Which is currently the most balanced class in the game?

Taking into consideration all forms of specs and builds, which class is by and large the most balanced, relative to the other over-performing or under-performing classes?Note: this is not a weakest class poll, but the most balanced class poll.

I put ele because while some might think they are the weakest, i think the class is a good baseline for where other specs/builds should be.

1. Mender sword weaver can be a very good bunker/1v1 spec, but it doesnt make you some invincible kiting class or 1v1 build like boonbeast or condi sage mirage. If you mess up once in a 2v1 you will probably die.
2. Fresh air weaver/core ele has very good burst, and can be a very good rotating +1 build. However the build is very squishy aside from some good projectile defense. If you dont play very carefully you will get killed right away. Much higher risk than other 1 shot burst builds.
3. Tempest support/bunker has some powerful group healing/cleansing, and can give allies some important boons like protection/vigor (more so with the next patch), however they definitely arent over powered with boon spam like firebrand. Played right they can support teammates when needed, mist form rez/stomp, and are difficult to kill.

I went Elementalists for the same reasons as @Bort.8647Other specs should be nerfed down a bit

Elementalist is borderline UP, but very close to being at an okay state which is how it should be. Thief is the same. But out of all of them, warrior on the other hand would be a prime example of classes that are "as fair as it gets," no z-axis teleport, no high invuln uptime and it's more specifically on power or condi, no attacking while evading after whirlwind attack and full counter is down (and even then these aren't that bad).

All time, with the exclusion of the hambow meta (which was the only time Warrior was legit op) most balance class is Warrior. Shoutbow was balanced because you can burst shoutbow with chain CC and power damage, easy to play easy to counter. A lot of that easy to understand, easy to counter, yet can still be challenging to land high casting times vs. evade spammers with half a brain concept applies to Warrior today hence why it's the most balanced class. Legit you can tell who is bad when they imply that high casting times have no counter and don't know how to burst healing signet when there is so much damage going on nowadays because some people actually think it's so hard to time something vs. a class with limited dodges or can't spam evades while attacking.

Though if Warrior does happen to broken next patch, then a small damage decrease across the board should be fine on PvP only. Don't need to do stupid garbage like back in 2013. But I highly doubt that will even be necessary when other crap is just flat out cheesier and evil.

Taking into account every game mode (PvE, PvP and WvW) I think Guardian (and relative ESpecs) is the most balanced class since it's used equally (nor week nor OP) in every game mode, maybe a bit OP for WvW but balanced overall.

Post-nerfs?

Probably guardian and warrior. Difficult to be certain about DE, since Payback may substitute Silent Scope. The damage's still there, and being +1'd by DE will remain obnoxious in solo. Core thief's (safe for maybe Daggerstorm) a top contender on this for me.

Necro because besides the issue with early scourge. You have a class that has successful builds that don't have access to 1,000 ways to dodge damage while dealing damage or ways to evade with mobility constantly.. I'd say necro and ele are the most because both needs to sacrifice something for damage or something to tank and take damage.

Late note is ele does have alot of dodge with evades on specs but all of them requires massive healing pts.

I voted for Mesmer so it didn't feel left out. But...

...from a design perspective it's certainly Necromancer. It has the clearest strengths and weaknesses of all the classes and they've not really been diluted by subsequent elite specs.

In my opinion mesmer is the most balanced class in game, change my mind

I hate this game because when people die outnumbered after a thief shows up, they blame the thief as OP

I voted ranger because I haven't played any other classes enough to have a valid opinion. Also, I die equally to all classes.

I voted where I think things stand in sPvP, since this is where we are. If it is across the game as a whole, Mesmer has the best viability in all game modes, and currently is the only class with viability for all weapons.

Necro actually is okay right now as well, it's an "attack to survive" "land your stuff or die" class like Warrior but can be bursted much more frequent. The only thing making them really okay is that they contribute to the damage pool of the game and can really punish stability depending on the rotation in sPvP. They're actually okay right now even with z-axis teleports but again these teleports were never healthy for the game.

The only classes that have potential to break the game nowadays is probably between Ranger and Mesmer. Both are obnoxious and has the highest anti-fun potential.

@"Kaburro.4712" said:In my opinion mesmer is the most balanced class in game, change my mind

I think you mean "over balanced"?

From the Distort abuse on signets to countless reflects to solid disengage and kiting tools, stealth, condition spam et cetera et cetera. Or all the blocks and Alacrity spam on Chrono.

