This is the worst balance has ever been.

As someone who's been playing on and off competitively since 2013, this is probably the worst state that balance has ever been in by a wide margin. Damage is too high. The game doesn't reward skilled dodging anymore, there are so many high impact skills that you can't possible dodge them all. Certain specializations are very overpowered and some are awful. There are classes that don't have a single viable build.

Mirage:Mirage right now pretty much has a monopoly in duels. Every game in ranked you see 2 mirages per team. It's incredibly frustrating trying to kill a mirage even if you're playing soulbeast or prot holo which are the only specs that can actually 1v1 it. If mirage is allowed to have such massive condi burst there needs to be more clear situations when you can actually hit them. It doesn't matter how much setup you have, they can stunbreak, stealth, distort, port all your high impact skills.

Deadeye:There are a bunch of players now that are running a deadeye build that kills pretty much everything in less than a second. I was running demo scrapper and I was taken to 20% health with 1 hit from stealth. The damage just needs to be gutted. Take away some of deadeye's burst and give it some more utility. This build is broken and needs to be removed.

Holosmith:Protection holo takes 10 years to kill but if you fight them on point they do tons of damage. The normal holosmith build is well balanced but protection holo is overpowered. The protection duration on shield skills needs to be nerfed.

Spellbreaker/Warrior:Warrior right now has no viable builds in high tiers. It loses 1v1s to protection holo and mirage, it doesn't do enough damage in teamfights, and it dies much faster than other specs that fulfill the same role. Anet should revert some of the strength nerfs, and look into buffing spellbreaker in a way that doesn't involve full counter.

Weaver/Ele:It's completely unacceptable that ele hasn't had a top tier build since PoF released MORE THAN A YEAR AGO. Absolutely disgraceful balancing of the elementalist. Fresh air as well as meta weaver both need massive buffs to be viable in PvP. Fresh air especially needs it because it's been a very, very long time since ele mains actually had a build that does damage.

Those are the main outliers at the moment, in my opinion. Herald, Firebrand, and Scourge are more or less fine. Reaper is a bit too strong but it's not as bad to deal with as the aforementioned classes.

Before anyone calls me a scrub, I've been legendary in multiple seasons and was one of the top players until season 9, when I stopped playing for several months.

I don't really agree with warrior needing buffs, it's more that because Soulbeast, holo and mirages are so strong in this meta that warrior seems left aside, but if these 3 classes get adjusted warriors would be in a fine state

I agree that mirage, soulbeast and holo are extremely overtuned overperforming atm, but I would argue spellbreaker is still very strong even after the F2 nerfs, thanks to Rampage, boon removal and high mobility tied with both evade and damage. Sure they are weak in teamfights, but other than the meta picks which are skill matches duels, they easily win most other duels, and can teamfight every time rampage is up.

Yes, elementalists might as well be given 2 buttons; one that heals them once they get to 10% hp, and another that casts a /macro: "I cant kill you but neither can you. If I was a soulbeast/mirage/holo/spellbreaker though I would not only survive but be able to kill you. Lets continue this point stall dance.

Revenant is another victim of the powercreep, like ele, they have little access to sustain, condi removal and stunbreakers, however, with a support that covers for that part, they can still dish quite a bit of damage.

Simply it put, these is too much to dodge, too little time to react (or some instances like holo/mirage/DE you actually cant react to what is instant/coming from stealth) and those without insane access to instant damage with high access to iframe usually find themselves in the bottom of the barrel.

Revenant is simply not viable:

1- You are weak against multiple targets, thats x v x fights, mesmer, hunters, necromancers.2- You have little to no sustain.3- No reliable condition clear makes the class a non starter.

Sounds like I'm not missing much.....

And people keep thinking Rev isn t viable ?.

@Apolo.5942 said:Revenant is simply not viable:

1- You are weak against multiple targets, thats x v x fights, mesmer, hunters, necromancers.

I play Rev and I can tell you with a (really) little luck, like the right legend at the right time, that class can win (some) 2v1. Or at least escape. The burst potential on this class is so high that it s really (really) almost close to a DE burst.

@Apolo.5942 said:Revenant is simply not viable:2- You have little to no sustain.Ofc you do. That class hit and run class. So sure you won't have the same sustain as a soulbeast, but I can suare to that you do have enough sustain to enjoy the game.@Apolo.5942 said:Revenant is simply not viable:3- No reliable condition clear makes the class a non starter.

