The professions the devs favor is hilarious

[captrowdy.9561]

Been playing for a year and I’ve been slowly trying all the classes. I’ve pretty much settled on warrior as my main and play rev and ranger. Well the last two I had left to try where guardian and necro. Dear god it’s like a different game. All the trait lines go together so well I’m having a great time coming up with different builds. They have so much variety with all the elite specs. Range/melee/utilities something for everything. 
 

They don’t need a nerf(harbringer does) but hopefully with the new patch the trait lines are reworked to bring the rest up to the same level. 

[Atomnium.1532]

So yes, necro and guardian are such comfort picks that it feels like an entirely different game. It is noteworthy that for the guardian it has been like that since the release of the game, necro has had some tough moments before the release of the scourge.

However I wouldnt get my hopes up too much about the upcoming balance changes and reworks, Anet has a habit of becoming the fun police and destroy the flavor of the month rather than get the less desirable tiers up to par.

 

Moreover, some classes have such profound problems in design that they would require insane amount of work that I don't believe is reasonable to expect outside of an expansion. Thief, warriors and elementalist, spellbreakers and herald come to mind but a lot of obsolete original designs are preventing some choices to be fun or viable.

Guardian is always the class I would recommend to anyone who wants to play the game and I would not bet that is going to change anytime soon.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Atomnium.1532

[draxynnic.3719]

I think (hope, maybe?) that it's less a case of favouritism and more a case of those two (particularly guardian) are cases of getting it right early on. Core guardian has barely been touched since HoT...because it hasn't needed it. Some other professions have needed substantial reworks to their core kit, which tends to result in a period of balance instability until it gets to where they want it (or they get distracted when it's in an underpowered state and, because UP builds don't get the attention OP stuff does, forget about it). Necromancer took a bit longer, but seems to be about there now. That's really what they should be aiming for with other professions. Get to the point where you only take elite specialisations if you specifically want to use something from that elite, and not simply 'there's no good third core traitline, might as well'.

Another consideration from the last few years is that guardian and necromancer never relied on high-damage CC skills or passive triggering traits, so they weren't hit when those were boonsmited. They were supposed to replace those traits and generally review whether some professions and weapons needed more damage elsewhere to compensate, but that never happened.

[Dadnir.5038]

28 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Another consideration from the last few years is that guardian and necromancer never relied on high-damage CC skills or passive triggering traits, so they weren't hit when those were boonsmited.

That isn't totally true.

In case of the guardian, Hammer viability in competitive modes often relied on damage procs from traits. The current lack of popularity of the hammer is due to the fact that those proc no longer crit (also I'm pretty sure there is still this guy that talk count the time since shattered aegis was nerfed to no longer crit).

For the necromancer it's a bit different as the profession had a lot buff needed to catch up with other professions when it come to damage potential and sustain. However, the profession took a bad hit as well when procs from traits became unable to critically hit as it used to be there only way to burst a foe in a meta where burst was everything.

However, it's true that the traits that guardian and necromancer weren't hit badly by the nerfs to the traits that proc invuln frame, effects when disabled or breakstuns/stability. This allowed them to truly shine as the overall damage output was nerfed in the infamous feb2020 patch.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Ya over the years GWEN slowly became...GN

[Dadnir.5038]

28 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Ya over the years GWEN slowly became...GN

You seem to forget the "E" which stood for Elementalist and now stand for Engineer. And as far as I know Engineer is still a cornerstone of WvW meta.

[Hotride.2187]

I'm in my daily fractal run, with 2 scourges, 1 harb,  me on fb and a spectre (don't get excited, its in the group for alac). 2+ necros is pretty common and obviously I'm always on guard (why would I play anything else for 5 man pve). 3+ guards is also common.

When I started spvp ranked conquest (give or take an year ago) 2 necros and 1 guard was meta. I read now its maybe 2 necros or 2 guards, but still 3 of total in the team. 6 out of 10 players, great balance. To make no mention of looking at the start of the match and seeing we have no guard support and going "ugh...". Or seeing the opponent team without a guard support and going "oh well...".

When I started wvw zerg fights (give or take 3  years ago), party composition was 1 fb, 3 scourges, 1 herald. Then some engi wvw main dev decided this needed to change, so now an engi support (of all things) replaces 1 of the scourges. And apparently someone is hurt about the rev ranged spike so that is being nerfed.

And wvw roaming? Guess what, necro and guard weren't mobile so they weren't good picks for solo. But NOW... they are mobile.

You are seeing things though. No such thing as favoritism.

To be fair when half your playerbase is actively playing guard and necro... its too late to fix anything (even if you wanted to).

Edited June 5, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

That isn't totally true.

In case of the guardian, Hammer viability in competitive modes often relied on damage procs from traits. The current lack of popularity of the hammer is due to the fact that those proc no longer crit (also I'm pretty sure there is still this guy that talk count the time since shattered aegis was nerfed to no longer crit).

