State Of Class & Conquest Balance - Quality Of Life Discussion 10/17/2019

It's been awhile since anyone has compiled the current status of things into one spot for good discussion.

Class Balance:

Warriors

• Warrior - The buffs to Tactics has made Core Warrior arguably as good as or better than a Spellbreaker in certain situations. Most people feel however, that this https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warrior%27s_Cunning is too much, for several reasons.
• Berserker - Useless in competitive modes. The specialization completely lacks adequate defensive value and the DPS gained is too clunky to use competitively.
• Spellbreaker - Still one of the best side node duelists and not necessarily OP at all. Warrior/Spellbreaker is in a good place concerning how strong it is, how it feels to play it, and how it feels to play against it. Most people would say that it is the best example of a class that was designed well regarding these 3x things. I often feel like some of the MOST FUN 1v1s that I encounter, are against Spellbreakers.

Guardians

• Guardian - Core Guardian is in a great place balance wise within the meta, and even mechanically.
• Dragonhunter - Garbage in competitive modes. The thing is, it shouldn't be. The problem is that PoF brought way way way too much stability. The Dragonhunter can't reliably run its gimmicks with so much stability in the game.
• Firebrand - Now here is a great case example of a class that is completely balanced when only 1 is present on a team, but becomes exponentially broken when players begin stacking Firebrands on the same team. Aside from recent commentary about Firebrand, the class itself is relatively balanced. The problem with FIrebrand happens when there are 2 or 3 or 4 of them on the same team. When stacked like this, they present a problem that we've rarely seen in GW2 competitive modes, where a single class/build has so much synergy with itself, that all it needs on a team is many copies of itself. The only other time this was as big of a problem as Firebrand is now, was back in core with Celestial DD Elementalist. The problem that enabled Ele to do this, was that Ele was simply a superior spec to anything else in the game at the time. The problem that enables Firebrand to do this, is that the support it offers is just too strong when stacked with copies of itself. There are no downfalls, no weaknesses, and none of the abilities overlap or negate durations. It just all stacks, works, and it doesn't even require any level of communication for it to work, in the same way that a team of DPS would need to coordinate bursting and targeting, or in the same way that a Druid would need to be very cautious & precise with when it was safe to pop CA to heal a Reaper when it went out of shroud instead of saving CA for himself. Another part of the problem with stacked Firebrand is that the animations are so quaint and all look the same, yet confetti like and 2nd in pixel spam only when set next to a Mirage. So the stacked Firebrands can all be running different builds like power or condi or full support, yet everything they are all individually doing looks the same so it's difficult to tell which one is running which build, and they hide each other's animations behind fused pixel explosions. By the time your team can figure out who is running what build, if they can at all, it's probably too late in the game to make use of that recognition, concerning who should be targeted first. And even then, does it really matter? I mean when you're looking at 3x or 4x Firebrands balled up on a node, are any of them really going to die any easier than the other? The last part of this problem, is that the Firebrands actually deal a lot of damage considering the type of support they're pumping out. Again, the design is fine when the Firebrand is the only Firebrand in the team. But this becomes messy and broken when Firebrands ball up and their attack animations all look the same, with little to no tells for when some CC combo is incoming. When I fight a Holosmith as example, I can see when it goes into Holosaiyan Forge, or when it is about to use a Special Beam Cannon on me. I can even see when it stealths, which is a tell into a combo. But Firebrands, due to pixel obstruction on top of animations that are little to no tell at all to begin with, when they all stack up together, they become dangerous and all of those damage combos land much more easily than they should be. - What I am referencing is not a problem with Firebrand being overpowered. It is a problem with class stacking. My personal point of view is that only 2 of the same class or specialization should ever be allowed on the same team in unranked, ranked, or ATs. Even if a person logs out to swap before a match starts, if there are already 2 of some given class/specialization in his team comp that he tries to log in as, it should give him a message that says: "Nope sorry, already too many" and he should be redirected to his character select screen to log in as something else.

Revenants

• Revenant - Condi Rev works. It really does. Well, Shao makes it work. He makes it look to be as viable as Power Shiro anyway.
• Herald - Good old Power Shiro, I think most people would say it's balanced now. It's in a good place.
• Renegade - What's a Renegade? Wait... I remember... I did see one of these once. It got killed by Svanir.

