Least played specialisations?

[Omnio.3652]

Hi everyone,

Returning player, after a long time, and I was wondering what the least played specs are these days and why that is? Mainly in group content, both PvE and sPvP.

I have looked around but the info was kinda all over the place.

[Jijimuge.4675]

There's some info available at
https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

It covers raids, fractals and strikes.  It relies on people having an uploader tool (or manually uploading arcdps logs), so one can't say with certainty that the data is representative...but it's a start.

For the most current figures, don't look at the last column (as that's an amalgamation of data through all patches), but instead at the last column but one, as that represents data from the current patch.

[Omnio.3652]

Did not know that exists. Thanks! Looks like ele - thief - warrior are not loved these days. Poor ele not at all.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

32 minutes ago, Omnio.3652 said:

Did not know that exists. Thanks! Looks like ele - thief - warrior are not loved these days. Poor ele not at all.

Just to note. These 3 aren't bad. It's just others do the same but easier. 

 

[Omnio.3652]

Ok, that fits with what I've seen elsewhere too. People usually mention the less played classes need more attention which is why other classes are played.

Honestly Herald or Scrapper seem like supper fun supporte, Chronomancer as well. But scepter or tempest are up there for me too, as I like to play rare classes. Lets see how the thief goes, already have all above mentioned on 80 from the old days.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Specter is pretty rare but if played well, a welcome dps/ alacrity provider. 

 

[Teknomancer.4895]

It's a race/class combo instead of what you're asking about but anecdotally, I can't remember the last time I saw a Charr Mesmer of any spec. 🤔

[Omnio.3652]

58 minutes ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

It's a race/class combo instead of what you're asking about but anecdotally, I can't remember the last time I saw a Charr Mesmer of any spec. 🤔

I would love to play a charr, but they look so weird in armors + jumping puzzles with then are... awful. Wish they would have two movement modes, on all four or the usual. 😄

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

It's a race/class combo instead of what you're asking about but anecdotally, I can't remember the last time I saw a Charr Mesmer of any spec. 🤔

That's probably because you don't have one in your guild... Lucky you...

[Omnio.3652]

What about harbringer? Also one of those harder to play = less played?

[AliamRationem.5172]

Weaver is usually somewhere near the bottom, but it's actually a pretty decent spec. It's just difficult to learn and play it well.

[Zenith.7301]

Warrior makes sense as not being too popular since it's the one class lacking any magic vfx, besides spellbreaker it can feel pretty plain.

Deadeye is heavily stigmatized since rifle deadeye has been bad in PvE for so long for anything besides Qadim pylon kite. The other problem is thief PvE core gameplay is pretty flawed. Because the initiative system incentivizes spamming the best DPI skill, the rotations are generally pretty plain and ignore 80% of your weapon skills.

Elementalist unfortunately is very high apm and highly reliant on autoattack counting, and clipping those 3rd autoattacks in the final auto chain is rather costly as is mistiming the the elemental orbits.

Edited January 3 by Zenith.7301

[Phyb.6704]

1 hour ago, Zenith.7301 said:

Warrior makes sense as not being too popular since it's the one class lacking any magic vfx, besides spellbreaker it can feel pretty plain.

Deadeye is heavily stigmatized since rifle deadeye has been bad in PvE for so long for anything besides Qadim pylon kite. The other problem is thief PvE core gameplay is pretty flawed. Because the initiative system incentivizes spamming the best DPI skill, the rotations are generally pretty plain and ignore 80% of your weapon skills.

Elementalist unfortunately is very high apm and highly reliant on autoattack counting, and clipping those 3rd autoattacks in the final auto chain is rather costly as is mistiming the the elemental orbits.

Deadeye has some disgusting pve builds from hizen on youtube. Most just use it for sniping in wvw and pvp tho. 

[Fueki.4753]

3 hours ago, Zenith.7301 said:

Warrior makes sense as not being too popular since it's the one class lacking any magic vfx,

Not having too much particle vomit is one of the positive things about Warrior.

