playing on computers ever since.

Thanks.

While I love my Guardian, there will come a time during a protracted fight when all or most of my skills are on cooldown. At that point, I am quite easy to take down.

An Elementalist never has to worry about that as they have access to nearly double the skills that any other class does with the exception of the Engineer.

You will always have spells to spam with an Elementalist. They simply never run out of skills to use.

Thanks.

Esplen.3940:

Target Closest Enemy and Target Previous Enemy are your friends.

This is good advice. Assign these to keys you can readily use and get skilled using them rather than attempting to use the mouse. This can also help in PvE if you regularly go into melee range and are “blinded” by the 178637488290820 particle effects going on during a large scale encounter.

As an alternate option, have you tried the Engineer class yet? Most of the Engineer’s skills are AoE skills, so you merely need to blanket an area with them rather than actually target someone. When asked what fighting an Engineer was like in the Heart of the Mists by a new player, I once replied “It’s like wading through a permanent pool of AoEs that apply every condition known, damage you, CC you, and heal the Engineer.” While I was being a bit sarcastic, I was amazed at just how many people agreed with that assessment.

No need to target when you can just permanently AoE an area.

Something to think about…

Thanks.

Javonovich.5280:

In my opinion, the problem is that runes now allow for crazy might stacks and sigils. Without sigils and might stacking, a 2/0/0/6/6 thief is just annoying because they won’t deal much damage. The s/d meta build takes advantage of the fact that you can now trait defensively while relying on sigil procs + might to make up for the lack of damage. As long as these runes and sigils exist, there is no point thinking about individual skill balance.

This…

Boons (whether coming from runes, traits, or sigils) and conditions are just WAY out of control in the current game. Power creep appears to be here to stay.

What happened to the ‘short duration, hard to apply, situational, large impacting’ boons and conditions ArenaNet were talking about prior to Beta? Anyone know where that game went? I sure would like to give it a try instead of the perma-might, perma-regeneration, perma-stealth, perma-swiftness, perma-vigor, perma-stun, perma-immobilize, perma-burning, perma-weakness, and soon to be perma-crippled (thanks to the soon-to-come improvement to the Engineer’s tool kit) game that has manifested itself now.

Thanks.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

please do remember that all professions skills balances are focused around 5 vs 5 team arena conquest mode, not WvW or PvE.

Yes, a strange balance philosophy as it only positively affects a very small minority of the player base. But from what I have read, it is true.

Thanks.

Cufufalating.8479:

Guardians did the short end of the stick on this… But TBH kind of like reason why they did it. Classes should get conditions which match their profession, and nothing really matches Guardians all that well, condition wise. They are the buffing class, not the debuffing class.

… but sadly Guardians don’t really match any conditions other than burning. They probably should be given a decent bleeding trait though, since bleeding is not really a class thing its a bread-and-butter condition which everyone should have.

I was a bit confused on this one as well. Why don’t Guardians get bleeding? We use swords. Do we just use the flats of the blades or the hilts and pommels when we use them? Because when I watch my animations, I am clearly swinging my blade at things yet they never bleed…

Strange…

Thanks.

nearlight.3064:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Mesmers are the illegitimate, unwanted, red-headed step-children of Anet?

Really?

Mesmers are the lovechild of Guild Wars and Arenanet in the same way Adventurers were of Funcom in Anarchy Online. (for those that remember).

I think this post sums them up best:

Mesmer
“The darling of Guild Wars 2 continues to remain pivotal to the effectiveness of parties and content. Veil, Portal, Time Warp and Feedback are four skills guilds and individuals don’t want to live without while their scepter and its reflective trait is capable of destroying others in WvW. There really isn’t much to build on when it comes to the mesmer as although they lack physical mobility (they have very few movement swiftness skills) they make up for this in every single department. So much so and if you’re thinking of making a profession you really should look no further.”

Thanks.

I think the mesmer community in general would disagree with you, like do you even play one?

And that quote, where is it even from? The scepter has a reflective trait? Since when?
And while those skills can be great skills (for some of them thats debatable) they’re literally the only thing that mesmers really can do (and guardian can outdo that utility as far as PvE is concerned. Take away veil, and no guild group would ever run a mesmer in GvGs, since thief outdoes it on a gank squad.

Mesmers are literally nerfed so many times in almost every balance patch. Sword/Focus is the most nerfed weaponset in the game and it feels like a shadow of its former effectiveness.

And as for the people saying that guardians aren’t buffed that much, yeah thats true, but you guys don’t need it because you aren’t constantly nerfed and can still be used in top tier content in any game mode.

Whoops. My bad. That quote is from March, but from March 2013 (which I did not see at the time).

-1 to me…

No, I don’t play a Mesmer. My wife does. I just found it hard to believe that it would be considered kitten lowly by Arenanet. The Mesmer was always the flagship class of Guild Wars and was one of the only unique classes brought over from the original game (unlike the Dervish and Ritualist).