Engineers

• Engineer - Core Engi is in a bad place compared to other core classes. Core Engi needs buffs, Holosaiyan needs nerfs.
• Scrapper - Eeeeeeeh I dunno. Cuilan makes it work, but I don't see any other effective Scrapper play outside of him.
• Holosmith - We've heard plenty of explanations from plenty of players giving their subjective experiences as to "Why Holosmith is OP". Let me simply recap all of this in a nutshell. 1) Too much damage. 2) Too much CC. 3) Too much chase potential. 4) Too much sustain. 5) Too much of everything else. I don't feel the need to elaborate any further on this.

Thieves

• Thief - Most players would say it's in a good place. People who say "Core Condi SD is OP" are generally under the bell curve players who are playing something that happens to get countered easily from the burst, who allow themselves to be positioned in bad places to get countered by that burst. Core Thief is fine. It's in a good place.
• Daredevil - Staff/Staff is annoying but I don't know if it's OP really. There is a lot of debate on this right now so I won't try to narrow that into one defining statement. One thing is certain though, exploiting animations needs to be fixed if at all possible. Condi Daredevil is also up in a lot of debate as to whether it is overpowered or not. I've actually played a lot of Condi DrD within this past season, and I can say that it's very strong in some situations. Strong to the point that I'll often think "Is this OP?" but then as soon as I'm feeling a bit OP, I'll get a match with Firebrands and various Ele builds, things with a ton of condi defense, and then Condi DrD becomes useless. So the whole thing with Condi DrD right now, is that it hard counters certain things so well, that it feels broken and OP while in that situation, but then it is actually useless against certain other things. This is how we get arguments in the forum where some claim how OP it is, whilst others believe it is somewhat weak. Any time we get a situation like this, where a class/build is really good at hard countering some things, but gets hard countered really easily by other things, it seems that Arenanet only hears the side of the players who are saying "How OP it is" and then the class/build gets nerfed into the dirt. A great example of this has been the changes to Deadeye and Soulbeast within the past year or two. Neither of those two classes were ever tournament tier worthy, and if certain classes were present vs. the DE or Soulbeast, it would shut those builds down completely. But regardless of those glaring weaknesses, because the DE & Soulbeast could hard counter certain things, there was much complaint on the forums from those players who were getting hard countered, so these specializations received great nerfing. The same thing is happening to Daredevil right now. Before players complain too much about Daredevil, they should try to look at the balance from an intra-class wide dynamic, rather than just the balance of The Condi DrD vs. the class they main.
• Deadeye - Most players would say that DE is in a good place, as obnoxious as it may be. This specialization is rarely used in high tier play and it certainly isn't OP. However, players in GW2 seem to complain about anything that can hit them from 1500 range, regardless of the damage output. Example 1: Imagine if a Necromancer had bailed and peeled away from a mid fight, and reached the far node to decap it, and he was standing there with 25% health. If a Spellbreaker had chased him to the far node and downed him with a single Greatsword #3, the Necromancer may become frustrated, but we don't see any "Spellbreaker is OP threads" happening. However, Example 2: If a Deadeye had appeared on a ledge to shoot the Necromancer with 25% health, after a patch that nerfed Death's Judgement to literally half the damage that it is now, if the Necromancer went down in one shot from 1500 range, even from being at 25% health, there is a special annoyance if not rage that players feel when they are downed by something at 1500+ range, regardless of if the build that did it is actually OP or not. This is where we get forum threads about "How OP DE is." It is my strong diagnosis & opinion that, the players who write these kinds of threads are not accurately distinguishing the difference between something actually being OP, and something that is just particularly annoying when it happens. I also believe that players in GW2, after playing the low ranged damage bunkery Core & HoT metas for so many years, now expect GW2 to still feel that same way. Players now, expect GW2 competitive modes to NOT have dangerous ranged damage beyond about 600 to 800 range. If anything has any significant ranged damage out past about 800+, they don't like the feel of it, regardless of if it is actually OP or not. Arenanet should be savvy to this idea, with future balancing to ranged attackers and where they want to take their design. Keep ranged attackers balanced? Or nerf them because it's annoying and unfavorable design? It's up to Arenanet.

