Looking for a balance-change resistant profession

[Myosotis.4137]

Hi guys, I am in a big decision moment and in dire need of some experienced opinions. I am building a new ascended set (preferably light armor because I already got a couple light armor that can select stats). I am essentially looking for a class that is resistant to balance changes (a profession that does not change its gears entirely after a balance change because it is too much work and money for me).

A little bit of context:

I used to main dragonhunter with its berserker set for T4 fractals, but now power classes are pretty bad....  so I just moved those berserker piece to my herald for WVW content. Now I looking to get into Condi builds and I am looking at either scourge, virtuoso, and harbinger because these 3 classes seem very fun to me. But they use different stat sets and weapon sets so I can only decide on one to focus while I start building my legendary armor gears.  It will take me around 4-6 months to get a full WVW legendary armor set so I do not want to invest in a character and then must change its gear set after another patch. I am broke </3

 

Now my question is. Which of the above 3 classes is a bit more balance change tolerant? And does not require a major change of weapon/sigils/or armor stat. I am not vey wealthy and I would like to save up some money. 

On top of resistance to balance change, if the profession can get me started in raid, that would be a bonus too. 

 

Thank you so much for all the help :)

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Scourge, harbinger, FIREBRAND, Mechanist.

 

If you want to raid, FB or Mech.

[Myosotis.4137]

38 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Scourge, harbinger, FIREBRAND, Mechanist.

 

If you want to raid, FB or Mech.

I kind of already started on building light armor, so I probably would stick to it.

 

which build of FB are you referring to that is good in raid?  I can slowly build a heavy armor after this

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Just now, Myosotis.4137 said:

I kind of already started on building light armor, so I probably would stick to it.

 

which build of FB are you referring to that is good in raid?  I can slowly build a heavy armor after this

Heal, quick, or condi.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Condi_DPS
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Quickness_Support_Condi_DPS
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Quickness_Support_Healer
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Quickness_Support_Celestial_DPS

If you use a lvl 80 boost you'll get a full set of exotic gear btw.

[Mell.4873]

22 minutes ago, Myosotis.4137 said:

I kind of already started on building light armor, so I probably would stick to it.

 

which build of FB are you referring to that is good in raid?  I can slowly build a heavy armor after this

Firebrand is always a good bet and since your familar with the guardian kit so it won't be to dissimilar.

Honestly these day most professions can be mained since one of their elites is meta, I mean Warrior, Necromancer both have Condition Quickness builds like Firebrand and with similar numbers.

While Mesmer, Mechanist and Revenent have Alacrity builds. 

Edited August 8, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Ashgar.3024]

Firebrand is one of the balance team devs favorite and most played spec. Make that what you will.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[Myosotis.4137]

41 minutes ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

Firebrand is one of the balance team devs favorite and most played spec. Make that what you will.

The thing about guardian is that they have so many different builds within the profession, I can only main guardian until I get a legendary armor set. 

[Myosotis.4137]

49 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

51 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Firebrand is always a good bet and since your familar with the guardian kit so it won't be to dissimilar.

Honestly these day most professions can be mained since one of their elites is meta, I mean Warrior, Necromancer both have Condition Quickness builds like Firebrand and with similar numbers.

While Mesmer, Mechanist and Revenent have Alacrity builds. 

I also agree that most professions are mained nowadays, I am just scared that one day a small patch change will change its gears. It will take me a while to build a full legendary armor, and I don’t want to change to another set of ascended set due to a meta change.

Not sure which profession can stay in meta for long

[Alcatraznc.3869]

You can go for Scourge/Harbringer since overall Necromancer spec are solid. Mirage and Virtuoso are also solid as well now that I think about it.

 

But I think the main point should be to look at what Mesmer and Necromancer can do overall and pick one :

 

-Necromancer can play Condi DPS or be a Quickness provider for your team with Harbringer. Scourge can go Condi DPS or provide a lot of barrier + a bit of healing.

 

-Mirage can either go full Condi DPS or Alacrity provider for your team. It is worth noting that S/S Mirage doesnt really requires any particular rotation, you just spam your dodge to trigger ambush skills every time your dodge is available. Not only this is your main source of damage but also your main source of alacrity and you will be permanently dodging attack. Virtuoso seems to be doing a lot of damage but I havent played it yet so I dont really know what it really offers. 

[Myosotis.4137]

44 minutes ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

You can go for Scourge/Harbringer since overall Necromancer spec are solid. Mirage and Virtuoso are also solid as well now that I think about it.

 

But I think the main point should be to look at what Mesmer and Necromancer can do overall and pick one :

 

-Necromancer can play Condi DPS or be a Quickness provider for your team with Harbringer. Scourge can go Condi DPS or provide a lot of barrier + a bit of healing.

 

-Mirage can either go full Condi DPS or Alacrity provider for your team. It is worth noting that S/S Mirage doesnt really requires any particular rotation, you just spam your dodge to trigger ambush skills every time your dodge is available. Not only this is your main source of damage but also your main source of alacrity and you will be permanently dodging attack. Virtuoso seems to be doing a lot of damage but I havent played it yet so I dont really know what it really offers. 

