What Class Used to be Common to See but Now is Rare to See?

[Exciton.8942]

Pretty much all classes have their ups and downs. Today I think all classes have somewhat decent representation in all game modes. But same cannot be said about all elite specializations. 

 

In instanced contents, chrono/druid/berserker used to be the most prevalent but now you rarely see them 

[Stx.4857]

Thieves.  You would think revenant would be rare, but I see them everywhere.  Engineers used to be rare but now you see mechanists everywhere.  I hardly ever see thieves in open world, probably because most of their weapons have no aoe and they are also squishy and deal lower damage.  After thieves I think elementalist is also fairly rare to see.  

[cyberzombie.7348]

Specifically heralds, along with core engineers and elementalist. 

[OliverIngram.8729]

On 3/16/2023 at 7:00 AM, Gibson.4036 said:

Poor Specter

The sad thing is that Specter would probably be more popular if it didn't feel like a worse Necromancer, I like Specter but it just doesn't have the survivability that Necromancers do.

[Gibson.4036]

16 minutes ago, OliverIngram.8729 said:

The sad thing is that Specter would probably be more popular if it didn't feel like a worse Necromancer, I like Specter but it just doesn't have the survivability that Necromancers do.

Yeah. I really liked it there for a moment, but right now it doesn't seem to do anything that another spec doesn't do significantly better.

I did have a rare Specter sighting in an sPvP match last night.

[Gendalfs.7521]

On 3/17/2023 at 12:13 AM, Stx.4857 said:

Engineers used to be rare but now you see mechanists everywhere.

Mechanists are still there but definitely less.

[vicky.9751]

On 3/14/2023 at 6:24 PM, Doggie.3184 said:

Thief rarely exists in any mode anymore. I do 50 man squad boss trains and 50 man WvW squads all the time and I'll often be either the only one or one of very few. Almost never see them in Fractal Dailies, Strikes or Raids either. It's reached it's lowest population in history these past years I believe. Specter revived it for a little while and there were a lot playing it but seems like most people moved on from it at this point, (including myself~ back to Daredevil). Cuz I rarely have Specters join my PvE groups anymore (and it died out in WvW an even longer time ago). It doesn't help when the last few balance patches gave it nothing new/fun, no bug/mechanic/QoL fixes, gave it nerfs and it literally had 1 single line of text from the first hyped up 'big' balance patch.

Engineers used to be pretty uncommon cuz of the uncomfortable playstyle that is "Kits," and the fact Holosmiths kill themselves, but now they've exploded considerably in population thanks to them being the first really good pet class and certainly brings back GW1 feels of having an NPC ally that actually has a large impact on fights. Guardian is still insanely common though and if one isn't around it's asked for. Every group and subgroup in PvE and WvW is fulla dependants for Firebrand like it's a drug addiction.

Warrior has gone up in use/presence recently but for a while they went extinct which was surprising as they used to be Anet's 2nd favorite class after Guardian. I think people are finally starting to like Bladesworn, even though I still can't take it seriously till it fixes it's Gunsaber posture with full Samurai animations. XD Warrior still pales in comparison to how common they used to be though.

I haven't played in a year, but my friend would run those dps programs and told me my daredevil does 30% of fractal boss health. It's not bad right? i wonder why less are playing it. i love it because its 3 dodges and only like 2 skills to do damage.

[Witch of Steam.5138]

I Haven't seen many Revs about in content like I used to 

I also don't play my own as much but

That's because of a weird Client crash that happens when you dodge a lot of things at once as rev. 

[Mrs Lana.2506]

14 hours ago, vicky.9751 said:

I haven't played in a year, but my friend would run those dps programs and told me my daredevil does 30% of fractal boss health. It's not bad right? i wonder why less are playing it. i love it because its 3 dodges and only like 2 skills to do damage.

Power daredevil is still very strong. Current bench is just under 35k iirc. I don't mind it, but if you're playing solo the lack of condi cleanses can be irritating (no I'm not dropping a whole trait line for a single condi cleanse removal trait), and I have found it to be rather squishy - especially when playing it correctly (more damage on lower endurace = use all your dodges pre combat 😂). The reflect on auto makes it a no-go for certain raid bosses too.