Rangers

• Ranger - Core Ranger is in a good spot for a core class. It's just as viable as Core Guardian.
• Druid - This specialization needs serious buffing for competitive purposes concerning PvP and WvW. I'll try to keep this to a dull roar: 1) The evade frame needs to be returned to Staff #3 Ancestral Grace. Removing it hurt Druid's competitive play in detrimental ways. 2) Glyphs suck competitively, they're completely useless. Everything else in the game now has MULTIPLE effects on utilities. If there are no plans to revert power creep, Glyphs need upgrading. 3) Although the Celestial Avatar kit is a lot of cool healing in PvE, it is just weak now in competitive play. Firebrand for example, HEAVILY outweighs the Druid's Celestial Avatar kit in terms of support and applicable healing. And then things like Holosmith or Core Tactic Warrior as just two examples, have comparable self sustain vs. the CA Kit, but they can run DPS amulets while having that sustain, whereas the Druid has to run dedicated heal amulets for CA Kit to be viable at all. So many other classes/builds now regularly have the self sustain of a Druid, but output about 4x as much damage or more. Arenanet, you've got to do something here. There are ways to buff Druid's competitive role & playstyle, without enhancing it's already prominent PvE role & playstyle. Without going too deep into class overhaul suggestions, which should be saved for a different thread, I'll only toss a handful of quick buff suggestions for the CA Kit: 1) Cosmic Ray should apply Regeneration. 2) Seed Of Life should clear 3 condis and apply Resistance. 3) Lunar Impact should steal 2 boons from each opponent that is hit. 4) Rejuvenating Tides needs to be a 1/2 second cast time so the Druid can do other things while the effect is happening. Lunar Impact should pulse Protection to 5 allies. The Water Field should occur after the 1/2 second cast time is complete so this way the Druid can actually utilize it. 5) Natural Convergence should be brought to a 1s cast time and apply the 2 stacks of Stability to 5 targets instead of just the Druid. In addition to the final pulse Immobilization, it should also deal a 5 target AoE Stun. <- Change like this would make Druid CA Kit comparable to FB kits competitively, and wouldn't increase it's job role of burst heal factor very much in PvE. It wouldn't increase it's damage buffing for allies in PvE at all.
• Soulbeast - Soulbeast is in a good place competitively concerning overall balance. The one thing that I would like to point out with Soulbeast though, is that I believe it is the MOST flexible specialization right now. There are many many ways to run many many viable builds on Soulbeast. This is actually great and a lot of fun. I'd like to see more classes end up in this position. That's exactly the kind of dynamic that we need to see spread to other classes. DPS Soulbeast is still complained about from time to time, but it's for all of those reasons that I already mentioned in the asterisk about Deadeye. Most people would agree with that statement, though I'm sure there are some who would like to debate that.

Necromancers

• Necromancer - Core Necro is actually in a good spot. Pretty fun to play, does pretty well actually.
• Reaper - Reaper has fallen away a bit during this past season, but it was mostly due to the reappearance of Condi Thieves and the sheer amount of Weakness spam they have. When Reapers went into Shroud, they couldn't self clear Weakness or any condis at all for that matter. This Condi Thief play showing up alongside of Scourges & Condi Mirages & Sage Firebrand & Condi Weaver play, was just too much condi for Reaper shroud. The buffs to Death Magic and all the condi defense therein may allow Reaper to hold its position. But regardless, Reaper is in a debatably bad place right now.
• Scourge - Just not feeling their presence much after the recent nerfs. I'm not seeing them in final rounds of ATs lately either. Seems to be falling away.

Elementalists

• Elementalist - Eh annoying at best. It's in a DECENT place for a core, but nothing as viable as Core Guard or Core Warrior as example.
• Tempest - Eeeehh…. I don't notice Tempest players. There are some annoying DPS Fresh Air builds but it only ever works once, then you know they're there, and then they're dead the rest of the match. Sometimes they feel sustainy if running some kind of Auramancer, until they get pressured 2v1 and they doesn't hold up well against 2x good DPSers. It doesn't have enough direct disengage to survive this meta's DPS values in the way that a Thief or something like a Ranger with Rune of Speed can. Not so viable in my opinion.
• Weaver - I don't really see much forum complaint about Weaver, but sometimes I feel like it's a bit OP lately. I don't know, am I wrong? What do other people think about this? I just don't seem to be seeing much discussion about this at all. So I can't really define a majority opinion that others seem to talk about.

