Let's talk balance..

[The Game Slayer.7632]

Guardian has been the best class in the game in every game mode for the last 10 years. Change my mind.

Edited July 4, 2022 by The Game Slayer.7632

[Dadnir.5038]

Open world PvE:

I wouldn't say that any profession could ever claim being the "best" there. I liked the original staff attack in this gamemode, thought. That said, guardian was and is still pretty bad at jumping puzzle.

PvE end game:

2012-2015 (vanilla game): In a gamemode where players heavily relied on fire field for might generation and stacking together, guardian was poluting the area with light fields. Nope, they weren't the best there at this time.

2015-2018 (HoT): In a gamemode were dps, alacrity and quickness ruled everything, guardian lacked the ability to reliably provide quickness/alacrity and it's damage output was so-so.

WvW:

2015-2018: In a gamemode were players were chickening out from impacting and ranged damage rule, the guardian was found lacking.

sPvP:

There have been so many up and down there that it seem silly to even try to filter when it was "good" and when it was "bad".

Edited July 4, 2022 by Dadnir.5038

[ThunderX.6591]

For the past iteraction of the game, Dadnir explained the guard use in a decent way, i can add that until fb with quickness come, guard was relegated to be only dps as dh or be a backup one in some case too (there was better class to use).

With POF, FB helped get guard up and was a nice and usefull class to play.

With EOD, willbender was one decent dps as condi and as power variant.

All happy guard and all, right??? Wrong.

That ended with 28/06 patch.

If you see some of the last test, all dps guard variant (condi and power) struggle hard to reach 32k............ i don't see a good future atm for them.

The only variant guard that survived the patch is the support one (fb support), with a big damage reduction to it too obviously and some nerf to the elite sigil full heal skill, so, atm, class is in a bad shape if you consider it overall (it is ok only because the other quickness class aren't so good, but if the other quickness class improve, guard can be seen to be set on live support, like war or even worse, cause at least, Bladesworn (elite warrior) is the top power dps now after some test done).

[otto.5684]

Pre GS rework, in 2017, guardian was not viable in PvE, outside open world. 

 

Post Feb 2020 pvp rework, guardian was barely viable in PvP outside of core support. That lasted until March 2022 patch that buffed WB. Also, guardian had a long stretch in HoT where it had no PvP viability (after multiple DH nerfs until RI buff before PoF).

 

Post 6/28/22 patch, it seems that guardian is barely viable in group PvE outside of FB support.

 

Honestly, it is only during PoF that guardian had solid performance. And that was not even consistent in PvP.

[The Game Slayer.7632]

21 hours ago, otto.5684 said:

Pre GS rework, in 2017, guardian was not viable in PvE, outside open world. 

 

Post Feb 2020 pvp rework, guardian was barely viable in PvP outside of core support. That lasted until March 2022 patch that buffed WB. Also, guardian had a long stretch in HoT where it had no PvP viability (after multiple DH nerfs until RI buff before PoF).

 

Post 6/28/22 patch, it seems that guardian is barely viable in group PvE outside of FB support.

 

Honestly, it is only during PoF that guardian had solid performance. And that was not even consistent in PvP.

Solid performance? More like oppressive and dominating. With no break.. 5 straight years of absolute dominance in all 3 game modes. Pretty disgusting.

[otto.5684]

9 hours ago, The Game Slayer.7632 said:

Solid performance? More like oppressive and dominating. With no break.. 5 straight years of absolute dominance in all 3 game modes. Pretty disgusting.

Ya, DH and FB where dealing the highest damage among all classes. Wait.. they never did. The only legitimate complain is that support FB dealt too much damage, for a support, and could spam aegis. Everything else is bull kitten.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

On 7/4/2022 at 11:24 PM, otto.5684 said:

Pre GS rework, in 2017, guardian was not viable in PvE, outside open world. 