The real problems are Warrior not being treated as an equal to the other professions and remaining buggy, clunky and underpowered on purpose.

[SeTect.5918]

22 hours ago, Zenith.7301 said:

Elementalist unfortunately is very high apm and highly reliant on autoattack counting, and clipping those 3rd autoattacks in the final auto chain is rather costly as is mistiming the the elemental orbits.

Agree tho most of the ele build use hammer atm which has no AA chain except for water attunement.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

As a jack of most trades, master of yer mum, I can speak a bit about each specialization that isn't played much.  In no particular order:

• Mirage: This one isn't played much due to a lack of general utility, as well as recent nerfs to confusion damage.  Most of the mesmer's utility comes from their core utilities, so the elite specializations shine on where they put their power.  Chronomancer has good buffing abilities, as well as the devastatingly powerful Chronophantasm trait and Continuum Split combo.  Virtuoso has excellent cleave and recovery, alongside of a simplified system that makes it easy to use and do damage at any combat range.  Mirage... has no real power build.  In fact, I'm not sure that power Mirage is any better than core.  Most of mirage's utilities are based around doing condition damage, and it is dependent on maintaining the cumbersome clones to have any effect.  This makes Mirage bad at regular mobs, and only O.K. against bosses.  If you're alone, Mirage can be really hard to kill, but most people don't do raids/strikes/fractals alone.
• Harbinger: While being the least played necromancer spec, this isn't exactly a rare thing to see.  It has a quickness build, and decent condi DPS, but it's low play numbers comes from it's mechanics.  Harbinger has no shroud and it's mechanics actively make it easier to kill.  
• Catalyst: Ele in general has low representation, partly due to historic discrimination against it being frail, and partly because the skill swapping mechanic.  It sees spikes in use over time, because it ends up with the highest DPS anytime something is released.  That said, things are looking up for ele, as the Jade Cores gave extra health, and EoD gave ele both quickness and alacrity builds, as well as more group healing in weaver.  They're not bad, just not played as much.  Now, as for the specs in general, Tempest is the most common because it is an excellent healer, as well as the source of a relatively easy condi build (Fire Tempest).  You'll see condi tempest and heal-alac tempest because of this.  Weaver is seen a bit more, though having no unique niche it does provide group barrier, as well as good strike and condi builds.  Weaver's main advantage is its high sustained damage, making the rotations more forgiving.  Catalyst, in contrast, is much more frenetic, relying on much more button presses to accomplish the same things, and Catalyst frequently has to press multiple buttons at the same time via the Jade Sphere.  Cata received a recent buff, though, which is why it's numbers are up.
• Holosmith: Though engi is very popular, you don't see as many Holo's around.  The reason for this is because of SotO.  The weapon mastery really removed most of the reasons why you'd play Holo.  Originally, it's appeal was to be a high-risk but high-reward build that did a lot of damage, but was frequently weapon-locked and could blow itself up.  With hammer now available on every spec, Mechanist and Scrapper hit quite hard while having good support/heal builds, as well as being easier to use.  Holo just isn't worth the complexity or the risk compared to those two.
• Untamed: I don't play ranger.  However, from what I hear, Untamed is micromanagement hell with barely any payoff after some recent nerfs. 
• Deadeye: If there is any spec out there that is ill-equipped for strikes and raids, it is Thief.  Fractals and Dungeons, sure, due to all the blinds and stealth.  But, it just seems like Thief always has something annoying to deal with.  I regularly have to tell people how to play it, and this entails long lists where I evaluate each build's strengths and weaknesses.  The short version is that Thief tends to either force movement, or it will force immobility and be inflexible.  You can play thief, but you'll have to kit out your all of your build slots/templates to change what you're doing on the fly.  That said, what makes Deadeye the least played spec is its difficult rotation, and it's inflexibility.  The support spec is almost never played now that it has been nerfed.  The scepter version was also nerfed, and the pistol version throws you violently backward in its rotation.  The power version with rifle + D/D is better, but it also has a very difficult rotation that is very punishing to make a mistake with.  The Deadeye also suffers from the problem where almost everything it has needs to be dedicated purely to damage in order to hit the benchmark, whereas the others don't.  Daredevil forces movement, but it has higher cleave, multiple damaging builds, high evade time to keep it alive, and it is much simpler to use.  Specter has an additional health bar along side of weird mechanics that make it one of the most difficult buff/healing specs to play, and it has a much slower ramp-up on all of it's abilities.  However, Specter does not force movement, and it has a few excellent utilities in its wells.  I play Deadeye regularly, and my advice for most people is to run some alternate builds with more flexibility instead of going for a pure benchmark build.  
• Renegade:  This is another spec that suffered from SotO.  The main thing Renegade had going for it was the shortbow, and now that other specs get it there's very little reason to play Renegade.  Herald was buffed recently, and it now has some low maintenance sustained damage as well as excellent boon/heal builds.  Vindicator initially suffered from SotO syndrome, but the greatsword was nerfed to compensate.  Vindicator, however, is quite fun, has some rather devastating builds with Sigil of Stamina, and it still hits quite hard.  The second problem with Renegade is that it's highest DPS build is a condi build that is incredibly easy to mess up, and very punishing when you do.  This makes it quite hard to play with very little advantage over the other specs.  That isn't to say that Renegade is bad.  Darkrazor's Daring is one of the best CCs in the game, and it does have competent alacrity and healing builds.  But, doing well with it will require sub-second exact timing in its rotation.
• Willbender: I do find this one to be a bit of a headscratcher.  I know Firebrand is played a lot for it's support builds and it's wide AoE condi cleave.  Firebrand gets played a lot, actually.  I suppose the reason why Willbender is played less is because it's abilities require more maintenance.  Dragonhunter Spears its enemies, but otherwise its rotation boils down to "push buttons off cooldown".  Willbender requires sequencing skills in time with it's virtues, and switching between virtues for utility can lead to a DPS loss, making it all more punishing.  That said, Willbender isn't particularly hard to play when compared to everything else on this list.  
• Bladesworn:  Warrior itself saw most of its use drop after Banners were reworked to be generic boons.  Prior to then, Warriors were nearly mandatory for most groups.  Only recently were Warriors given any sort of buff.  That all said, Warriors greatest problem is their lack of useful utilities.  They have good CC... and that's about it.  Well, Spellbreaker has a some unique use with their boon denial.  When it comes to the specs, Berserker is played most because it is the easiest one, conceptually.  It also has the only boon build via Quickness.  Spellbreaker was buffed a few times, and it also has boon removal and self-sustain baked in, but it doesn't get played much because it can be difficult to maximize DPS with full Counter.  Bladesworn is played the least, largely because it puts all of its damage in Dragon Trigger, which is hard to use.  That several-second long wind-up leaves players open, and it requires a lot of foreknowledge about a fight to be really useful.  Finally, Bladesworn overall does less damage than power Berserker, with very little to compensate for this loss.  