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, Witch of Steam.5138 said:

I Haven't seen many Revs about in content like I used to 

I also don't play my own as much but

That's because of a weird Client crash that happens when you dodge a lot of things at once as rev. 

Core rev only, or all rev specs?

I ended up in a lower population Vinewrath last night, and our lane was three Renegades. So... many... ghost Charr.

Earlier, on a high pop Vinewrath there were a good five specters in the squad, so that debunks my earlier contribution to this thread that I don't see Specters about.

Maybe RIBA is where all the misfit specs go? 😄

[Gibson.4036]

15 hours ago, vicky.9751 said:

I haven't played in a year, but my friend would run those dps programs and told me my daredevil does 30% of fractal boss health. It's not bad right? i wonder why less are playing it. i love it because its 3 dodges and only like 2 skills to do damage.

Last year's IP nerf really shrank the numbers of Daredevils I saw in the open world. No really sure why, as it still remained crazy survivable in most content.

[Witch of Steam.5138]

2 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Core rev only, or all rev specs?

I ended up in a lower population Vinewrath last night, and our lane was three Renegades. So... many... ghost Charr.

Earlier, on a high pop Vinewrath there were a good five specters in the squad, so that debunks my earlier contribution to this thread that I don't see Specters about.

Maybe RIBA is where all the misfit specs go? 😄

Probably ? 

I dunno. The Bug Effects all rev Specs IIRC 

But I haven't seen any revs in Raids/ strikes / Frac CM runs lately. 

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Last year's IP nerf really shrank the numbers of Daredevils I saw in the open world. No really sure why, as it still remained crazy survivable in most content.

Number might have shrank regardless of the nerfs because there were 9 more especs released so people still just moved between the builds.
It is survivable, but much less than it was, that heal was huge as long as you were hitting stuff and I think it deserved a nerf for quite some time. Even with that, it's not really surprising some people feeling a substantial difference in sustain (because it was a pretty heavy nerf on it) could have moved to something else. Tbh never saw that many daredevils around in the first place, but maybe it's just me 🤷‍♂️ 

[Sean.6297]

I hardly ever see Elementalist or Thief specs in the open world.

[Gibson.4036]

It’s fun to see the different answers here and wonder how much they are purely due to our frames of reference.

I haven’t really played Virtuoso much, and just made a new character to be exclusively Virt. Suddenly I’m seeing a ton of them everywhere I go. I’d guess that’s because I’m thinking about the spec right now.

Kinda like earlier I said I hadn’t seen a lot of Specters, then discovered there’d been a handful in the squad I was in for a meta. You’d think I’d have noticed the purple effects, distinctive sounds, and wells, but I didn’t. Just the icons in the squad frame. Probably because my Specter’s been parked for a while and the spec isn’t front of mind.

[Varyag.3751]

Really only the Thief classes.

Though Mechanist has certainly taken over as the go-to low-intensity class, so there's a lot less Rangers about.

[Buran.3796]

On 3/15/2023 at 12:18 AM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

Core anything.

  Core Guardian is popular in PvP, and at high level probably surpases Willbender in use.

  Is easy to understand, as was explained for others: for core professions, in order to be competitive vs specializations your third worst traitline must be stronger than a spec traitline, and that's exactly what happens with core Guardian vs Firebrand in PvP: Firebrand has a terrible traitline and useless mantras, and in PvP you don't have celestial stats to carry those lackings as happens in WvW. As result, people plays either Willbender, Dragon Hunter or condi core Guardian as dps and core Guardian as support in PvP, whereas Firebrand is a worse core Guardian.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 3/29/2023 at 6:37 PM, Buran.3796 said:

  Is easy to understand, as was explained for others: for core professions, in order to be competitive vs specializations your third worst traitline must be stronger than a spec traitline

To be a little more precise, the third worst traitline must be stronger than a spec traitline unless you are specifically using the things that come with that specialisation.