 

Post Feb 2020 pvp rework, guardian was barely viable in PvP outside of core support. That lasted until March 2022 patch that buffed WB. Also, guardian had a long stretch in HoT where it had no PvP viability (after multiple DH nerfs until RI buff before PoF).

 

Post 6/28/22 patch, it seems that guardian is barely viable in group PvE outside of FB support.

 

Honestly, it is only during PoF that guardian had solid performance. And that was not even consistent in PvP.

 

Reality is, people are duckn tired of Firebrand being the "god king" of Gw2.

Which is less about how good Firebrand( and Guard) have it but more about how ridiculously kitten the Balance is for others.

Add the fact that Guard and Necro are the only 2 classes with good Base Fundations to build on top.

Is Guard the best class currently? I would say yes. But thats not hard if everything ( sparing Necro and Engi) is in such a horrific state.

Firebrand has been Meta in 10/5man content for years.

WvW is unplayable without Firebrand.

What class do experienced players tell newcomers to play? Guard or Necro.

Because history shows, these 2 never get bad.

 

 

[otto.5684]

8 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

 

Reality is, people are duckn tired of Firebrand being the "god king" of Gw2.

Which is less about how good Firebrand( and Guard) have it but more about how ridiculously kitten the Balance is for others.

Add the fact that Guard and Necro are the only 2 classes with good Base Fundations to build on top.

Is Guard the best class currently? I would say yes. But thats not hard if everything ( sparing Necro and Engi) is in such a horrific state.

Firebrand has been Meta in 10/5man content for years.

WvW is unplayable without Firebrand.

What class do experienced players tell newcomers to play? Guard or Necro.

Because history shows, these 2 never get bad.

 

 

But that is the entire point. What you are basically saying: “FB is OP in end game PvE, thus guardian is OP in all game modes, sense the beginning of time.” It is an objectively dumb statement and says very little about the class as a whole.
 

And necro, come on. It was garbage in end game pve for most of the game’s history. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 7/4/2022 at 10:15 AM, ThunderX.6591 said:

For the past iteraction of the game, Dadnir explained the guard use in a decent way, i can add that until fb with quickness come, guard was relegated to be only dps as dh or be a backup one in some case too (there was better class to use).

With POF, FB helped get guard up and was a nice and usefull class to play.

With EOD, willbender was one decent dps as condi and as power variant.

All happy guard and all, right??? Wrong.

That ended with 28/06 patch.

If you see some of the last test, all dps guard variant (condi and power) struggle hard to reach 32k............ i don't see a good future atm for them.

The only variant guard that survived the patch is the support one (fb support), with a big damage reduction to it too obviously and some nerf to the elite sigil full heal skill, so, atm, class is in a bad shape if you consider it overall (it is ok only because the other quickness class aren't so good, but if the other quickness class improve, guard can be seen to be set on live support, like war or even worse, cause at least, Bladesworn (elite warrior) is the top power dps now after some test done).

They had to "make room" for mechanist to take over.  There must always be one stupidly overtuned spec in this game.  Now firebrand is just second place instead of the best at practically everything for 4 years running...

[subversiontwo.7501]

On 7/4/2022 at 11:04 AM, The Game Slayer.7632 said:

Guardian has been the best class in the game in every game mode for the last 10 years. Change my mind.

I'm not sure how I ended up in this subforum, but over in WvW that I usually keep myself to, we've had this discussion a couple of times over already. I'd say your position stems from confusing perceived performance with perceived popularity or perceived essentiality.

It's fancy words, but it's pretty easy to give you an example:

 If you take stability from the Guardian you take away what makes it used in WvW because it does not excel at anything else (eg., it heals less than Scrappers, people tend to get that wrong). In Raids, Strikes and Fractals it is more of a perfect storm with Plaguedoctor giving it all the stats it needs to thrive in that very specific environment - and - that environment of standing still, hitting with little interruption and not wanting toughness gives the class all it needs to thrive with its symbols and statholes too. However, that does not fit into anything else in the game. There, that environment itself is hard to balance and very sensitive to specific things like combinations of damage, support and boons (like Quickness).