Mesmers

• Mesmer - Core Mesmer is surprisingly viable when the right players are playing it. Though I wouldn't say it is as viable in the world of core as say a Guardian or Warrior or Ranger.
• Chronomancer - Mesmer players that I know tell me that "Chrono is dead" and that there is no reason to not play Mirage.
• Mirage - It's actually good and balanced for once, It really is. At least it is in CONQUEST, where you can make it leave a node if it wants to survive. However in 1v1 or 2v2 tourneys that I've been running lately, where it's about killing and not holding a node, Condi Mirage wins because it is the one class that doesn't have to die if it doesn't want to. <- That effect is even greater in WvW with the types of gear/food/utility options present in PvE/WvW. The only exception that has real kill opportunity on a good Condi Mirage who isn't lagging or who hasn't made a great fumble, is an SD Condi Thief. They can actually counter a Condi Mirage if played correctly. I've seen Condi Mirage banned in 1v1 recently due to this effect.

Map & Objective Balance:

1. Legacy is fine.
2. Forest is fine.
3. Temple is fine.
4. Khylo treb objective needs some kind of damage buff. People avoided treb play for years now, but at this point during the power creep, that treb deals no damage compared to normal character attacks. There is absolutely no advantageous reason under any circumstance, to ever go to that treb anymore. I'd say it needs a +50% or maybe +100% buff to the damage output. Then we'd see treb play again and serious contestation over the objective. As of now, it's a GOOD thing if an enemy wants to sit on a treb. People just let them do it. The objective here in Khylo is broken.
5. Spirit Watch orb objective needs attention. The mobility and DPS of everything in the game now is just too great for it to be realistic to run that orb. It's like a suicidal death sentence to pick up that orb and attempt to run it, unless your team is already farming the other team. In other words, this objective only exists to help an already winning team snowball the other team. This objective provides no comeback mechanic whatsoever. If a losing team tries to run this orb, they lose even harder. Remove the speed penalty for running that orb or give it a 66% buff like Rune of Speed or something. Enhance the mobility skills on it while wielded. Something needs to be fixed here so that the mechanic can be used by losing teams.
6. Skyhammer is in my opinion fine, though I know there are some diehard Skyhammer haters out there who would debate that opinion.
7. Eternal Coliseum is great. The objectives here ended up being great comeback mechanics, but risky for already winning teams to send players off node to cap.
8. Revenge Of The Capricorn is fine.
9. Djinn's Dominion, most of us have grown used to the map at this point. But the objective here is broken and always has been. The skills granted from the objective are just too weak. Good players ignore the objective completely and hope that the other team has players who waste time to cap it. That's how useless these objectives are. Turn the damage of these things way up. Turn the defensive value way up. Do something. Make this objective worth contesting and it would actually be an interesting map.

Other things to note:

1. 2v2 Arenas? Where are they? Can we get some mini offseason 2v2 beta or something? Can we get a weekend out of the month where ATs run 2v2s? Anything? Mike is the only one hosting this stuff and he's getting a lot of activity while doing it, for an elongated amount of time nonetheless. If that's not proof that people want this stuff, I don't know what is.
2. Swiss? Yay or Nay?
3. ATs are still bugging from time to time.
4. Solo/Duo only Ranked Mode has become a complete cesspool of final form evolution cheating. If Arenanet was planning on trying to clean any of this up, they're too late! The only way to solve this problem now, is to return Ranked Mode to 5 man team queues so that competitors can block themselves from match manipulations effecting their matches.
5. Maybe consider doing something completely different with ranked seasons entirely, like 2v2 or something. Anything to get rid of this win trade scene. Give us a competitive game mode again that works.
6. When I am waiting in a queue, I want to be able to swap maps and do things while I am waiting in the queue. I think most people would agree on this.
7. There should only be allowed 2 of the same class/specialization on any given team in unranked, ranked, and ATs. Class swapping is fine, but if a person goes to swap to a class/specialization that there is already 2 of in his team, it should give him a message that says: "Sorry there are already 2 of these in your team. Select something else" and then he can log in as something else. This really needs to happen for several reasons.