Thanks for your reply. 🙂

Mirage seems like a viable option too now.

do you think I should focus on what each profession can perform, over how long they stay in meta?

i am just afraid of having to change gear becuase gold is an issue

[Salt Mode.3780]

1 hour ago, Myosotis.4137 said:

Thanks for your reply. 🙂

Mirage seems like a viable option too now.

do you think I should focus on what each profession can perform, over how long they stay in meta?

i am just afraid of having to change gear becuase gold is an issue

Knowing the history of Mesmer as a whole it most likely wont be "meta" for long. The only "meta" thing about Mesmers in PvE is Virtuoso.

Edited August 9, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[Myosotis.4137]

20 minutes ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Knowing the history of Mesmer as a whole it most likely wont be "meta" for long. The only "meta" thing about Mesmers in PvE is Virtuoso.

I should probably stick with scourge right?

[draxynnic.3719]

If availability of ascended armour is your limiting factor, my thoughts are:

First, people who have access to all legendaries or a wide set of ascended gear tend to treat having the "optimum" build as more important than it really is. If it's on Snowcrows, Hardstuck, or a similar site, it's probably viable. (Maybe not metabattle, I've noticed they can be a bit slow to update nowadays.) 

My advice would be to look for builds within an armour bracket that have the same gear, or similar enough that you can achieve a similar result by making other substitutions. This both gives you added versatility, and means that if one of those builds gets nerfed to death, you might be able to swap to one of the others. In the light armour field, condition mirage is a good example here: it uses viper's with nightmare runes on both full DPS (which has a respectable benchmark of 38.5, it's just that condi virtuoso is ranged and full DPS condi mirage is melee) and staxe variants. While Snowcrows has updated the dual staff alacmirage build to use some Ritualist pieces, you can get away with using the same Viper's set for armour if you can get the concentration from somewhere else - the pre-EoD build used Toxic Maintenance Oil, or if you have access to Ritualist trinkets, you could try to get ~150 concentration from trinkets.

The same "viper's plus nightmare runes" set is also used by condition scourge, if you don't mind the inconvenience of swapping your ascended armour between characters (but this also adds to the resilience of the gear, since if mirage gets nerfed to death, you can swap). While it's not optimal, you could probably also get away with using the same set for harbinger builds at the price of some DPS.

There may be similar gear alignments among medium armour professions, but I'm not so familiar with those at the level of raid builds, and on a casual inspection of the builds I don't see any medium professions that use the same gear for both full DPS and quickness/alacrity roles. Heavy armour professions tend to require different armour sets (or at least runes) to fulfil different roles within the profession, let alone across different heavy armour professions. 

[Salt Mode.3780]

1 hour ago, Myosotis.4137 said:

I should probably stick with scourge right?

I mean atm cloth class isn't exactly the best choice, none of the 3 are exactly "meta" aside from condi virtuoso in PvE. They are usable still.

[Myosotis.4137]

48 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

If availability of ascended armour is your limiting factor, my thoughts are:

First, people who have access to all legendaries or a wide set of ascended gear tend to treat having the "optimum" build as more important than it really is. If it's on Snowcrows, Hardstuck, or a similar site, it's probably viable. (Maybe not metabattle, I've noticed they can be a bit slow to update nowadays.) 

My advice would be to look for builds within an armour bracket that have the same gear, or similar enough that you can achieve a similar result by making other substitutions. This both gives you added versatility, and means that if one of those builds gets nerfed to death, you might be able to swap to one of the others. In the light armour field, condition mirage is a good example here: it uses viper's with nightmare runes on both full DPS (which has a respectable benchmark of 38.5, it's just that condi virtuoso is ranged and full DPS condi mirage is melee) and staxe variants. While Snowcrows has updated the dual staff alacmirage build to use some Ritualist pieces, you can get away with using the same Viper's set for armour if you can get the concentration from somewhere else - the pre-EoD build used Toxic Maintenance Oil, or if you have access to Ritualist trinkets, you could try to get ~150 concentration from trinkets.

The same "viper's plus nightmare runes" set is also used by condition scourge, if you don't mind the inconvenience of swapping your ascended armour between characters (but this also adds to the resilience of the gear, since if mirage gets nerfed to death, you can swap). While it's not optimal, you could probably also get away with using the same set for harbinger builds at the price of some DPS.

There may be similar gear alignments among medium armour professions, but I'm not so familiar with those at the level of raid builds, and on a casual inspection of the builds I don't see any medium professions that use the same gear for both full DPS and quickness/alacrity roles. Heavy armour professions tend to require different armour sets (or at least runes) to fulfil different roles within the profession, let alone across different heavy armour professions. 

Oh my god, thank you so much for this. I think I am going to go with a  mirage just because it uses a vipers set with nightmare runes that can be swapped to a scourge if any nerfs comes its way. It can pretty easily be switched to a alac build with staff variant too