Is GW2 efficiency reliable in regards to players statistics?

[Al Masone.1274]

I wanted to know how popular in general all professions are, and a quick search led me to the site mentioned in the title. I'm asking because the picture I find there is rather different from what I imagined. I'm not surprised that guardian and necromancer are very popular, while mesmer, thief and ele are a bit more niche. What surprises me is that revenant and engineer seem to be the least popular classes, and by a fair margin. Revenant's lack of popularity might be due to having been released later, but engi not only was here from the start, it has 2 specs that I thought were quite sought after because they both perform pretty well, especially scrapper. 

I'm levelling an engi right now and fair enough, the core professions isn't that fun to play, despite all the toys at its disposal. I'm yet to reach level 80 and unlock the specs, so I can't say anything about them.

So I guess I'd like to know if in general, engineer and revenant aren't considered among the most fun professions to play.

 

[DeanBB.4268]

If you are talking "fun" then it is subjective. I've enjoyed both core engineer and scrapper, holo less so. Core revenant and herald did nothing for me, but I enjoyed renegade.

For some people, what drives them is the meta. Or preferences like "ranged only" which steers them clear of certain classes, elites or builds.

There are a lot of factors here, some of which you'll discover if you peruse the profession forums. Mesmers and thief - lovers may feel they have been overly nerfed, so looked elsewhere, for example.

[Panda.1967]

5 hours ago, Al Masone.1274 said:

What surprises me is that revenant and engineer seem to be the least popular classes, and by a fair margin.

Those two professions being the least popular is not even in the least bit surprising... they are after all the two professions with the most problems and the least developer attention.

When it comes to Revenants, the fact that you can't truly customize your build as a Revenant has a bigger part to do with its lack of popularity than its late addition to the game. As a Revenant, you have the fewest choices to make in your build out of every profession in the game. You pick your weapon and you pick your 2 Legends.... all of your utility skills are tied to your legends, so you have no actual choices in them... your choice of traits is the most involved part of a build on a Revenant, and even that is largely predetermined. They designed each trait line on Revenant with a very heavy connection to one Legend each with the Invocation line being the "general Revenant traits" trait line. As a result nearly every Revenant build out there has Invocation + the 2 trait lines that coincide with their 2 chosen Legends, this even holds true with Elite specs. Afterall, the Revenant was designed alongside Elite Specs and was basically built as if every spec was a separate elite spec.

Engineers... They had potential to be one of the most popular professions in the game, but they had a lot of major failing points on day 1. The vast majority of which still exist today, over 9 years later... Turret skills have been repeatedly nerfed despite the fact that they were one of the most underperforming skill types in the game at launch. Gadgets at launch were absolutely terrible, the effects tied to some of them were so bad that they may as well have done nothing at all, luckily this is one thing that has actually been fixed over the years. Engineer Elixirs have too many similar effects split across multiple skills. Several of them could easily be merged together without being over powered. For example, Elixir S & Elixir R both fill the same general function and would be better served as one combined skill... though without the skill lockout that Elixir S currently has tied to it (that effectively renders the functionality of Elixir S pointless). Engineers choice of Weapons is the most restrictive of all professions, having only 1 mainhand, 2 offhands, and 1 two-handed at core. And then there are Kits... The only part of the Engineer that has been "Good" since day 1... I say "good" in quotations here because it's really a matter of perspective on this one... from the view point of how the skills perform and function, they are great... but from the perspective of how they have affected the profession, they are the worst. Every single poor design decision for the Engineer is because of Kits. The lack of developer attention on issues that have plagued the Engineer since day 1, is because of Kits. The lack of weapon choices? Kits. No in-combat weapon swap? Kits. Turrets low damage? Kits. The odd skill selection on Rifle? Kits. In all honesty, it feels as if Kits were originally meant to be the Class Mechanic for Engineer and then the Toolbelt skills were tacked on in their place after a last minute decision to make Kits be actual utility skills. Had Kits been a class mechanic instead, then it is quite possible that the bulk of Engineers problems wouldn't be problems today. I think ANet had issues coming up with 2 more skill types for Engineer, so they made Kits into a skill type, added a 5th utility to all of them, and then created the idea of toolbelt skills that offered alternative ways to use the selected utility skills. All while neglecting the fact that without Kits as a class mechanic many of the design decisions for the profession just cause problems.