• The first instance says more about how a specific boon relates to that game mode in particular (WvW)
• That second instance says more how every boon and class relates to that game mode in general (Raids et. al.)

I used the word perceived up top...

Spoiler

because even if it is true that things like stability in WvW is essential and thus appears popular with squad leaders constantly asking for it, day in and day out, it is also essential only in a general sense (you need stability as the content scales up with all AoE crowd-control that becomes available) but not in a specific sense (every party does not have to have stability or look the same, such ideas mainly comes from players being less engaged in organising and leading themselves lately).

If you go to the WvW forums you can see that the people complaining about balance there always seem to either play one thing alone and complain about there being groups or play one thing trying to fit into a party and being cranky about being told no by someone else. It never comes from people who play multiple classes and have the capacity to form a 5-man party of their own; a party that may not need stability because you can build around something else (like stealth, reach or mobility).

Spoiler

So, stability (and thus Firebrands) is essential to WvW in a general sense but not in every sense. Quickness is essential to instanced PvE in a general sense but the distribution of it is more balanced so Firebrand popularity there stems more from that perfect storm of factors comming together - and that specific standstill environment of instanced PvE is more of a problem for instanced PvE than anything else. The problem there is less about class, more about content design.

More on that PvE context and how it relates to the game, if you want to keep reading:

Spoiler

 

As long as those specifics exist, instanced PvE will be unique in the game and come with unique problems that was never meant to exist in this game. Sadly it has been allowed to dominate and cause problems in the rest of the game while remaining nigh impossible to solve and poorly attempted to solve in that specific content too.

In a larger context, they have had so many problems with instanced PvE in this game, both in how they relate it to the rest of the game (letting its balance splash over onto everything else, skillsplits comming too late and generally being ineffectual, with other content still mostly being treated as an afterthought where they do instanced PvE balance and then try to contain the largest problems they let it cause elsewhere) and in how it has been directed internally with so many different submodes and none being committed to while at the same time having issues deciding what should be easy/inclusive and what should be challenging/exclusive there.

 

Spoiler

All of it has been a mess since HoT and it is only in the last year or two that they have gone back to some overarching direction that makes sense with developing more inclusive "to experience" content and shorter, higher-cadence exclusive "to challenge" content. You don't need 15 types of instanced PvE content that are a mess of poor, unfinished and for everyone and no one at the same time. You need two types of clearly defined and good instanced PvE content like they had when the game launched. Not that exploration mode in dungeons were ever challenging but they idea of story mode and exploration mode is that root idea in theory. They don't even need normal mode and challenge mode since they can just have Strikes be the challenge mode to begin with: Like how the Soo-won Strike is essentially a challenge mode of the world-boss or meta.

Spoiler

They essentially first got that right just now with the Soo-won CM that allowed for 6 days of competition. That's the first time they get that right and have found a content-balance that fits an overarching PvE direction that is sustainable to develop for them. I really hope they stop making missteps in this process because it is key to solving so many of the other direction, communication and marketing problems they have had and still have with the game. Letting inclusive content be inclusive and exclusive content be exclusive also helps things like balance, resource management and allocation to other modes of content so they can also be developed and balanced. It is superbly important for GW2 to not be in this mess of no one knowing what to prioritise, what's to be easy and hard, pulling resources around left, right and center without finishing projects or without allocating resources for them to reasonably succeed in the first place, so they have to pretend that they are doing meaningful work and progress (like on the PvP modes).

So while I'm going a bit cursory here it actually relates to balance because balance is so much easier to deal with if you separate inclusive and exclusive content as well as give all your content the resources to succeed and be balanced. In the end it is all direction, fair prioritisation and resources to be developed, iterated and balanced. As long as resources are not allocated for everything to succeed, or are pulled around as norm rather than rare exception, the game will continue to struggle with unfinished development, balance and problems related to that.