Generally agree with the opinions presented here.

• I don't feel Weaver is OP personally, but I usually play prot holo in PvP, so maybe they're not well-suited to fight me.
• Scrapper, chrono, dragonhunter, reaper, druid, and renegade need buffs. Berserker needs to be modified.
• I really want to see 2v2 and other alternative game modes included. Conquest is stale af. Faster game modes would also be great, dedicating 15 minutes to one match can be pretty tedious. And some people may want longer game modes.
• The duo queue shenanigans render the leaderboards basically meaningless. It should be all or none IMO -- 5 mans or solo queue.
• The problem with core engineer is that it's just super janky to use. The core spec needs a major rework to fix that, numbers adjustments won't be enough IMO. For example, grenade kit was a mainstay of meta engineer builds during vanilla. It's stupidly annoying to use and its value is questionable even in the best of circumstances. A lot of the kits need improvements, because they still play like vanilla GW2 balance.

Daredevil staff damage is op. When not specced for damage at all u can still hit for 3k. Just imagine a Da staff- without even taking zerkers it has 10k weakening charge and 10k spammable vault. This is op. But I don’t think 2 staffs bunker will ever be op just annoying lol

This is a really good post, very accurate insight all around to be honest. If the devs read this I can say there is some very very valuable information to be gleamed from here, in terms of future balance. Some of the points of contention are applicable to other games modes too for many of the specialisations.

4x FB is over-powered team composition.

I..... I can't even...... wat?

In what little organized play there still is, double staff daredevil makes every side node duelist irrelevant as the thief can easily sustain against or kill all of them on node while taking way too long to decap let alone kill when outnumbered. Obviously it can be stalemated but other builds that stalemate it die or have to leave node from plus 1's where as double staff just doesn't. It is way tougher to force decap/kill then post rework scrapper bunker which so many people were complaining about. Hell if it could also res bot it would be on the level of season 1 bunker chrono but fortunately it is a mostly selfish bunker. Also fortunately it isn't popular even in at's as I don't know anyone who enjoys playing it for more than the lol factor.

@Ragnar.4257 said:4x FB is over-powered team composition.

I..... I can't even...... wat?

Easy. One specs for burning, one specs for power damage and CC, one specs support. Throw in a fourth for extra giggles. It becomes a cluster fuck of animations and CC, nearly impossible to do anything against.

tldrbuff droods

First off I want to say, thank you for the honorable mentions. Means a lot, even for Cuilan I have high respect for him and the way he just surprises with quirks and about dozens of combo fields he performs at once at every of his moves.

I don't want to speak on too many things since I know little of in the "playing of classes" aside Revenant which I've been extremely invested into, I play anything but Mesmer, Ranger and Necromancer but as of lately.

Those who gets the spot often lately;

• Holosmiths being overtuned and needs severe nerfs on either the sustain or damage.
• Spellbreakers are about balanced as it just needs few mere tweaks to be purely on player skill, things like FC and Bullscharge which I've talked about take absolutely no timing and are extremely detrimental to builds that stowing is not always an option, reward Spellbreakers for timing their stuff right, not using it because they can. Although I agree, it's one of the most fun to fight, especially as what I am playing as of late.
• Scourges were in a decent spot before those changes, now I think they might be overnerfed given their popularity, there's clearly something that made them fall out of the top tier which makes them harder to play and people don't like that clearly.
• Mirages would hard to speak from an unbiased standpoint as what I play, I do believe that there is some combo's out there that are way over the top and could be nerfed due to the high avoidance they have. Personally speaking, the stronger Mirage is, the stronger Condi Rev gets, therefor a nerf to their damage is just as beneficial for all as it is detrimental to me, but I'd be much happier seeing healthy changes that benefits all.
• Thief overall with all the elite specs have so very very cheesy setups, but they all have some form of weakness given that the right cards are also played by the opposite player. Afaik, a lot of people panic cleanse in the game which is what makes Condi DD strong while DE gets their greater strength for lack awareness or again panic skill use, Core Thief is for most okay, I'd say it's extremely comparable to what Holosmith should be in terms of balance. It has most of everything while not over doing it. I would say that their ability to stack so much damage quickly can be OP but regardless, this is mostly just a weakness for those playing very telegraphed builds. Finally, there was an influx of that DD Staff Skill 3 Jump Spam which is really deteriorating to a lot of telegraphed builds, with the high avoidance and sustain DD gets already. This should be addressed so that the skill works as intended, I wouldn't care for people saying it takes "skill" to do this unintended feature, you can easily script it anyway so out with the spam and make Staff engaging as it should be.

