Where is the balance? Why are some classes useless?

Hello,

I'm playing ele since launch and it was always a difficult class to play in structured pvp. Since the POF update is is now useless. The only classes I see are necro's, warriors, thiefs with condition burst skills (how is that possible?). I'm trying to be a bunker healer class with condition cleansing, but I cant even keep up with all the amount of conditions continually applied to me and my teammates. I'm useless. Other build are even worse.

So my question is; where is the balance? When will ALL classes be usefull in pvp? When will the first fix to pvp come?

Technically most classes are still useful, it's just the new specs where this falls off. Mantra bunker, SB, and punishment scourge are the only three new specs that are better than the old ones. Thief for example is still viable, but Daredevil is still better. Engie scrapper is still good. Ele bunker still works. Druid is still super strong.

The only class that doesn't really have something in the good category is Revenant, and only because of boonhate meta making Herald a bitch to play.

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:

The only class that doesn't really have something in the good category is Revenant, and only because of boonhate meta making Herald a kitten to play.

Power Herald is still very viable; Scourges are though but beatable, and vs Spellbreakers the best action is just to ignore them, but against the other new specs is easier to fight as a Herald than against the HoT ones.

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Technically most classes are still useful, it's just the new specs where this falls off. Mantra bunker, SB, and punishment scourge are the only three new specs that are better than the old ones. Thief for example is still viable, but Daredevil is still better. Engie scrapper is still good. Ele bunker still works. Druid is still super strong.

The only class that doesn't really have something in the good category is Revenant, and only because of boonhate meta making Herald a kitten to play.

This whole post is right.

@Buran.3796 said:

Power Herald is still very viable; Scourges are though but beatable.

It's annoying though. To beat a scourge as Power Shiro you basically have to outskill them by a factor of 10,000.

Or I could play deadeye and erase them in two seconds by pressing Rifle 3.

Bad balance is bad. The existence of hard counters is terrible for solo ranked, it basically forces you to duo queue if you want to reach top ranks. The game should be balanced around soft counters and solo ranked platinum or higher. I'm not just saying that because that's where I rank either, if the game isn't balanced away from hard counters then ranked matches become a glorified rock paper scissors. It just isn't fun.

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

Power Herald is still very viable; Scourges are though but beatable.

Yes, the balance is now in a hard counter prone status, but at least seems that at least one build x class in viable. Before PoF the landscape was worse. Mind also that there will be changes, the expansion just arrived.

@Buran.3796 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

Power Herald is still very viable; Scourges are though but beatable.

Pre-PoF was worse? That's arguable. The only profession without a meta build then was Warrior; we won't know if we're better off right now until things stabilize a little more.

if you thinl ele is useless then try memser lol ,i cant play with it now the new specs are juat better and hard to counter with a memser

@fadico.9613 said:if you thinl ele is useless then try memser lol ,i cant play with it now the new specs are juat better and hard to counter with a memser

It is really just spellbreaker that makes mesmer painful to play. You in general don't even want to be in a fight when there is spellbreaker there. They get free full counter proc off your clones. They also ignore your condition damage. If enemy team has 2 spellbreakers, it is pointless to play a mesmer.

Scourges and support firebrand are not problems for mesmer in general.

i am playing power memser not condi

fire brand and scourge are a problem lol for power memser

@Exciton.8942 said:

@fadico.9613 said:if you thinl ele is useless then try memser lol ,i cant play with it now the new specs are juat better and hard to counter with a memser

Scourge is, Firebrand isn't. Scourge AoE murders my illusions, which means no offense and no cleanse.

lol condi firebrand is a beast why no one wants to admit that also support firebrand is op didnt any of you joine against one of them

@fadico.9613 said:lol condi firebrand is a beast why no one wants to admit that also support firebrand is op didnt any of you joine against one of them

I have encountered them. You just need to cleanse burn, not five conditions, and their condi applications have longer cooldown than Scourge's.

If GW2 wanted all classes to be useful, it would have understood its own mechanical shallowness as a game and launched with only 4 professions with no intention to make any more. The evidence of over-lapping "roles" among the classes was evident long before the game even had a total of nine. Back at launch, for instance, the PvP meta was just five d/d Elementalists. GW2 is a game that is too mechanically thin to create enough unique roles for 9 classes; the depth for such a thing simply doesn't exist in the game. This is why we saw things like PvE Engineer use, by far, the longest meme rotation in order to compete in the DPS meta while PvE power Dragonhunter did comparable damage with something like 10 buttons. GW2 has no balance because everything in the game is almost entirely designed on principles of flavor rather than gameplay function. It's why there are loads of un-used skills and weapons as well as gear stats options.