Or to put that in more direct GW2 words: If Anet would restrain themselves to the 4 dimensions of open- and instanced PvE and PvP (aka. LWS, "Raid", sPvP and WvW), give them at least ballpark similar resources and not let any mode have more than a couple of managable submodes (eg., we never needed 2v2 AND 3v3 in sPvP, nore does the game need both 5-man and 10-man or at least certainly not two 5-man modes and two 10-man modes that fit under the umbrella of Raiding, etc.) then things would be easier to develop and since balance is development it would also be easier to balance. Most balance issues have come out of them not having the resources to commit and balance issues, like other issues, comes off resources being moved around before projects are completed.

Edited July 26, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[DanAlcedo.3281]

1 hour ago, otto.5684 said:

But that is the entire point. What you are basically saying: “FB is OP in end game PvE, thus guardian is OP in all game modes, sense the beginning of time.” It is an objectively dumb statement and says very little about the class as a whole.
 

And necro, come on. It was garbage in end game pve for most of the game’s history. 

I never said “FB is OP in end game PvE, thus guardian is OP in all game modes, sense the beginning of time.”

I said that FB has been Meta for years in PvE and mandetory in WvW since FB got released and people want to see something new.

Also, saying Necro is garbage is simply wrong. Just look at the numbers here: https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

 

 

[Puck.3697]

Tbh even now, I'd say it isn't the best class.. 

Tempest Is currently the meta spvp support specc. 

Harbinger is better in spvp as a dps role then willbender also. 

In pve mechanist is better. 

And in wvwvw as far as I'm aware, scourge is its equal. 

And that's without all the previous stuff over the games life time others have already stated. 

 

[Dadnir.5038]

6 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Also, saying Necro is garbage is simply wrong. Just look at the numbers here: https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

The game was released in 2012 not in 2017. If you were to add the numbers from 2012 to 2017 you'd have elementalist toping the charts. (even on the all era it would probably appear as very dominant).

The data provided by this site are provided by the players themself. Not everybody contribute to these data. Which mean that the reliability of these popularity "number" is extremly low.

Necromancer, scourge included, was seen as "garbage" in PvE (Necro/Reaper useless, Scourge noob carry class) until may 2021 when Teapot proved that you could achieve the same clearance time than the glass canon meta comp with a team relying on scourge's barriers and epidemic.

 

[Carnifex.3275]

On 7/4/2022 at 7:15 PM, ThunderX.6591 said:

For the past iteraction of the game, Dadnir explained the guard use in a decent way, i can add that until fb with quickness come, guard was relegated to be only dps as dh or be a backup one in some case too (there was better class to use).

With POF, FB helped get guard up and was a nice and usefull class to play.

With EOD, willbender was one decent dps as condi and as power variant.

All happy guard and all, right??? Wrong.

That ended with 28/06 patch.

If you see some of the last test, all dps guard variant (condi and power) struggle hard to reach 32k............ i don't see a good future atm for them.

The only variant guard that survived the patch is the support one (fb support), with a big damage reduction to it too obviously and some nerf to the elite sigil full heal skill, so, atm, class is in a bad shape if you consider it overall (it is ok only because the other quickness class aren't so good, but if the other quickness class improve, guard can be seen to be set on live support, like war or even worse, cause at least, Bladesworn (elite warrior) is the top power dps now after some test done).

Facts.

I love it when people just say "Guardian is OP". But when u present them with the facts and some data from the past... everything changes. Hopefully people will open their eyes instead of just repeating the same nonsence.

[otto.5684]

4 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I never said “FB is OP in end game PvE, thus guardian is OP in all game modes, sense the beginning of time.”

I said that FB has been Meta for years in PvE and mandetory in WvW since FB got released and people want to see something new.

Also, saying Necro is garbage is simply wrong. Just look at the numbers here: https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

 

 

Rev and eng are least popular classes. Does that mean they are bad? Class popularity means nothing when you are considering class performance. Especially from a historical perspective.