1) The evade frame needs to be returned to Staff #3 Ancestral Grace.

This, a hundred times. And why are Glyphs in the game when they're obviously so underwhelming no one's been touching them with a stick for years.

If build templates come, I want to be able to swap my build if I am standing in the spawn.

So if I get a bad game comp, I can do something to fix it.

Those Druid changes would be so refreshing, I miss the entire Druid theme/capability, be it the time when it was side-noder or support its gameplay and overall profession theme just felt nice.

The other day I completely forgot they removed the evade from Staff #3 and was raging all over the place about how can I be taking dmg even though I read it when they changed it, that's how deep my brain buried that incomprehensible information.

@Alatar.7364 said:Those Druid changes would be so refreshing, I miss the entire Druid theme/capability, be it the time when it was side-noder or support its gameplay and overall profession theme just felt nice.

The other day I completely forgot they removed the evade from Staff #3 and was raging all over the place about how can I be taking dmg even though I read it when they changed it, that's how deep my brain buried that incomprehensible information.I'm still trying to get used to the GS 4 change. Gosh, how muscle memory can be a pain.

stoped reading after you said that theifs and dd are ok, probably a thief player

Have not been playing much. But core guardian viability is currently non-existent. Kinda like DH. Core warrior is okayish. Not as great as OP make it seem. Core Mesmer? Come on man. Same with condi rev.

FB, I have never seen it in a game, but as OP mentioned stacking Sage FB should potentially annihilate enemy team. It is not only defensive synergy of boon stacking. The axe Pull + symbol + mantra of truth is absolute shutdown on an enemy, if it lands. It is not easy to avoid, but surely doable. But if there is three FBs, there is no way. And it is AOE. Again, it looks cool theoretically I have never seen 2 sage FBs in one team (I rarely see sage FB anyway).

I am not a big fan of the current condi mirage build. It is a troll build.

I am also not sold much on ranger viability nowadays. It still kinda works, but for me it lost steam and there are better options most of the time.

Holo as OP noted, it has way too much of everything. It is the most broken build in the meta.

Overall we have like a dozen meta builds, if we are pushing it. And much of them have been the same as... 6 seasons ago.

@SeikeNz.3526 said:stoped reading after you said that theifs and dd are ok, probably a thief player

He isn't, as far as I know he was druid main.

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:

@SeikeNz.3526 said:stoped reading after you said that theifs and dd are ok, probably a thief player

He's a longtime ranger main.

@"otto.5684" said:FB, I have never seen it in a game, but as OP mentioned stacking Sage FB should potentially annihilate enemy team. It is not only defensive synergy of boon stacking. The axe Pull + symbol + mantra of truth is absolute shutdown on an enemy, if it lands. It is not easy to avoid, but surely doable. But if there is three FBs, there is no way. And it is AOE. Again, it looks cool theoretically I have never seen 2 sage FBs in one team (I rarely see sage FB anyway).

The FB stacking stuff is something mediocre teams have been figuring out in organized AT play lately. I've not seen 5x FBs before, but I recently seen two teams running 3x FBs and one team running 4x FBs. They always run a mixture of a Power, a Condi, a Full Support, and they are always paired with a couple alpha team fight presence builds such as Holo and Herald. It's just a way to create a "lazy2play" situation where they clearly out sustain you in team fights on 2 nodes, while they wait for YOU to make mistakes and die, but they can make several mistakes and never wipe because they have 3x FBs rolling around on 2 nodes. Then of course a decent duo like Holo & Herald is all you need to secure kills against a team who was only running 1 support or maybe no supports. And this isn't even bringing the DPS from the FBs into the picture yet.

It's pretty lame to have to go against that team comp if you don't have similar support. It feels like in WvW when you have 10 guys who aren't supports, try to crash into 10 other guys who are actually organized with 5 FBs and 5 Scourges or something. <- There is a bit of that starts to become true in conquest when a team is running 3x+ FBs.