You'll never see a Guild Wars 2 with unique and respectfully useful roles unless you see the game dramatically cull the total number of professions, skills, and gear options. Until then, "your favorite class" being "good" is basically a craps shoot decided by arbitrarily assembled balance patches.

@Swagg.9236 said:If GW2 wanted all classes to be useful, it would have understood its own mechanical shallowness as a game and launched with only 4 professions with no intention to make any more. The evidence of over-lapping "roles" among the classes was evident long before the game even had a total of nine. Back at launch, for instance, the PvP meta was just five d/d Elementalists. GW2 is a game that is too mechanically thin to create enough unique roles for 9 classes; the depth for such a thing simply doesn't exist in the game. This is why we saw things like PvE Engineer use, by far, the longest meme rotation in order to compete in the DPS meta while PvE power Dragonhunter did comparable damage with something like 10 buttons. GW2 has no balance because everything in the game is almost entirely designed on principles of flavor rather than gameplay function. It's why there are loads of un-used skills and weapons as well as gear stats options.

You'll never see a Guild Wars 2 with unique and respectfully useful roles unless you see the game dramatically cull the total number of professions, skills, and gear option. Until then, "your favorite class" being "good" is basically a craps shoot decided by arbitrarily assembled balance patches.

IIRC D/D Elementalist wasn't really meta in PvP until Celestial came out, which was far off from launch. D/D started existing in WvW after Daphoenix released his full bunker Soldier/Cleric which could bunk for days but not kill an average player (game launched in August 2012, build relesed around March 2013).

But you are not too far off. IMHO one of the biggest mistakes of Anet was the pre-nerf Celestial Ele. It was the first "One Build to Rule them All". It had decent damage with might stacks, great survivability and sustain, good mobility, great stun breaks, and great condi clear, all in 1 build, effectively killing build diversity. There was no reason not to go for this build. Other traits, weapons, and utilities were rendered useless as they could not assist in killing these builds.

Anet started a series of buffs to other classes followed by nerf to the prominent classes. Soon enough there were builds for other classes that were able to "do it all". This started a domino effect of nerfs and buffs (aka powercreep) so people could actually kill these god mode builds. What happened next was the nerf to Might stacking. Some builds were rendered useless (DD Ele) due to lack of damage without might stacks, though there were still others that made use of the amulet for the sheer amount of survivability (Tempests). Not to mention that previous buffs and nerfs which were direct results of the might stacking meta were not reverted. Some traits/skills/classes became useless while other classes took the benefits of the unreverted buffs/nerfs to other classes.

It's basically the same story for the bunker/boon stacking meta. Conditions were abundant, Anet created Resistance. Resistance stacking was OP, Anet increased boon strips and boon corruption across the board. There were buffs and nerfs to fight off this meta and when they removed bunker amulets, those buffs and nerfs were not reverted at all thus increasing the powercreep.

Now we're at the same exact point where we started. Spellbreaker is good against both power and condi builds, great utility skills, and great survivability. They're basically celestial D/D Ele 2.0. Should they be nerfed? Yes, but not to the point that they're nerfed to the ground and rendered useless like what happened to Elementalists. Same goes with Scourges, but I honestly believe that they should just add animation to F skills.

TL;DR: Anet should not nerf builds to the ground. We've had a lot of builds in the past but the nerfs didn't "put them in line" with other builds but rather completely destroyed it. They buff other classes to counter these builds then nerf the prominent classes leaving them nothing behind. Another unpopular opinion is that there shouldn't be "do it all" builds. As others have said, it's a game of rock-paper-scissors. And then one build comes out claiming to be Water. They erode rock, wet paper, and rust scissors.

Imagine if old builds were never nerfed to oblivion since the start. We'd have so much builds instead of 1 or 2 meta builds for each class (Renegade doesn't have any at all). Seeing an enemy's classes doesn't automatically give the build away. It'd make you think "what build is this guy?".

Rest in peace:D/D Ele, S/X Ele, P/X Engi, 100 Nades Engi, Condi Grenade Engi, Static Discharge Engi, Shout Bow Warrior, Condi Warrior, Bunker Guardian, Power Shatter Mesmer, Spirit Ranger, D/P SB Thief, Pistol Whip Thief, Condi Rev, etc.