EDIT: Back again.  I did a bit of research, and now I know what is going on with Willbender.  Snowcrows no longer hosts a power build on their website.  This means that a lot of players looking into playing Willbender will believe it isn't an option skip out on it.  The second thing that changed was a recent update that made it so the Virtue passive effects no longer replace one another.  This had the benefit of raising the overall performance of the profession... while also raising the skill ceiling.  Condi Willbender now does the same damage as Firebrand, but with much more effort and no real additional utilities.  About the only thing Willbender has over Firebrand is pulsing Aegis from Virtue of Courage, while Firebrand has innate reflects, stability, cleanses, heals, etc. and so on.  

Edited January 6 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[Doggie.3184]

On 1/4/2024 at 1:06 AM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

As a jack of most trades, master of yer mum, I can speak a bit about each specialization that isn't played much.  In no particular order:

• Mirage: This one isn't played much due to a lack of general utility, as well as recent nerfs to confusion damage.  Most of the mesmer's utility comes from their core utilities, so the elite specializations shine on where they put their power.  Chronomancer has good buffing abilities, as well as the devastatingly powerful Chronophantasm trait and Continuum Split combo.  Virtuoso has excellent cleave and recovery, alongside of a simplified system that makes it easy to use and do damage at any combat range.  Mirage... has no real power build.  In fact, I'm not sure that power Mirage is any better than core.  Most of mirage's utilities are based around doing condition damage, and it is dependent on maintaining the cumbersome clones to have any effect.  This makes Mirage bad at regular mobs, and only O.K. against bosses.  If you're alone, Mirage can be really hard to kill, but most people don't do raids/strikes/fractals alone.
• Harbinger: While being the least played necromancer spec, this isn't exactly a rare thing to see.  It has a quickness build, and decent condi DPS, but it's low play numbers comes from it's mechanics.  Harbinger has no shroud and it's mechanics actively make it easier to kill.  
• Catalyst: Ele in general has low representation, partly due to historic discrimination against it being frail, and partly because the skill swapping mechanic.  It sees spikes in use over time, because it ends up with the highest DPS anytime something is released.  That said, things are looking up for ele, as the Jade Cores gave extra health, and EoD gave ele both quickness and alacrity builds, as well as more group healing in weaver.  They're not bad, just not played as much.  Now, as for the specs in general, Tempest is the most common because it is an excellent healer, as well as the source of a relatively easy condi build (Fire Tempest).  You'll see condi tempest and heal-alac tempest because of this.  Weaver is seen a bit more, though having no unique niche it does provide group barrier, as well as good strike and condi builds.  Weaver's main advantage is its high sustained damage, making the rotations more forgiving.  Catalyst, in contrast, is much more frenetic, relying on much more button presses to accomplish the same things, and Catalyst frequently has to press multiple buttons at the same time via the Jade Sphere.  Cata received a recent buff, though, which is why it's numbers are up.
• Holosmith: Though engi is very popular, you don't see as many Holo's around.  The reason for this is because of SotO.  The weapon mastery really removed most of the reasons why you'd play Holo.  Originally, it's appeal was to be a high-risk but high-reward build that did a lot of damage, but was frequently weapon-locked and could blow itself up.  With hammer now available on every spec, Mechanist and Scrapper hit quite hard while having good support/heal builds, as well as being easier to use.  Holo just isn't worth the complexity or the risk compared to those two.
• Untamed: I don't play ranger.  However, from what I hear, Untamed is micromanagement hell with barely any payoff after some recent nerfs. 