The problem is that people heard that Rev is a glass canon class. So they will take everything that make them hit harder. Doing that, they are sacrificing some precious Condi removal. And guess what? They QQ when get easily killed by a Condi build.I personally have, like for real, 0 problem when dealing with Condi builds, except mirage...From my POV, as a Rev main, this class might be (at least the shiro/herald) the best balanced class right now.

@Apolo.5942 said:Revenant is simply not viable:

1- You are weak against multiple targets, thats x v x fights, mesmer, hunters, necromancers.2- You have little to no sustain.3- No reliable condition clear makes the class a non starter.

Revenant is just fine- his role isn't to facetank groups but bursting enemies to death. If revenant had more sustain and with his godlike burst he would be the new topic title in this forums. :)

@Dreddo.9865 said:

@Apolo.5942 said:Revenant is simply not viable:

1- You are weak against multiple targets, thats x v x fights, mesmer, hunters, necromancers.2- You have little to no sustain.3- No reliable condition clear makes the class a non starter.

Hence why I said, a rev paired with a support is a valid strategy, but that requires teamwork/coordination, or at the very least luck in that you get a support in your team and he isn't going solo far decapping rush all game.

@Dreddo.9865 said:

@Apolo.5942 said:Revenant is simply not viable:

1- You are weak against multiple targets, thats x v x fights, mesmer, hunters, necromancers.2- You have little to no sustain.3- No reliable condition clear makes the class a non starter.

While I agree with you, I do think a lot of Revenant's relevance has to do with offhand sword. Giving it other options for sustain or utility would help promote build diversity for the class as long as those options don't bolster the meta build and its slight variants. Some ways of inserting this are:

-Revamp the Salvation line to make it about more than just healing modifiers. Most of the other traits are duds. Give better self-sustain and soft-control options.-Add utility/sustain options that compete with important DPS traits, such as altering Song of the Mists.-Make the Corruption line more versatile in its adept/master lines. Pulsating Pestilence is an incredible trait and a really strong GM for any build, but the rest of the traitline doesn't really allow for too great of build diversity. While it goes beyond just condi damage, it requires using Mallyx to take advantage of the Resistance traits.-Give the shield some more love. Rev could really profit from a better defensive offhand weapon.

Personally I think the recent Retribution changes they made were step in the right direction. I'd like to see they give more attention to the rest of the class.

Haven't started this season yet. Should be interesting

@Jagdtiger.2517 said:As someone who's been playing on and off competitively since 2013, this is probably the worst state that balance has ever been in by a wide margin. Damage is too high. The game doesn't reward skilled dodging anymore, there are so many high impact skills that you can't possible dodge them all. Certain specializations are very overpowered and some are awful. There are classes that don't have a single viable build.

Mirage:Mirage right now pretty much has a monopoly in duels. Every game in ranked you see 2 mirages per team. It's incredibly frustrating trying to kill a mirage even if you're playing soulbeast or prot holo which are the only specs that can actually 1v1 it. If mirage is allowed to have such massive condi burst there needs to be more clear situations when you can actually hit them. It doesn't matter how much setup you have, they can stunbreak, stealth, distort, port all your high impact skills.

Deadeye:There are a bunch of players now that are running a deadeye build that kills pretty much everything in less than a second. I was running demo scrapper and I was taken to 20% health with 1 hit from stealth. The damage just needs to be gutted. Take away some of deadeye's burst and give it some more utility. This build is broken and needs to be removed.

Holosmith:Protection holo takes 10 years to kill but if you fight them on point they do tons of damage. The normal holosmith build is well balanced but protection holo is overpowered. The protection duration on shield skills needs to be nerfed.

Spellbreaker/Warrior:Warrior right now has no viable builds in high tiers. It loses 1v1s to protection holo and mirage, it doesn't do enough damage in teamfights, and it dies much faster than other specs that fulfill the same role. Anet should revert some of the strength nerfs, and look into buffing spellbreaker in a way that doesn't involve full counter.

Weaver/Ele:It's completely unacceptable that ele hasn't had a top tier build since PoF released MORE THAN A YEAR AGO. Absolutely disgraceful balancing of the elementalist. Fresh air as well as meta weaver both need massive buffs to be viable in PvP. Fresh air especially needs it because it's been a very, very long time since ele mains actually had a build that does damage.

Those are the main outliers at the moment, in my opinion. Herald, Firebrand, and Scourge are more or less fine. Reaper is a bit too strong but it's not as bad to deal with as the aforementioned classes.

Before anyone calls me a scrub, I've been legendary in multiple seasons and was one of the top players until season 9, when I stopped playing for several months.