My wife has never complained of any nerfs to her Mesmer, but she loves the class so much she probably would just deal with them as long as she got to play it.

My quote though was a year out of date, so my apologies on that one.

Thanks.

Mesmers are the illegitimate, unwanted, red-headed step-children of Anet?

Really?

Mesmers are the lovechild of Guild Wars and Arenanet in the same way Adventurers were of Funcom in Anarchy Online. (for those that remember).

I think this post sums them up best:

Mesmer
“The darling of Guild Wars 2 continues to remain pivotal to the effectiveness of parties and content. Veil, Portal, Time Warp and Feedback are four skills guilds and individuals don’t want to live without while their scepter and its reflective trait is capable of destroying others in WvW. There really isn’t much to build on when it comes to the mesmer as although they lack physical mobility (they have very few movement swiftness skills) they make up for this in every single department. So much so and if you’re thinking of making a profession you really should look no further.”

Thanks.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Harper.4173:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Warriors are not the benchmark…Guardian is. It’s why you NEVER hear complaints about Guardian being too OP or too weak. They’re at that perfect spot.

So now people’s complaints are a exact and relevant metric to measure a class?

This makes me want to do a “study” on what class those that post Warrior QQ forums play. I have a hunch that it would be mostly Thief, they need to create a scapegoat so that they (namely S/D) doesn’t get too much attention.

“Yah! Lookit dat guy!” “Noh noh! don’t look over here, HE’S the problem!”

(Making hand gesture across)

This is not the class you wish to nerf…

:)

Thanks.

Hmmm… I would say it would depend on how you wish to play:

Do you prefer to just 100-0 your opponent in just a few seconds while safely evading them or blinding them so they cannot retaliate? Do you like the ability to reset a fight when you wish and to be able to escape any situation you want? Do you want to use your weapon skills without any cooldowns on them as quickly as you can while you have initiative? Do you like the ability to stay invisible and un-targetable as you wish?

Then Thief is the profession for you.

Do you prefer to have far more skills than the other professions do (with the exception of Elementalist)? Do you want to swap between weapon abilities with no cooldowns and at your will? Do you want to be able to lay down limitless AoE’s that knock your opponents around, damage them, and apply every known condition (except torment and fear) while at the same time healing you? Do you want to be able to fully heal yourself and any allies every 20 seconds? Is perma-burning your thing?

Then I would say you would like the Engineer more.

They both have different play styles. You can make one of each and after the initial tutorial take them to the Mists and see what both of them can do.

Thanks.

I don’ think this design is strictly limited to just Mesmers.

Thieves are basically designed to 100-0 anyone in just a few seconds (often times less) and they are designed to do it well.

On the bright side, you can always take solace in the fact that you are not losing “fights” (I have to use the term loosely when referring to encounters with Thieves) to players, but rather to the mechanics of the game. Always makes me feel better.

Thanks.

DiogoSilva.7089

Was the old Dhummfire a balance problem, or a design problem? You could adjust its numbers to keep it “balanced”, but its passive nature, lack of skill required and lack of counterplay were the real deal.

In this way, I understand Acrisor’s point of view. The biggest problem with this game “isn’t” balance (= wasn’t: there was a time where we DID get balance patches every two weeks or a month, and their shaving philosophy wasn’t that bad at that pace), but the several core issues in design that do not promote skillful playing and counterplaying as much as they could.

You can have an underpowered skill/ trait in this game, see it get a slight buff to make it viable, and suddenly a new unfun build is created because, chances are, said skill/ trait is very passive/ ai-driven/ mindless/ poorly-telegraphed/ etc.

I’m not sure if GW2 needs a “huge revamp”, though, but it would gain a lot by having some core concepts reshaped. Here’s a few out of my mind that really bother me (outside of the lack of counterplay in some areas, as I mentioned above):

• Resourceless skills. When a game is about using as many skills as fast as possible for most of the situations (yes, you should still try to maximize their effects; and yes, there are some ways to counter skill spam), then the combat system is unable to give to the player enough time to read everything that is happening on the screen. And that is a bigger problem because:
• Way too many things happen at once. The UI is always loaded with tiny boon and condition icons, flying everywhere and at every time. Then there’s all the many passive traits from runes, sigils, traits and even some skills overloading the UI, which makes it a mess when you must pay so much attention to what is happening aounrd your character and when a few seconds can determine you kill or death. But this is also a bigger problem because:
• Poor gameplay clarity. The particle effects and AI pets are abudant, the telegraphs and the “skill tells” are not enough, asuras are hard to read in the big mess, coupled with the UI infodump, and the lack of incentives to hold your skills. In turn, this creates an even bigger problem (again):
• Spectators/ Observers/ Viewers can’t understand anything that is happening on the screen, and number of viewers in pvp streams never gets too high.
• The unecessary number of cleave and aoe skills further make this problem worse, as it leads to many accidental/random consequences. Accidental clone deaths, accidental rallies, accidental deaths, accidental kills.