@Kyon.9735 really knocked it out of the park. too much power creep, & heavy handed buffs & nerfs got us here.

RIP shout warrior... i will never support again without you, my long lost son :'(

And good riddance to Chrono bunker and 100nades Engi. One was the most toxic build the game has ever seen and the other abused the hell out of a bug.

The end of this ladder season is literally a three weeks long beta test for the next balance patch.

@Kyon.9735 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:If GW2 wanted all classes to be useful, it would have understood its own mechanical shallowness as a game and launched with only 4 professions with no intention to make any more. The evidence of over-lapping "roles" among the classes was evident long before the game even had a total of nine. Back at launch, for instance, the PvP meta was just five d/d Elementalists. GW2 is a game that is too mechanically thin to create enough unique roles for 9 classes; the depth for such a thing simply doesn't exist in the game. This is why we saw things like PvE Engineer use, by far, the longest meme rotation in order to compete in the DPS meta while PvE power Dragonhunter did comparable damage with something like 10 buttons. GW2 has no balance because everything in the game is almost entirely designed on principles of flavor rather than gameplay function. It's why there are loads of un-used skills and weapons as well as gear stats options.

You'll never see a Guild Wars 2 with unique and respectfully useful roles unless you see the game dramatically cull the total number of professions, skills, and gear option. Until then, "your favorite class" being "good" is basically a craps shoot decided by arbitrarily assembled balance patches.

dp thief is still meta.I think you mean S/D SB power thief

@Kyon.9735 said:IIRC D/D Elementalist wasn't really meta in PvP until Celestial came out, which was far off from launch. D/D started existing in WvW after Daphoenix released his full bunker Soldier/Cleric which could bunk for days but not kill an average player (game launched in August 2012, build relesed around March 2013).

It started at launch. Triple cantrip d/d didn't need celestial because they were the only class that could stack might up and beyond 15 in PvP while simultaneously self-healing passively and spike healing themselves instantly. Even soldiers was mildy effective. They had infinitely more sustain than anything else in the game and therefore could just bot into fights and spam away without dying. It wasn't long before the meta was 4-5 d/d eles running triple cantrips (sometimes with a thief).

You have to understand that damage has been out of whack long before the celestial amulet's debut due to fundamental problems that were released with the game.

• People keep crying because their classes aren't strong enough (a lot during 2012 and early 2013).
• Anet slowly and arbitrarily powercreeps everything.
• People complain that things are too strong.
• Anet makes everyone more passively invulnerable to direct damage instead of just reigning in the powercreep.
• PvP condi meta sets in as a response.
• Condition Stack update completely breaks PvE.
• Anet removes stats from traits (which shouldn't have been a thing in the first place), but in doing so, only powercreeps damage even further since they then just fold all the trait-dependent stats into already available/equipped stat options. Now builds that went with defensive trait set-ups in order to survive get a passive damage boost since they equipped a damage-centric amulet in the first place. Remember, defensive traits typically mean damage negation, and such a thing is above the realm of stats--if you negate enough damage, your defensive stats don't really matter. This is why things like glass DH would hard counter thieves.
• New specs then come into existence with conditions in mind so they can compete in the already broken PvE scene. Ranger pets start doing astronomical damage and are made unkillable in PvE.
• Everything is powercreeped in PvP again to help with survivability.
• Power specs suffer even more as a result; these then receive even more arbitrary buffs in order compete with condition specs (they still don't).

All this resulted in was absurd damage on all fronts for no reason, and the only thing to stop it are a few cooldowns that people now have stapled to everyone's bars. If those cooldowns aren't up, you blow up, and many fights are entirely pre-determined by hard counters (people won't actively fight other players because they know that Class 1 beats Class 2). GW2 combat is more about using movement skills on terrain than it is going toe-to-toe with another player since.

Everything needs to come down drastically. The line between PvP and PvE could be preserved without separating every skill, so long as boss HP is just adjusted accordingly over an experimental period. PvE is just numbers, and because of the spreadsheets and powercreep there, PvP has become a bigger joke than it ever has been.

@Kyon.9735 said:But you are not too far off. IMHO one of the biggest mistakes of Anet was the pre-nerf Celestial Ele.

It says a lot about a game when the statistically most balanced (numerically well-rounded) stat option is also the most overpowered option in a PvP scenario, doesn't it? Again, the celestial amulet really only placed stress on issues that were already present. The GW2 playerbase, however, in their infinite wisdom, just called out the amulet as the source of all problems rather than targeting the real balance issues that existed as fundamental flaws since launch.