• Deadeye: If there is any spec out there that is ill-equipped for strikes and raids, it is Thief.  Fractals and Dungeons, sure, due to all the blinds and stealth.  But, it just seems like Thief always has something annoying to deal with.  I regularly have to tell people how to play it, and this entails long lists where I evaluate each build's strengths and weaknesses.  The short version is that Thief tends to either force movement, or it will force immobility and be inflexible.  You can play thief, but you'll have to kit out your all of your build slots/templates to change what you're doing on the fly.  That said, what makes Deadeye the least played spec is its difficult rotation, and it's inflexibility.  The support spec is almost never played now that it has been nerfed.  The scepter version was also nerfed, and the pistol version throws you violently backward in its rotation.  The power version with rifle + D/D is better, but it also has a very difficult rotation that is very punishing to make a mistake with.  The Deadeye also suffers from the problem where almost everything it has needs to be dedicated purely to damage in order to hit the benchmark, whereas the others don't.  Daredevil forces movement, but it has higher cleave, multiple damaging builds, high evade time to keep it alive, and it is much simpler to use.  Specter has an additional health bar along side of weird mechanics that make it one of the most difficult buff/healing specs to play, and it has a much slower ramp-up on all of it's abilities.  However, Specter does not force movement, and it has a few excellent utilities in its wells.  I play Deadeye regularly, and my advice for most people is to run some alternate builds with more flexibility instead of going for a pure benchmark build.  
• Renegade:  This is another spec that suffered from SotO.  The main thing Renegade had going for it was the shortbow, and now that other specs get it there's very little reason to play Renegade.  Herald was buffed recently, and it now has some low maintenance sustained damage as well as excellent boon/heal builds.  Vindicator initially suffered from SotO syndrome, but the greatsword was nerfed to compensate.  Vindicator, however, is quite fun, has some rather devastating builds with Sigil of Stamina, and it still hits quite hard.  The second problem with Renegade is that it's highest DPS build is a condi build that is incredibly easy to mess up, and very punishing when you do.  This makes it quite hard to play with very little advantage over the other specs.  That isn't to say that Renegade is bad.  Darkrazor's Daring is one of the best CCs in the game, and it does have competent alacrity and healing builds.  But, doing well with it will require sub-second exact timing in its rotation.
• Willbender: I do find this one to be a bit of a headscratcher.  I know Firebrand is played a lot for it's support builds and it's wide AoE condi cleave.  Firebrand gets played a lot, actually.  I suppose the reason why Willbender is played less is because it's abilities require more maintenance.  Dragonhunter Spears its enemies, but otherwise its rotation boils down to "push buttons off cooldown".  Willbender requires sequencing skills in time with it's virtues, and switching between virtues for utility can lead to a DPS loss, making it all more punishing.  That said, Willbender isn't particularly hard to play when compared to everything else on this list.  
• Bladesworn:  Warrior itself saw most of its use drop after Banners were reworked to be generic boons.  Prior to then, Warriors were nearly mandatory for most groups.  Only recently were Warriors given any sort of buff.  That all said, Warriors greatest problem is their lack of useful utilities.  They have good CC... and that's about it.  Well, Spellbreaker has a some unique use with their boon denial.  When it comes to the specs, Berserker is played most because it is the easiest one, conceptually.  It also has the only boon build via Quickness.  Spellbreaker was buffed a few times, and it also has boon removal and self-sustain baked in, but it doesn't get played much because it can be difficult to maximize DPS with full Counter.  Bladesworn is played the least, largely because it puts all of its damage in Dragon Trigger, which is hard to use.  That several-second long wind-up leaves players open, and it requires a lot of foreknowledge about a fight to be really useful.  Finally, Bladesworn overall does less damage than power Berserker, with very little to compensate for this loss.  