You don't even complain about Soulbeasts. Biased as kitten.

Honestly I think the balancing was much worse prior to the latest balance patch. Soulbeast and Holo both got some serious nerfs and deadeye got moved to the trash bin which actually makes fighting them as warrior doable. I'm a warrior main too, and I understand that feeling of being useless, but prior to the last balance patch that feeling was much worse.

Nothing to say about Mirage though. They got off pretty much completely scot-free on the same patch. Get ready for the wave of them on their way here to derail you by explaining how ridiculously OP Soulbeast is. And yeah, buff Ele. Have to say that in every post to keep #relatable

@SteepledHat.1345 said:

@Jagdtiger.2517 said:As someone who's been playing on and off competitively since 2013, this is probably the worst state that balance has ever been in by a wide margin. Damage is too high. The game doesn't reward skilled dodging anymore, there are so many high impact skills that you can't possible dodge them all. Certain specializations are very overpowered and some are awful. There are classes that don't have a single viable build.

Mirage:Mirage right now pretty much has a monopoly in duels. Every game in ranked you see 2 mirages per team. It's incredibly frustrating trying to kill a mirage even if you're playing soulbeast or prot holo which are the only specs that can actually 1v1 it. If mirage is allowed to have such massive condi burst there needs to be more clear situations when you can actually hit them. It doesn't matter how much setup you have, they can stunbreak, stealth, distort, port all your high impact skills.

Deadeye:There are a bunch of players now that are running a deadeye build that kills pretty much everything in less than a second. I was running demo scrapper and I was taken to 20% health with 1 hit from stealth. The damage just needs to be gutted. Take away some of deadeye's burst and give it some more utility. This build is broken and needs to be removed.

Holosmith:Protection holo takes 10 years to kill but if you fight them on point they do tons of damage. The normal holosmith build is well balanced but protection holo is overpowered. The protection duration on shield skills needs to be nerfed.

Spellbreaker/Warrior:Warrior right now has no viable builds in high tiers. It loses 1v1s to protection holo and mirage, it doesn't do enough damage in teamfights, and it dies much faster than other specs that fulfill the same role. Anet should revert some of the strength nerfs, and look into buffing spellbreaker in a way that doesn't involve full counter.

Weaver/Ele:It's completely unacceptable that ele hasn't had a top tier build since PoF released MORE THAN A YEAR AGO. Absolutely disgraceful balancing of the elementalist. Fresh air as well as meta weaver both need massive buffs to be viable in PvP. Fresh air especially needs it because it's been a very, very long time since ele mains actually had a build that does damage.

Those are the main outliers at the moment, in my opinion. Herald, Firebrand, and Scourge are more or less fine. Reaper is a bit too strong but it's not as bad to deal with as the aforementioned classes.

Before anyone calls me a scrub, I've been legendary in multiple seasons and was one of the top players until season 9, when I stopped playing for several months.

I don't play soulbeast so it's not about bias. You're right though, soulbeast is too strong and I forgot to put it on the list. It could use some toning down in terms of the soulbeast sic'em combo. Also the ultimate could use a 1 second cooldown.

I was already chuclking at the mirage part, but I definitely stopped reading at the Spellbreaker part lmao

If you think this is the worst balance has ever been you must play for so little time.Seriously, the last balance patches are hitting the right spots, please be grateful sometimes.

I like how the OP doesn't even mention about DE and it's invisibility plus spike combo, or Warrior's Resistance. Yea yea, condi wars has gotten out of control, but a full on immunity to ALL condis and ALL condi secondary effects? Now that's out of balance.

Try playing a Reaper who uses chill against a Spellbreaker who spams Full Counter and resistance. Sure Warriors have always countered Necro since Vanilla (excluding HoT), but that shouldnt mean they should be immune.

Mostly the game is just suffering from power-creep. Nothing new here; Anet is obviously not focused on PvP. They have not been since vanilla. It's time to move on.

I see people saying last balance patch worked a lot; even though Anet specifically said that we would have at least one balance per league season, and we have not had one since last. There is still work to be done here. Not that they will get to it.

@rank eleven monk.9502 said:I was already chuclking at the mirage part, but I definitely stopped reading at the Spellbreaker part lmao

I play in platinum, the first part of mirage was funny as hell. Half the mirage are new people trying to learn because I've seen some bad Mesmers from both enemies and allies alike. I see most teams that have more than 1 mirage fail and burn.