And so we stop beating around the bush, most classes have and had similar  viability, except warrior. Poor warriors they are GW2 poor bastards 😞

Edited July 6, 2022 by otto.5684

[smiiirf.3201]

14 hours ago, Dave.6819 said:

Facts.

I love it when people just say "Guardian is OP". But when u present them with the facts and some data from the past... everything changes. Hopefully people will open their eyes instead of just repeating the same nonsence.

 Ah and you have the data? 🤡 Here a simple fact for you -> Guardian is Meta since RLS.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Leolas.6273

[cat.8975]

2 hours ago, Leolas.6273 said:

 Ah and you have the data? 🤡 Here a simple fact for you -> Guardian is Meta since RLS.

In instanced PvE content, you only brought a guard for a handful of encounters (aegis/reflects/blinds) until the specializations update in 2015. It was then kinda garbage-tier until the buffs to greatsword, scepter, and the Radiance line in 2016-2017.

It's always been meta in WvW because WvW without stability would be terrible to play and I guess the devs still want guards to be the best at applying that boon. The rest of the party support they bring is nice, but there are plenty of other great support builds on other classes.

Guard has had its ups and downs in PvP, just like every other class.

[Carnifex.3275]

3 hours ago, Leolas.6273 said:

 Ah and you have the data? 🤡 Here a simple fact for you -> Guardian is Meta since RLS.

If you would've read through this post u would've seen facts. But did you even bother to read?

[smiiirf.3201]

1 hour ago, Dave.6819 said:

If you would've read through this post u would've seen facts. But did you even bother to read?

Yeah all i see is biased guardian main facts. Fact is this class is Meta since RLS across the board. It's time that the Guardian faces for once the nerfhammer like the warrior, ele. mesmer, rev, ranger and thief faced before. 🤗

Edited July 7, 2022 by Leolas.6273

[Ragnar.4257]

You seem to have confused Firebrand 2018-2021 with Guardian 2012-2022.

For the majority of time during Core/HoT days across both PvE and PvP guardian was nowhere near the best class choice. It was really only during PoF with FB that guardian has dominated. Even then, it was not always dominant in PvP, FB essentially got removed from PvP in March 2020.

The only mode where guardian has been a consistent feature since launch is WvW, and that's entirely down to 1 skill being necessary for the game-mode to even function (Stand Your Ground).

The only way you can possibly think that guardian has "always" been best is if you only started playing in the last 3 years, and didn't play PvP.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Carnifex.3275]

5 hours ago, Leolas.6273 said:

Yeah all i see is biased guardian main facts. Fact is this class is Meta since RLS across the board. It's time that the Guardian faces for once the nerfhammer like the warrior, ele. mesmer, rev, ranger and thief faced before. 🤗

Nonsence. That's the main issue with this game. Instead of trying to equal out classes by buffing them they keep nerfing it. It will never end if they'll keep doin it (and its been like that for years). Some other class will be OP (like Mech now). Nerf after nerf will always make people frustrated. They need to start thinking about buffs cuz they're dumbing down all classes. Like.. buff warrior maybe?! Bring back ele from the dead. Thief is quite in a meh state... why not bring those back i dont understand? Why we still focus on nerfing everything?

When it comes to guard.. it's never been a very good class until FB came. The only place where it shined was WvW zergs. That's it. In PvP it was mediocre (unless that stupid DH trap meme era..). In PvE it was just normal DPS class, nothing too crazy about it. So my issue is that they keep nerfing core traits. Like they tried to nerf FB this time but they nerfed other specs like cWB. Now both cFB and cWB are quite meme, but qfb and hfb will still stay relevant. See the problem here? They accidentally nerfed something that wasnt even OP.  They need to target specific specs not just core traits that cascade into all other specs. Otherwise FB will still stay relevant as a support spec. But you can already say goodbye to both cWB and DH. I'd rather nerf quickness on FB in this case and leave the damage output alone. A simple trade off - if u take quickness u lose dmg. That way other specs wont be killed. I hate FB so much at this point, all other specs that i enjoy are suffering the consequences because of that stupid PoF spec. I'd rather just be cWB at this point. Let others handle quickness/heals and whatever. 