This is one of the better breakdowns I have seen about some of the issues that plague PvP in this game. Well done.

Thanks.

Lucentfir.7430:

Khenzy.9348:

EvilSardine.9635:

Lucentfir.7430:

EvilSardine.9635:

DPS oriented guardians running scepter\focus+GS

They can basically scepter number 1 any class and build to death. Completely overpowered if used properly. By properly I mean basic understanding of the class because the build carries the player. I’m mostly into dueling and have taken part in and watched many duels. There’s a specific guardian build that is completely unbeatable.

No such thing as a unbeatable guardian build unless you mean a bunker spec with no offensive pressure whatsoever. Also Scepter isn’t that good beyond melee medium range. The projectiles are unreliable and easily avoided, and if you’ve got melee in your face you’re kind of a sitting duck. General stun lock and condition overload from a decent engineer or condition build will be able to kill you.

Trust me. 99% unbeatable and it’s not bunker. It’s a mix of zerker, knights, cav etc. With the build you don’t even have to be that good of a guardian. We’ve only seen the build lose to my guild member who runs a necro and got off a good combo with some corrupt boons and fear.

My other guild member ran the guardian build and it’s completely hilarious how it dominates everything in duels. He think it’s completely boring to play now because it’s pretty much a guaranteed win.

People complain about warriors being OP for instance but they have never fought a guardian apparently. Massive damage with huge sustain due to many blocks, invuln, blinds, protection, regen. It’s absurd. Fighting warriors on the build is a joke, actually.

Any good PU condi mesmer would blow him up most of the time no matter how good he may be. Any good condi Necro would destroy him. A good sustain condi ranger would give him serious troubles too. He would not outsustain a P/D condi dire thief that desides to play defensive so he would eventually go down as well. He would have troubles against a Dire condi war that desides to kite around with sword 2. I’m sure I’m leaving other builds. I’m seriously questioning the people you’re dueling with or your credibility.

*^The exact list of what I hate to fight against on my meditation guard. The chances of winning against those build on my guard are very slim when they guy is experienced/knows how to play(PU Condi clone death you will never beat alone unless they’re really brain dead and make a lot of big mistakes).

@EvilSardine – I have over 5k hours on guardian maybe a little bit more…every guardian I’ve seen or faced in duels now a days are really predictable. Really can’t trust your word at all either since I have no idea who you are. Any guardian with Scepter I’ve seen in WvW has been food. Scepter is really only good when you’re fighting a d/d ele that moves around way too much and tries to run from you when health is low, or when it’s just to dangerous for melee combat and you need a way to put some kind of pressure. If anything post a video up of this build you speak of because I’ve yet to see a guard build that rivals the immortality of a Blackwater mesmer.*

I think he might be talking about the Legendary 6/6/6/6/6 Guardian build. I hear those can be quite difficult to fight. Fortunately, there are not a lot of them out there.

Thanks.

Iavra.8510:

Given that warrior have all around good stats (high armor, high vitality, good damage, mobility, cc , healing etc), other classes would either need the same stat distribution or be better in one region and worse in another. Since this is currently not the case, it would probably be better to see a totally medium profession as the benchmark (engi, ranger) and balance around them.

Of course that also means that warriors are too strong and need to lose 1-2 of their advantages (like most if not all mobility skills or ~50% of their dmg).

I actually think it goes a bit beyond their stats. The Warrior was just designed really well. Their class mechanic along with their stats and abilities means that a Warrior never has to give up much to perform whatever role they want to do. Their class mechanic also does not have any downside to its use like the Guardian’s virtues do.

For other classes, if you want to trait for defense you cannot hit hard and if you trait to actually hit hard, you suffer on your defense a bit (except for Mesmers and Thieves whose class mechanic allows them to spec for full offense while the mechanic itself takes care of their defense.) Warriors can trait for offense and still have high armor and health. They can trait for defense and still hit hard with their class mechanic.

I view Warriors as absolutely the base line of all the professions. Every other profession you choose you have to accept some limitations for. This is not the case for the Warrior. Can Arenanet actually bring up the rest of the professions to the Warrior standard? I would not think so without a re-work of the class mechanics and health systems they have put into place. And from the profession philosophy notes I have read, they seem quite happy with the professions as they are.

I would not think they could use any other profession as the benchmark for balancing simply because every other profession has to accept some limitation(s) about their profession which would put Warriors well over the mark.

Thanks.

DesertRose.2031:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Why Arenanet didn’t just use the system they had from GW1 and make the Thief the master of combination attacks like the Assassin is beyond me. The initiative system is far more powerful and Thieves simply have way too many options to restore initiative to make the resource management a balance to the mechanic.