Way better balance change than the previous one. The games feel more fair

@otto.5684 said:Have not been playing much. But core guardian viability is currently non-existent. Kinda like DH. Core warrior is okayish. Not as great as OP make it seem. Core Mesmer? Come on man. Same with condi rev.

Core Guardian is on a level where all specs and classes should be. If you stripped away all the expansion powercreep, Core Guardian would be very viable.

Core Power Shatter Mesmer is actually IMO superior to Power Mirage(and Chrono obviously) as a +1 spec.It certainly has more burst damage and can realistically build for more stealth access. The GS Ambush on Mirage has its own gameplay niche but it doesn't help you burst down a single target, and Mirage itself doesn't give any damage modifiers.

@Trevor Boyer.6524Good list. Pretty accurate for the current levels of powercreep.

but what about PVE? alot of us players care alot for PVE. open world/fractals raids / metas and such.. i feel like Scourge is completely removed from the game after last patch.. its basically just a WvW mule for when you have a big Group to protect you.. if there are not many people its still trash and free meat walking..
i think Scourge is in a awful sport righjt now.. no mater what you try build of it and where you wanna use it.. its completely trash and clunky.i seem to fail find another class i enjoy as i enjoyed my Scourge.. and i fail to see the buffs to Scourge coming.. so honestly at the moment im considering to say good bye to this game and move to Archeage Unchained untill Scourge is fixed.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@otto.5684 said:Have not been playing much. But core guardian viability is currently non-existent. Kinda like DH. Core warrior is okayish. Not as great as OP make it seem. Core Mesmer? Come on man. Same with condi rev.

The idea of core guardian being balanced while all meta builds are not, is a no go for balance. It is very unlikely that the stronger elites will be nerfed that much. And guardian has nothing that is viable beside FB support and slight variations from it.

And I would settle for a competitive DH build power build . But this seems that it will never come.

@noiwk.2760 said:but what about PVE? alot of us players care alot for PVE. open world/fractals raids / metas and such.. i feel like Scourge is completely removed from the game after last patch.. its basically just a WvW mule for when you have a big Group to protect you.. if there are not many people its still trash and free meat walking..

i think Scourge is in a awful sport righjt now.. no mater what you try build of it and where you wanna use it.. its completely trash and clunky.i seem to fail find another class i enjoy as i enjoyed my Scourge.. and i fail to see the buffs to Scourge coming.. so honestly at the moment im considering to say good bye to this game and move to Archeage Unchained untill Scourge is fixed.

Nothing. It's the PvP forum and the list tend to PvP concern and is pretty accurate for PvP.

Scourge was nerfed for the sake of WvW. The point is just that what they did impacted more areas where the scourge had found a state of balance. Which is why the scourge lost it's edge in PvP and PvE while it's still more than viable in WvW.

Just a badly thought nerf on which ANet won't go back because that's not their style.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@noiwk.2760 said:but what about PVE? alot of us players care alot for PVE. open world/fractals raids / metas and such.. i feel like Scourge is completely removed from the game after last patch.. its basically just a WvW mule for when you have a big Group to protect you.. if there are not many people its still trash and free meat walking..

i think Scourge is in a awful sport righjt now.. no mater what you try build of it and where you wanna use it.. its completely trash and clunky.i seem to fail find another class i enjoy as i enjoyed my Scourge.. and i fail to see the buffs to Scourge coming.. so honestly at the moment im considering to say good bye to this game and move to Archeage Unchained untill Scourge is fixed.

i see :( did not notice its just pvp forum sorry . but yes.. im honestly so sad about this really bad change.. i feel unmotivated to keep playing this game right now.. i tried ele both weaver and tempest. and i die instantly when i go to open world on HoT. Scourge was the only class i truly enjoyed. and its no longer about if its good meta or not meta.. its just not playable class anymore.. meh i have regret buying the epensions now and for sure regrets for all the gems i got i think the company doesnt deserve it thank for the answer tho

@SeikeNz.3526 said:stoped reading after you said that theifs and dd are ok, probably a thief player

And ur probobly not so....What ur seeing is a attempt at a non bias view of balance between the classes which I'm guessing isn't close to ur views lol.