 

To put in perspective how bad Kits are as a Utility vs a Class Mechanic....

As a Class Mechanic, you trade out in-combat weapon swap and gain a limited weapon selection for a powerful class exclusive weapon kit. We likely would have had just a single F1 skill that was a slot-able kit.

As a Utility skill, you trade out In-combat weapon swap, gain a limited weapon selection, and sacrifice a utility skill slot for a class exclusive weapon kit... and if you opt NOT to slot a kit as a utility, you trade out the in-combat weapon swap and gain a limited weapon selection for NOTHING. Without a kit, an engineer has absolutely no reason to have those limitations imposed on them, it literally makes no sense.

[Obtena.7952]

No one can say why any class is played to some amount by players of the game. I can tell you that because there is more than one class, SOMEONE is always last ... and second last if there is three or more classes. Right now, that's Rev and Engi. I doubt GW efficiency data is all that accurate anyways because it's questionable how much of the population it represents. What is fun is based on what YOU think is fun, not anyone else. 

Edited September 27, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The rev came late, and is gated behind an expansion.  A lot of people already have their crop of toons and their habits set, and they didn't want to expand into the new profession.

 

The engineer is too complicated.  The idea of an engineer profession didn't mesh well with most RPers and thematic players.  Engineer was also pretty hard to figure out at launch time, leading to most people never figuring out how to play one.  This led to a negative stigma surrounding Engineer as a bad class.  Then, once everyone gets set in their ways, the engineer remains left behind in the player numbers.  

[Emberheart.8426]

7 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Those two professions being the least popular is not even in the least bit surprising... they are after all the two professions with the most problems and the least developer attention.

When it comes to Revenants, the fact that you can't truly customize your build as a Revenant has a bigger part to do with its lack of popularity than its late addition to the game. As a Revenant, you have the fewest choices to make in your build out of every profession in the game. You pick your weapon and you pick your 2 Legends.... all of your utility skills are tied to your legends, so you have no actual choices in them... your choice of traits is the most involved part of a build on a Revenant, and even that is largely predetermined. They designed each trait line on Revenant with a very heavy connection to one Legend each with the Invocation line being the "general Revenant traits" trait line. As a result nearly every Revenant build out there has Invocation + the 2 trait lines that coincide with their 2 chosen Legends, this even holds true with Elite specs. Afterall, the Revenant was designed alongside Elite Specs and was basically built as if every spec was a separate elite spec.

Engineers... They had potential to be one of the most popular professions in the game, but they had a lot of major failing points on day 1. The vast majority of which still exist today, over 9 years later... Turret skills have been repeatedly nerfed despite the fact that they were one of the most underperforming skill types in the game at launch. Gadgets at launch were absolutely terrible, the effects tied to some of them were so bad that they may as well have done nothing at all, luckily this is one thing that has actually been fixed over the years. Engineer Elixirs have too many similar effects split across multiple skills. Several of them could easily be merged together without being over powered. For example, Elixir S & Elixir R both fill the same general function and would be better served as one combined skill... though without the skill lockout that Elixir S currently has tied to it (that effectively renders the functionality of Elixir S pointless). Engineers choice of Weapons is the most restrictive of all professions, having only 1 mainhand, 2 offhands, and 1 two-handed at core. And then there are Kits... The only part of the Engineer that has been "Good" since day 1... I say "good" in quotations here because it's really a matter of perspective on this one... from the view point of how the skills perform and function, they are great... but from the perspective of how they have affected the profession, they are the worst. Every single poor design decision for the Engineer is because of Kits. The lack of developer attention on issues that have plagued the Engineer since day 1, is because of Kits. The lack of weapon choices? Kits. No in-combat weapon swap? Kits. Turrets low damage? Kits. The odd skill selection on Rifle? Kits. In all honesty, it feels as if Kits were originally meant to be the Class Mechanic for Engineer and then the Toolbelt skills were tacked on in their place after a last minute decision to make Kits be actual utility skills. Had Kits been a class mechanic instead, then it is quite possible that the bulk of Engineers problems wouldn't be problems today. I think ANet had issues coming up with 2 more skill types for Engineer, so they made Kits into a skill type, added a 5th utility to all of them, and then created the idea of toolbelt skills that offered alternative ways to use the selected utility skills. All while neglecting the fact that without Kits as a class mechanic many of the design decisions for the profession just cause problems.