For the necromancer it's a bit different as the profession had a lot buff needed to catch up with other professions when it come to damage potential and sustain. However, the profession took a bad hit as well when procs from traits became unable to critically hit as it used to be there only way to burst a foe in a meta where burst was everything.

However, it's true that the traits that guardian and necromancer weren't hit badly by the nerfs to the traits that proc invuln frame, effects when disabled or breakstuns/stability. This allowed them to truly shine as the overall damage output was nerfed in the infamous feb2020 patch.

Yeah, I was thinking primarily of those 300s ICD traits that are not only still there, they added one in EoD. Making Glacial Heart unable to crit and then sharply reducing the base damage on top reduces the potential of that build, to be sure, but it's not comparable to increasing the cooldown on a trait from a minute or so to 'it might save you once and then play no part in the rest of the match', or professions that were designed around damaging skills with a CC attached.

When push comes to shove, guardian CC skills (those that were used, anyway) generally didn't do a lot of damage unless you took Glacial Heart, so most guardian CCs weren't really affected. Warrior, by contrast, was brutalised, and to add insult to injury, it also now has two of those 300s traits.

Edited June 5, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Zenith.7301]

Nerfing guardian stability and reflect access will do much to curb their stifling dominance in WvW. Probably should nerf soulbeast LB autos as well.

By far the worst WvW class is mesmer. Clones are rendered useless, and virtuoso cannot exist in an environment where reflect walls are pretty much permanent.

Fix stealth. Missing/blocking attacks from stealth should reveal. Steal daze needs to be removed, or the trait needs to incur a cast time when it acquires damage/CC components.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Zenith.7301

[Puck.3697]

Tbh I think moving to any class from warrior or ele sparks this really. 

Elementalist warrior and to a extent revenant all need in some shapes a rework. They're incredibly limited to what they can do. With being g extremely pushed into pure melee builds. 

Even with lesser common proffessions such as mesmer and thief, mesmer can run a staff mirage build and absolute annihilate solo content, while being the highest dps in the game with virtuoso. And thief can kill anything with a condi spectre build. While both utilising primarily ranged builds. While being a very strong condi dps with a alacrity build to hand also. 

I think overall warriors and eles need quite abit of help and  revenant needs some core ranged options hopefully the 28th June patch does this for the proffessions 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Zenith.7301 said:

Nerfing guardian stability and reflect access will do much to curb their stifling dominance in WvW. Probably should nerf soulbeast LB autos as well.

By far the worst WvW class is mesmer. Clones are rendered useless, and virtuoso cannot exist in an environment where reflect walls are pretty much permanent.

Fix stealth. Missing/blocking attacks from stealth should reveal. Steal daze needs to be removed, or the trait needs to incur a cast time when it acquires damage/CC components.

Be careful what you wish for. Stability is important enough in WvW that if you nerf stability application, commanders will just respond by asking for a higher ratio of stability suppliers in the squad.

We saw this back in the chrono monopoly days when nerfing the quickness and alacrity application just led to teamcomps bringing MORE chronos to make up the difference.

What they should actually do is provide more viable alternatives. I was quite disappointed that while the EoD specs bring more quickness and alacrity options, they haven't done much for stability.

[Dadnir.5038]

35 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

What they should actually do is provide more viable alternatives. I was quite disappointed that while the EoD specs bring more quickness and alacrity options, they haven't done much for stability.

Mesmer's mantra of concentration could help with that but as it stand it just can't compete with guardian's "stand your ground!".

Also, the spirit/banner rework might offer some new sources of shared stability (It wouldn't surprise me to find such a thing on warrior's banners).

Druid's natural convergence could also share it's stability (which would be a soft move to a much needed improvement of the druid's popularity).

Making elementalist's rock solid trait proc when you apply an aura instead of when attuning to earth would also be a simple change to improve the standing of a not-so-popular profession.

They could create a "racial" mastery (either WvW specific, PvE or both) that would make using a "racial" utility skill (neither heal nor elite skill) grant stability around the character. (it would still be a huge sacrifice to take such utility but that would expand the option available)

... etc.

[godfat.2604]

On 6/5/2022 at 4:00 PM, Dadnir.5038 said:

You seem to forget the "E" which stood for Elementalist and now stand for Engineer. And as far as I know Engineer is still a cornerstone of WvW meta.

Let me guess, GWEN means Guardian, WvW, Engineer, Necromancer, right?

To be fair, I was happy that Engineer became a good support, even though I might not want to give them too much credit since they also killed more than they brought.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, godfat.2604 said:

Let me guess, GWEN means Guardian, WvW, Engineer, Necromancer, right?

To be fair, I was happy that Engineer became a good support, even though I might not want to give them too much credit since they also killed more than they brought.