Chronobunker is broken. CHECKCondi is broken (may be changed tomorrow) CHECK

@"BlackTruth.6813" said:Necro actually is okay right now as well, it's an "attack to survive" "land your stuff or die" class like Warrior but can be bursted much more frequent. The only thing making them really okay is that they contribute to the damage pool of the game and can really punish stability depending on the rotation in sPvP. They're actually okay right now even with z-axis teleports but again these teleports were never healthy for the game.

Ok, so you've told us why you think necromancer is balanced now tell us why you chose warrior?

I personally think balance in this game for this game mode is a fool's errand but anyway, I can entertain this.

For me necromancer is the most balanced because it has several builds that can be played effectively - I see effective and frequent use of core, reaper and scourge these days, although scourge is clearly ahead of the other two. Each have counters and counterplay, they are also not too underpowered or over powered. Not everything can be brought to the same level though as some professions excel at rolls necromancer never plays and necromancer excels at rolls some professions never play.

War is close but could easily become overpowered again, I think fc is too weak as it is and isn't doing what it was advertised as effectively but on the other hand defense war is on the borderline of broken and berserker isn't in a good place at all.

While I would love to pick necromancer, as the specs are pretty well balanced among each other, it lacks a tad bit of damage for high end PvE. Revenant though has meta builds on all 3 game modes (that are not the same). Doesn't get better than that.

No none option?

I went elementalist as they're the closest to being balanced. You want healing/sustain? You need healing power and water trait line. You want damage? You need to pick up fire or air trait line. Defences aren't over the top either with the exception of easy prot uptime via elemental attunement but prot isn't the strong boon it was after power creep, 33% less damage from too much is still too much damage and evade uptime on sword weaver.

voted warrior as well, although im not playing warrior myselfim glad other side noders will get some nerfs at least so the current meta warrior build can compete

i find necro quite balanced as well although too squishy - it's a real pain if the enemy comp has high dmg and you lack support...unlike early pof instant condi bombs a player now requires awareness of enemy boons and proper chaining of skills for high dmg.

not balanced:soulbeast - high mobility, high sustain, high passive dmg, evasivemirage - high mobility, high sustain, high dmg in general, evasive, reset potential is s tier as wellchrono - insane sustain with high cc and high burst dmgherald - low cooldown on almost all skills combined with high burst dmg, too low sustain but too many evades at the same time, this one of the most unbalanced in many way to meweaver - lack of burst damage, high sustain, evasive, skills are very weak in generalguardian - it's getting really weak right now

I chose Revenant because it's one of the few classes with a high skill ceiling, meaning the class is wonderful if you're great at playing it but if you haven't mastered the class you'll get butchered in every fight. I think more classes need their skill ceiling increased and get rid of all their noob friendly skills saving their asses over and over again after a mistake.

warrior in pvp seems balance, necro and engi too

If we talk about class in an utopy where you cannot stack class, I'd say necromancer. The necromancer is designed in such a way that it will always have all it's tools at hand and thus ANet keep it in an "average" state which can't lean toward any extrem. This give the profession clear weaknesses and obvious strengths making it "easy" to predict. Plus this "average" design promote teamplay more than solo play making it "healthier" for sPvP. (The thread being a sPvP one, I vote with sPvP in mind)

However, since class stacking is a thing (heavily in WvW and PvE), I guess I'd lean more toward the elementalist which is the opposite of the necromancer. The elementalist tend to build heavily toward a role to have a real impact in the game and in doing so he open huge holes in the aspect where he doesn't invest. This make the class more balanced than the others that can afford to build with minute cost, growing easily into heavily effective duellists.

warrior and ele

Voting for Thief although I am pretty sure most classes are relatively close to balance with the exception of Mirage, Soulbeast and to a lesser extent Holo mancer smith.Each of the classes not in that little triad of OP, with the exception of Ele which is struggling atm, has a designated role that they excel at and drawbacks that can be exploited, and additional abilities granted to them by elite specifications don't patch those holes, at least not without opening new ones.

Thief is nicely balanced for his role, with excellent mobility, interrupts, damage and disengage abilities. You can almost always tell a good thief from a bad one into a game.

Ele is another one, but hear me out.

Warrior is very straightforward. Warrior has been THE reliable class since the history of GW2. They are simple, on the table, blunt class. You want damage? Here you go. You want support through stat gain? Here ya go.

They don't really hide anything and it makes them enjoyable. Now warrior skills have the POTENTIAL to become overtuned and they are the number one abusers when it comes to passive traits. Still, the only time warrior was blalantly stupid was waaay back in vanilla gw2 where Warrior simply succeeded at any role because of the lack of tools other vanilla classes had and the environments they were placed in.