 

To put in perspective how bad Kits are as a Utility vs a Class Mechanic....

As a Class Mechanic, you trade out in-combat weapon swap and gain a limited weapon selection for a powerful class exclusive weapon kit. We likely would have had just a single F1 skill that was a slot-able kit.

As a Utility skill, you trade out In-combat weapon swap, gain a limited weapon selection, and sacrifice a utility skill slot for a class exclusive weapon kit... and if you opt NOT to slot a kit as a utility, you trade out the in-combat weapon swap and gain a limited weapon selection for NOTHING. Without a kit, an engineer has absolutely no reason to have those limitations imposed on them, it literally makes no sense.

Anet literally have the solution for engineer in one of the EoD elite specs, the bladesworn. Kits should function just like the gunblade, but you can instead choose which one you want out of combat like revenant legends. Would be way easier to balance the class like this. They really need to apply reworks to several aspects of some core classes after EoD launch. There are so many neglected things that are outdated at this point.

[Bakeneko.5826]

13 hours ago, Al Masone.1274 said:

Is GW2 efficiency reliable in regards to players statistics?

 

No. It represents more invested player base, that bothered to get API key, find GW2Efficiency, make an account there. It represents part of community, but not whole community

[Asum.4960]

While likely more biased toward more invested players, it's probably fairly representative. 

 

As for the popularity (or lack thereof) of Revenant and Engineer, as other's have said, Revenant came years later - and considering that popularity is listed by total playtime since launch that's a lot to catch up on. 

 

As for Engineer, and to a lesser degree Thief, while most probably don't remember these days, these specs had a lot of backlash early on from the GW community for not fitting into the franchise with firearms and such, with GW1 having a more traditional high fantasy setting for the most part, many GW1 players were very critical of the tech focused Engineer in particular and it took quite a few years (and players cycling in and out) for Engineer to assimilate thematically into the franchise. 

 

The more traditional DnD-like fantasy tropes being more popular (Paladin, Ranger, Warlock, Fighter, Wizard etc.) isn't surprising. 

That doesn't necessarily reflect on what or how the professions are mechanically, etc., in GW2.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Panda.1967]

2 hours ago, Ganathar.4956 said:

Anet literally have the solution for engineer in one of the EoD elite specs, the bladesworn. Kits should function just like the gunblade, but you can instead choose which one you want out of combat like revenant legends. Would be way easier to balance the class like this. They really need to apply reworks to several aspects of some core classes after EoD launch. There are so many neglected things that are outdated at this point.

If you read my post, that is exactly how I think that Kits were originally intended to function... and how I believe they SHOULD function...

[Fueki.4753]

GW2efficiency couldn't be much more inaccurate.

At best it represents the "upper" parts of the player base that's more invested in the game.

But the vast majority of people, who mainly play Open World and easy instanced content, are unlikely to be registered there.

The name itself should be an indicator for its inaccuracy, as most players don't care about being efficient at the game.

[otto.5684]

Popular does not always mean best or most fun. Fun is subjective. Engi is not popular cuz it is not fun/appealing for many players. Rev came later in the game cycle, so less people switched to it. As for what to play, if you are playing pve (open world or group) all classes are fully viable. Stick to what you like.

[Vidit.7108]

GW2 Efficiency isn't gospel but it's one of the few places that has any of this information. It represents active and more invested players for the most part but it doesn't really give you a clear idea of what is *currently* going on. It's probably not far off in terms of characters created, playtime though is not reliable.

That said Engineer being on the bottom isn't surprising, the only game mode it's really excelling at in right now is WvW. It's plagued with problems other people here have touched on. Back when there were 3.5 million accounts anet made an infographic and engy was second least created class at 10%, pre-PoF I can tell you running into an engineer was pretty rare. I don't think even back in the height of this game's popularity I knew anyone who mained engineer.

[Xenesis.6389]

Gw2 has had 16 million accounts made.

Gw2 efficiency has like 341k registered accounts?

Drop in a bucket.

 

Engineers weren't popular back in the day. Scrappers however have made them borderland op in any given role, especially in wvw due to buffs in the last three or so years. Guards and necros have all been popular/needed in wvw for all nine years, all three are highly needed/popular in wvw today.

 

But end of the day, play what's fun for you.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

GW2 efficiency is great for lots of things, player statistics overall it a not one of them.