It is generally accepted that the Assassin is the worst designed profession of GW1. Low auto attack damage combined with skills that can be used only in succession had the result that all you needed to play it as to press 12345 every 25-35 seconds.
You really don’t want to have a profession designed like the GW1 Assassin in any game ever again.

Really? Generally accepted by whom? From what I have read, several people thought it was quite superior to the initiative system and “Dat 2 Spam” that are the core mechanics of the Thief class. A system of combination attacks might be just as spammable as the current initiative system but at least it could have been balanced better.

However the initiative system is superior to a system of combination attacks because of the lack of cooldowns and the spammability of it and as the OP was asking about the best profession mechanic I would have to say it is better than the GW1 Assassin.

Thanks.

When it comes to 1vs1 both the Thief and the Mesmer have clear advantages simply due to their profession mechanics.

The Thief has stealth, multiple blinds, and multiple evade skills to keep you from hitting them with your attacks while they use their initiative to whittle you down to zero health in just a few seconds.

Mesmers have clones, distortion and stealth to keep you from hitting them with your attacks while they punish you for killing their clones with conditions or simply send them all at you for a massive shatter effect. They usually do not kill you as fast as Thieves do and often win by attrition, but the results are usually the same.

Both class mechanics can only be “countered” with AoE abilities and a lot of luck. However since Arenanet specifically has mentioned that they don’t want all professions to have a lot of access to AoE abilities, many will simply have to rely on luck to see them through.

Thanks.

Lopez.7369:

Well, the shoutcasters in this game are usually calling the wrong thing or missing important details. The second I turned on the stream today, I heard them talk about a necromancer blowing someone up, when it was all the thief, and having Lich Form ready, when he was conditions and his hotbar clearly had Plague.

Wow, you actually listen to them…

All I ever hear is noise.

Thanks.

Tolmos.8395:

There’s a user on Engineer forums who is claiming that they were the world’s first rank 80. This seems to be something they just started recently, but it got me curious… are they? If not, does anyone remember the name of the first person to reach 80?

From reading some of those posts, I would say they are trolling.

The tone of all of their posts suggest that they are a Legend in Their Own Mind (but not reality).

Thanks.

adam.8692:

Look at the bigger picture: it’s not about us, it’s about our children being able to play decent pvp.

LOL!!

Probably more true than funny, but…

Thanks.

MightyMicah.7451:

Oh, please. Just listen to yourself dude. +1 for useless drama.

Dude! +1 for the link in your signature! Awesomesauce!

Thanks.

MarauderShields.6830:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Hmmmm….

I would have to say:

1.) Initiative – EASILY the best and most powerful class mechanic as it bypasses the cooldowns every other class has on their skills. Since cooldown times are part of the overall balance of skills, this means there can NEVER be a true balance on skills that use initiative versus skills that do not.

Yes, thieves have no cooldown because our initiative, just as our stealth, is infinite.
In all seriousness, I find cooldown management much easier than handling Initiative. 2 or 3 skill at best per 10 second is not much, people just don’t see that cooldown classes classes dish out many more skills in the same time.

Thieves are not as resource starved as you might think. With 12 initiative points (15 traited) that regenerate at one per second plus 9 different traits that restore or increase the gain of initiative, you would have to really work hard at depleting the resource. Even then, by the time you DO deplete it, you have still managed to use more skills than a weapon skill on a 10 second cooldown.

Why Arenanet didn’t just use the system they had from GW1 and make the Thief the master of combination attacks like the Assassin is beyond me. The initiative system is far more powerful and Thieves simply have way too many options to restore initiative to make the resource management a balance to the mechanic.

I have watched literally hundreds of Thieves play in sPVP in an effort to try and learn how to actually kill one and I have yet to see one “resource starved” by the initiative system. Even when they Heartseeker across the map, they always seem to have enough initiative to dispatch their opponent in record time when they arrive.

The ability to use your skills when you want and as quickly as you want to is simply more powerful than using skills on cooldowns. Perhaps if Thieves had fewer ways to restore initiative and had to worry about resource management, it might balance out but at the current state they have just as many ways to restore initiative as they have to use it.

Thanks.

Wintel.4873:

I know right, comparing across classes is so stupid. Can’t we all just agree that warrior is supposed to have the best of everything?

I don’t think you have to worry about whether everyone agrees with this or not. Arenanet obviously share your viewpoint and after all they are the only ones who matter as they are the ones who program the game.

Thanks.

ukuni.8745:

I remember last time there was a tourney on, we waited 9 months before any balance was done, it was a horrifying time.

It does seem weird to me that they would hold off on any balancing simply due to a tournament that only affects a few people. Does that mean they are only concerned about balance with respect to only a very few?