Which is essentially what happened to firebrand in sPvP - the firebrand-specific stuff was made so bad in sPvP conditions, partly due to nerfs and partly due to the inherent issues with tomes in the fast-paced sPvP environment, that they really weren't giving anything up for, and the combination of Honour, Valour, and Virtues is strong enough for a support build that you don't want to give up on any of them unless you get something really good out of it. In PvE, that's quickness, in WvW, that's the stability that firebrand can bring, but in sPvP, neither of those are as important as they are in those modes.

Arguably, a similar argument can be made regarding zeal, radiance, and virtues for DPS builds, but the elite specialisations there can usually offer enough to pull ahead.

But yes, a lot of other professions have issues where for any particular build, there's often two core traitlines that are really good for the build... and then the rest you can either take it or leave it. At which point, you often might as well take the elite.

[Astralporing.1957]

On 3/31/2023 at 9:12 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

But yes, a lot of other professions have issues where for any particular build, there's often two core traitlines that are really good for the build... and then the rest you can either take it or leave it. At which point, you often might as well take the elite.

That's because core spec traitlines are each made with different purpose in mind. There are dps traitlines (generic, or condi specific), defensive traitlines, and utility ones. Due to this, for whatever primary purpose you can imagine, you can have at best 2 traitlines that cover it (and so use the third one for a secondary purpose, be it defensive or support). Espec traitlines on the other hand are designed to be multipurpose. Most of them have either 2 dps options (one being condi) and a third support/utility choice, or one dps upgrade and two different support/utility ones. As such, it's usually easy to slot an espec as a third, complementary option for whatever purpose you have in mind. And the more especs for each profession we have, the less gaps in this there are - with PvE gaps being pretty much covered already for all profession, and only few still remaining in SPvP.

TL/DR; most espec traitlines are a good third spec choice for whatever purpose you might have in mind, because unlike the core spec traitlines that are each made with only a single goal in mind, they were designed to enhance more than one option.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[draxynnic.3719]

36 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

That's because core spec traitlines are each made with different purpose in mind. There are dps traitlines (generic, or condi specific), defensive traitlines, and utility ones. Due to this, for whatever primary purpose you can imagine, you can have at best 2 traitlines that cover it (and so use the third one for a secondary purpose, be it defensive or support). Espec traitlines on the other hand are designed to be multipurpose. Most of them have either 2 dps options (one being condi) and a third support/utility choice, or one dps upgrade and two different support/utility ones. As such, it's usually easy to slot an espec as a third, complementary option for whatever purpose you have in mind. And the more especs for each profession we have, the less gaps in this there are - with PvE gaps being pretty much covered already for all profession, and only few still remaining in SPvP.

TL/DR; most espec traitlines are a good third spec choice for whatever purpose you might have in mind, because unlike the core spec traitlines that are each made with only a single goal in mind, they were designed to enhance more than one option.

Yes, you're explaining why the thing I was talking about happens as if I didn't already know. The distinction is that there are professions where the core traitlines can do multiple things. Guardian is, again, a good example here. Zeal and Radiance are both DPS lines, but while Zeal is generally better for power and Radiance for burning, both offer traits that benefit the other type of damage. Virtues, meanwhile, can pretty solidly contribute to a support, damage, or hybrid style depending on the specific traits you take. This means that a pure DPS core guardian can go Zeal/Radiance/Virtues and not feel like they have a wasted traitline, while a pure support core guardian can go Honour/Valour/Virtues and, again, not feel like they have any wasted traitlines. Taking an elite specialisation with guardian, therefore, feels more like you're actually giving something up. The elite specialisation might still clearly be good enough that it's worth making that tradeoff, but you're not simply taking it because you have no other good option.

Conversely, if you take a profession where the traitlines are very specific in what they do, you do sometimes get into situations where you only have two core traitlines that are useful for power DPS, or condi DPS, or support, or whatever you're looking to do with the build. In which case, you end up taking an elite specialisation pretty much by default.

Now, there's a bit of a philosophical question on how much, or even if, this is a problem. However, if it is, it does present a simple solution - make the traitlines a bit less hyper-focused, so that for any role, there are genuinely at least three core traitlines that can meaningfully contribute to fulfilling that role.

There's also a degree to which I think there are some core traitlines that are not simply focused in the way you describe, but are just plain weak.

[The Boz.2038]

Back in the day, elementalist was the only way to do damage or boons.