GWEN was the vanilla meta in WvW. Guardian and warrior in the hammer train, elementalist to nuke from range and give most support (outside stability) and necromancer to corrupt boon. When the devs changed stability fonctionality, the meta became the "pirateship meta" (a reference to another game that was popular at this moment) and warrior and guardian fell out of favor at this moment. Then came HoT with revenant and it's hammer quickly becoming the main damage dealer and kicking out elementalist. PoF brought Scourge/FB and ultimately led to the current meta.

[Zenith.7301]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Be careful what you wish for. Stability is important enough in WvW that if you nerf stability application, commanders will just respond by asking for a higher ratio of stability suppliers in the squad.

We saw this back in the chrono monopoly days when nerfing the quickness and alacrity application just led to teamcomps bringing MORE chronos to make up the difference.

What they should actually do is provide more viable alternatives. I was quite disappointed that while the EoD specs bring more quickness and alacrity options, they haven't done much for stability.

 

 

Fair enough. Guardian is just way too domineering in all game modes. Way too much utility for being able to dish damage and be tanky on top. Obviously you can't nerf the DPS because then DPS builds become unviable in PvE, and that's a problem.

 

But what you can do is cut out many boons away from Guardians.

 

Even with the mechanist heal alternative to FB, FB still dominates because not just of the stability, but the reflects and other myriad boons FB brings compared to mechanist on top of the ability to bring much better CC as well.

 

Guardian needs a cut in utility, or all the classes need a massive increase to guardian levels. And cutting guardian utility seems the far simpler fix considering Anet's historical negligence with their anemic 6 month apart patches that barely change anything.

[draxynnic.3719]

22 minutes ago, Zenith.7301 said:

 

 

Fair enough. Guardian is just way too domineering in all game modes. Way too much utility for being able to dish damage and be tanky on top. Obviously you can't nerf the DPS because then DPS builds become unviable in PvE, and that's a problem.

 

But what you can do is cut out many boons away from Guardians.

 

Even with the mechanist heal alternative to FB, FB still dominates because not just of the stability, but the reflects and other myriad boons FB brings compared to mechanist on top of the ability to bring much better CC as well.

 

Guardian needs a cut in utility, or all the classes need a massive increase to guardian levels. And cutting guardian utility seems the far simpler fix considering Anet's historical negligence with their anemic 6 month apart patches that barely change anything.

Mechanists have plenty of CC, probably more than firebrand outside of Shelter's ability to destroy a breakbar every 50 seconds, party stability, the option for projectile blocking, barrier, and all the utility available to engineer (although it is handicapped by engineer core traits not being as good).

Most professions DO need a massive increase to guardian levels, because part of what makes guardian so strong is that pretty much everything on guardian is viable. That's where everything should be being aimed at being. 

And part of that should be, like I said, increased stability access.

Keep in mind before demanding big nerfs that firebrand is dead in sPvP. Most skills are also split the same way, so the factors that make it vulnerable in sPvP also apply to WvW, except that in WvW you still have access to tanky stats. Remove the stability near-monopoly, and that in itself would probably substantially reduce the number of firebrands. Once, that is, people get the chance to regear. Not everyone can change builds to keep up with the meta in a matter of days.

We're also seeing a commitment to more regular balance patches now, so unless they do revert to biannual patches that don't actually do much, I'd rather see them make an honest effort at fixing the competition. Which is not to say that firebrand might not be able to take a few shaves - but I get the feeling you're thinking about more than that, and I'm wary of balance perception inertia.

[Obtena.7952]

On 6/4/2022 at 9:53 PM, captrowdy.9561 said:

Been playing for a year and I’ve been slowly trying all the classes.

Ironically, this is exactly why you don't see there isn't any favourites. Guardian and Necro have NOT always been favourites. The favourites shift ... it just takes a few years for it to happen. 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 6/4/2022 at 9:53 PM, captrowdy.9561 said:

Been playing for a year and I’ve been slowly trying all the classes. I’ve pretty much settled on warrior as my main and play rev and ranger. Well the last two I had left to try where guardian and necro. Dear god it’s like a different game. All the trait lines go together so well I’m having a great time coming up with different builds. They have so much variety with all the elite specs. Range/melee/utilities something for everything. 
 

They don’t need a nerf(harbringer does) but hopefully with the new patch the trait lines are reworked to bring the rest up to the same level. 

Yup. Obvious favoritism is indeed obvious.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

On 6/5/2022 at 9:30 AM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Ya over the years GWEN slowly became...GN

Gwen was only relevant in Wvw and that changed when they reworked the trait system. That's when Warrior got removed. 

And we should not pretend that Ele wasn't just a walking Water Field back then. 

Gwen became GN in 2015. 

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Yeah will be so fun when putting down untraited banner of defense with the same gameplay mechanics, grants 1 stack of stability to 5 allies for 5 seconds!