Not to say mirage are not OP, but they definitely are not immune to damage. The mirage probably are top tier for 1v1 builds sure, but in team battles it's tough for a mirage with a bad team even if you do bring team support skills in. Again, this is not new to the game.

I've come to realize that there's no point of complaining about balance because the game is dead in NA. Goodbye everyone.

@"Tormod the Fox.2368" said:I like how the OP doesn't even mention about DE and it's invisibility plus spike combo, or Warrior's Resistance. Yea yea, condi wars has gotten out of control, but a full on immunity to ALL condis and ALL condi secondary effects? Now that's out of balance.

Try playing a Reaper who uses chill against a Spellbreaker who spams Full Counter and resistance. Sure Warriors have always countered Necro since Vanilla (excluding HoT), but that shouldnt mean they should be immune.

Again spellbreaker spam counter.. yeah there is no CD for it and its free to use without adrenaline. resistance is up 24/7...

Do you realize resistance is attached to counter through trait. Trait which is crap after counter 75%dmg nerf and it's in same tier with magebane tether so 99% warriors do not using it. So if you want resistance you have to sacrifice utility slot for few seconds.. Mostly used Berserker Stance is for 4 seconds with 30 sec CD. And that's all. I believe you want warrior completely defenceless. When you apply condition to warrior they should just die. And people like you never stop complain about warrior until anet actually do that.

And you said: "Sure Warriors have always countered Necro since Vanilla" -> Even if it is completely false because few months ago scourge war perfect counter to warrior class until anet nerfed them. Scourge was something like mirage right now.

This is exactly what i'm talking about in other topics mostly in warrior subforum and why warrior getting nerfed more and more..! You apparently have absolutely no clue about how warrior works and whats are warrior's cooldowns and limits. And this is why you lose agains them.

@Apolo.5942 said:Revenant is simply not viable:

1- You are weak against multiple targets, thats x v x fights, mesmer, hunters, necromancers.2- You have little to no sustain.3- No reliable condition clear makes the class a non starter.

Revenant is good, it's a perfect example of a class sacrificing sustain for damage, as it should. Not like these other classes like Condi mirage that have both damage and sustain yuk!

Worst balance has ever been? Objectively no.. there's been several worse ones.

• Half a dozen of way more oppressive/dominant builds have existed than currently exist
• Many patches had far less diversity of specs in it

Based on any reasonable metrics of how 'good' a balance patch is, it's ok.

Please don't nerf mirage, it's my best bot :(

@Snellibee.2761 said:I don't really agree with warrior needing buffs, it's more that because Soulbeast, holo and mirages are so strong in this meta that warrior seems left aside, but if these 3 classes get adjusted warriors would be in a fine state

+

Balance is a moving target.

We need sustain nerfs for certain professions and damage nerfs for others. It depends on whether there is a trade off between sustain and damage or not.

Boonbeast is an example where the damage and sustain are too synergetic so they can have both.

Mirage actually doesn’t worry me as much as boonbeast because in an XvX the healing sustain isn’t that much and the damage (on condi) can be mitigated with cleanse.

Holo has certain builds that approach a sustain which is unreasonable for the damage. Hopefully more changes are coming to cut down slightly on the sustain, slightly because it isn’t so bad in XvX.

Weaver has annoying levels of sustain but little damage. The fresh air DPS ele is about as solid as a paper screen. Good trade off but I do think the bunker sustain on weaver is a little too strong, I’d suggest a little more damage and less sustain would be heathy for certain ele builds.

Thief is not in a bad place but it isn’t in a great place. The perma stealth DE gank builds only mask the issue that most thief builds can’t stick around in many fights. There is a disparity between DE and the core damage to an extent that isn’t healthy imo. I’d move some of the damage into baseline of the skills and reduce the damage gain per malice. I’d also reduce the duration of stealth on dodge to make it less easy for a DE to perma stealth on rifle alone. Those two changes would help buff core thief where it needs it and make DE less oppressive.

Not exhaustive, but those are some thoughts I had. I still think balance is relatively fine. Just some tweaks needed on a couple of professions.

You are correct about "This is the worst balance has ever been.", but instead of buffing classes, I would nerf pretty much everything(damage, conditions, boons, sustain etc.) and rework specializations(like sword weaver, it's not fun to evade for days, same with mirage) or skills(hammer rev need animation rework, fixing Full Counter animation, etc.). We don't need more powercreep so I'm against any kind of "buffs" and certainly warrior doesn't need them(nerf every other class and warrior will become broken once again).