What's funny that we are at fault. Everyone is bashing on every class except theirs. So what ends up happening is anet listens to you guys and keeps nerfing and nerfing. I think anet should stop reading forums cuz we're actually hurting the game more than we think. Like literally forget your bias. Go roll a Guardian, go test out DPS on golem. Then go roll Mech/Virt/Specter/Scourge/Slb and test out DPS. Maybe it'll change your mind about how "OP" guardian is. It's just a quickness bot at this point.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Dave.6819

[The Game Slayer.7632]

Guardian mains trying to cope by saying "but guard was really bad for the first 5 years of the game" without realizing EVERYTHING was really bad for the first 5 years and guard was STILL THE BEST THEN LOLLLLLLLLL

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

8 hours ago, The Game Slayer.7632 said:

Guardian mains trying to cope by saying "but guard was really bad for the first 5 years of the game" without realizing EVERYTHING was really bad for the first 5 years and guard was STILL THE BEST THEN LOLLLLLLLLL

Tell me you didn't play during vanilal GW2 without telling me you didn't play during vanilla GW2.

Your "still best" during that period was glorified stability machine for wvw, and scoffed at in any PvE. It didn't have DPS, might from the staff was underappreciated during that period, and pve didn't need stability at all. Warriors and Elementalists were the backbone of PvE meta back then. And for a while before target caps for skills, Elementalists were dominating WvW scene as well - there should still be videos on the internet from back then of 4 elementalists vanquishing whole zergs, by exploiting lack of target cap, and CC-able chokepoints.

And before you try to pull the "guardian main trying to cope" card again - I am in fact a ranger main 😛

[The Game Slayer.7632]

14 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Tell me you didn't play during vanilal GW2 without telling me you didn't play during vanilla GW2.

Your "still best" during that period was glorified stability machine for wvw, and scoffed at in any PvE. It didn't have DPS, might from the staff was underappreciated during that period, and pve didn't need stability at all. Warriors and Elementalists were the backbone of PvE meta back then. And for a while before target caps for skills, Elementalists were dominating WvW scene as well - there should still be videos on the internet from back then of 4 elementalists vanquishing whole zergs, by exploiting lack of target cap, and CC-able chokepoints.

And before you try to pull the "guardian main trying to cope" card again - I am in fact a ranger main 😛

right, sorry, third best but still meta during the first couple years and then climbing to first after war and ele got nerfs.

dang, thats crazy. imagine a class being meta for 10 years straight and people still having trouble seeing that. I mean it's only the delusional mains themselves really. It's not contentious to state that guard is the best class in gw2. I'm posting in the guard forums so I expect to see a bunch of guard mains QQ'ing. it's pretty funny really

[Logos.3042]

12 hours ago, The Game Slayer.7632 said:

right, sorry, third best but still meta during the first couple years and then climbing to first after war and ele got nerfs.

dang, thats crazy. imagine a class being meta for 10 years straight and people still having trouble seeing that. I mean it's only the delusional mains themselves really. It's not contentious to state that guard is the best class in gw2. I'm posting in the guard forums so I expect to see a bunch of guard mains QQ'ing. it's pretty funny really

I'm not a guardian main, but I do have a core aoe burn guardian that I like to play.

I'm going to say that I think guardian's core design was really well put together from the beginning.  Traits and skills are cohesive and work together well.  Firebrand really pushed it over the top for support.

***

But as was stated above, I really think the issue is that other classes have really been neglected, and I'd like to see them brought up... I'm saying this as a warrior main.  I dont disparage Guardian, but if ANET isnt going to invest the time to fix warrior, then maybe the only way for warrior to compete is to ruin Guardian and really bring it down so other classes can compete... what a terrible solution... Yes, FB needs a hit or 2, but can they do it without nerfing the whole class?  IDK...