 

Cant wait for that amazing rework as anet calls it! 

Im sure that warriors just hate the raw stats on banners and not how they are immobile and unplayable outside of zzzzzzz stack on boss content. 

/s

[captrowdy.9561]

Welp I’m back on my warrior for pvp/roaming. Something about the way it plays against other players keeps me coming back. Please anet just some small things to bring it up to everyone else. 

[Dadnir.5038]

On 6/7/2022 at 6:07 AM, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Gwen became GN in 2015.

That simply isn't true and it's important to keep in mind that "GWEN" was only a zerg thing. (The roaming meta that ran alongside the zerg meta was a bit different with thiefs, rangers, elementalists and mesmers being kings... Yeah engineer didn't really have a well defined place in wvw despite being relatively strong 1v1).

The profession that was seen the most in wvw in 2015 was revenant and it's hammer, you could stretch it and sum it up as the "RN" meta (even if it's not entirely true as there was room for the much needed stability from guardian). "GN" appeared mostly after PoF release (so it's more accurate to say 2018). Even so, engineer found it's place into this meta which mean it's not really "GN" but "GEN".

[ZDragon.3046]

On 6/4/2022 at 9:53 PM, captrowdy.9561 said:

Been playing for a year and I’ve been slowly trying all the classes. I’ve pretty much settled on warrior as my main and play rev and ranger. Well the last two I had left to try where guardian and necro. Dear god it’s like a different game. All the trait lines go together so well I’m having a great time coming up with different builds. They have so much variety with all the elite specs. Range/melee/utilities something for everything. 
 

They don’t need a nerf(harbringer does) but hopefully with the new patch the trait lines are reworked to bring the rest up to the same level. 

The first line kinda is a bit of tell honestly.

 

You've been playing for a single year out of all most 10 its kind hard for you to have a call out on the devs about professions being favorites. 

Keep in mind guardian is the OG giver of boons and usually depends upon giving itself and others to be successful.

Necro just happens to be the great taker of boons and giver of conditions to achieve the same effect. 

Until anet makes more valid anti boon classes and more valid boon sharing classes you will see them as kind of the cornerstones of the game. We have seen more classes with boon share ability but not nearly enough valid boon killers added to the game and spell breaker was kind of bad at doing it. Turns out if you build boon rip into skills it adds skill weight and you have to balance that skill by giving it a higher cooldown or make it deal less damage (which is why many of the necromancers weapons are seen as weak) its shroud is often the strong point of any build while its weapons are weaker due to being bloated with boon rip / corrupts and other conditions. 

Long story short dont expect much to change till we see other boon rippers added to the game and the more boon share you add to the game the more necros you need to pop out of the wood work to handle it. at least in pvp / wvw. Its a shame that necro acts as the games only counter measure to boons effectively so its always built to have that in its kit (harbinger actually does not have much of it compared to scourge / reaper) but hopefully you get my point. 

Its not exactly favoritism its logic. 

[felix.2386]

guard and necro are pretty much the only specs, which have their class mechanic skills completely altered for elite spec, to really bring new utilities and playstyle

[ScottBroChill.3254]

1 hour ago, ZDragon.3046 said:

The first line kinda is a bit of tell honestly.

 

You've been playing for a single year out of all most 10 its kind hard for you to have a call out on the devs about professions being favorites. 

Keep in mind guardian is the OG giver of boons and usually depends upon giving itself and others to be successful.

Necro just happens to be the great taker of boons and giver of conditions to achieve the same effect. 

Until anet makes more valid anti boon classes and more valid boon sharing classes you will see them as kind of the cornerstones of the game. We have seen more classes with boon share ability but not nearly enough valid boon killers added to the game and spell breaker was kind of bad at doing it. Turns out if you build boon rip into skills it adds skill weight and you have to balance that skill by giving it a higher cooldown or make it deal less damage (which is why many of the necromancers weapons are seen as weak) its shroud is often the strong point of any build while its weapons are weaker due to being bloated with boon rip / corrupts and other conditions. 

Long story short dont expect much to change till we see other boon rippers added to the game and the more boon share you add to the game the more necros you need to pop out of the wood work to handle it. at least in pvp / wvw. Its a shame that necro acts as the games only counter measure to boons effectively so its always built to have that in its kit (harbinger actually does not have much of it compared to scourge / reaper) but hopefully you get my point. 

Its not exactly favoritism its logic. 

Agreed. With this game revolving around standardized boons and conditions, it's no surprise that the two professions that excel the most at both of these are consistently very strong, especially with the especs that double down on these strengths. And because other professions don't really compete in these fields, the ones that are left viable are ones with easy access to the one boon guardian doesn't provide to the team, alacrity, like revenant, or ones that provide unique buffs like warrior banners and ranger spirits who are kinda hardstuck using those gimmicks to be desirable in a party.