Imagine if old builds were never nerfed to oblivion since the start. We'd have so much builds instead of 1 or 2 meta builds for each class (Renegade doesn't have any at all). Seeing an enemy's classes doesn't automatically give the build away. It'd make you think "what build is this guy?".

No matter what, GW2 doesn't have the mechanical diversity to support more than 1--maybe 2--"meta" builds per class. Especially in PvP, there is very little to do except deal damage and be invulnerable when you need it. Support now exists, but in the instances that it does, it is always the "other option" that a given profession might have (if not the only option).

@Swagg.9236 said:

@Kyon.9735 said:IIRC D/D Elementalist wasn't really meta in PvP until Celestial came out, which was far off from launch. D/D started existing in WvW after Daphoenix released his full bunker Soldier/Cleric which could bunk for days but not kill an average player (game launched in August 2012, build relesed around March 2013).

• People keep crying because their classes aren't strong enough (a lot during 2012 and early 2013).
• Anet slowly and arbitrarily powercreeps everything.
• People complain that things are too strong.
• Anet makes everyone more passively invulnerable to direct damage instead of just reigning in the powercreep.
• PvP condi meta sets in as a response.
• Condition Stack update completely breaks PvE.
• Anet removes stats from traits (which shouldn't have been a thing in the first place), but in doing so, only powercreeps damage even further since they then just fold all the trait-dependent stats into already available/equipped stat options. Now builds that went with defensive trait set-ups in order to survive get a passive damage boost since they equipped a damage-centric amulet in the first place. Remember, defensive traits typically mean damage negation, and such a thing is above the realm of stats--if you negate enough damage, your defensive stats don't really matter. This is why things like glass DH would hard counter thieves.
• New specs then come into existence with conditions in mind so they can compete in the already broken PvE scene. Ranger pets start doing astronomical damage and are made unkillable in PvE.
• Everything is powercreeped in PvP again to help with survivability.
• Power specs suffer even more as a result; these then receive even more arbitrary buffs in order compete with condition specs (they still don't).

@Kyon.9735 said:But you are not too far off. IMHO one of the biggest mistakes of Anet was the pre-nerf Celestial Ele.

Imagine if old builds were never nerfed to oblivion since the start. We'd have so much builds instead of 1 or 2 meta builds for each class (Renegade doesn't have any at all). Seeing an enemy's classes doesn't automatically give the build away. It'd make you think "what build is this guy?".

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I think that elite specs, due to the whole 'one at a time' and 'don't fill overlapping roles' bit, might allow for more meta builds to be available to a given profession at a given time. For example, I can see a place for a power Reaper and condi Scourge (at least, once the latter is trimmed back some) in the same meta.

@"Unholy Pillager.3791" said:I agree with most of what you're saying, but I think that elite specs, due to the whole 'one at a time' and 'don't fill overlapping roles' bit, might allow for more meta builds to be available to a given profession at a given time. For example, I can see a place for a power Reaper and condi Scourge (at least, once the latter is trimmed back some) in the same meta.

What's important to consider, however, is that power Reaper and condi Scourge have the same role: they just do damage. Even power Reaper can take corrupt skills. What determines whether or not a build makes it into meta tier is how irresponsible a player can be while still achieving results. Scourge right now can faceroll and spike down targets in a huge area with what is supposed to be "damage over time." The Scourge just doesn't need any passive defense because it can mostly just melt people. Reaper , however, has some passive defense; it just can't deal damage like Scourge so it isn't meta. If Scourge is toned down, Reaper will probably come back because it can at least survive while dealing damage better than the mid-ranged/zero-defense Scourge. It's just a matter of numbers.

This isn't a defense against Scourge nerfs; I'm just stating the reality of things: you will get one or the other. GW2 doesn't feature the mechanical depth to support two DPS specs of the same class. One is just going to top out the other. They are both incredibly shallow in design, so the only thing to go by are the numbers they can reliably put out.

its the same as with the HoT Release just another p2w addon no idee why they do not learn from their faults this game could be the best game out there easily but with this crappy balance for years now only the incredibly good grafic design of the map creators and the nice story are left nothing was fix visual clutter when more as 2 players are casting skills no balance which makes non elite specs obsolete or at least way of behind sigh I am rly clueless what the problem is at anet why they dont get the balancing issues fixed its rly not that hard just a numbers game

Well ele atleast still can Be heal bot in PvP. Pair it with scourge and you have a dream duo :D