EDIT: Back again.  I did a bit of research, and now I know what is going on with Willbender.  Snowcrows no longer hosts a power build on their website.  This means that a lot of players looking into playing Willbender will believe it isn't an option skip out on it.  The second thing that changed was a recent update that made it so the Virtue passive effects no longer replace one another.  This had the benefit of raising the overall performance of the profession... while also raising the skill ceiling.  Condi Willbender now does the same damage as Firebrand, but with much more effort and no real additional utilities.  About the only thing Willbender has over Firebrand is pulsing Aegis from Virtue of Courage, while Firebrand has innate reflects, stability, cleanses, heals, etc. and so on.  

This is pretty on point, especially with Thief~ forced movement has been an issue for so long. It shouldn't be slapped onto the main DPS skills we're expected to spam unless it's something like Heartseeker which actively improves it's ability to hit and doesn't make you fly past enemy and off cliffs like Death Blossom or push you away from enemy and teammates like Shadow Strike/Measured Shot.

I also absolutely love and adore Holosmith but the extremely punishing self-destruct on Overheat completely dumpsters it hard af for me in all modes. It's just anti-fun. I made a Holo themed character dedicated to just that Spec during PoF but eventually abandoned him and then deleted him when EoD released just to save gold on name change when I played Mech.

With Warrior I'd go with what @Zenith.7301 said most of all, after Berserker (which to no surprise is it's most played spec) it became visually boring with more recycled animations than most in PoF and then EoD created a Samurai spec that held it's "Katana" like an ordinary Greatsword instead of like a proud and noble weeb😩. It's just intensely unimpressive looking, especially after experiencing FFXIV Samurai which is so majestic and stylish.

[Phyb.6704]

On 1/3/2024 at 10:06 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

As a jack of most trades, master of yer mum, I can speak a bit about each specialization that isn't played much.  In no particular order:

• Mirage: This one isn't played much due to a lack of general utility, as well as recent nerfs to confusion damage.  Most of the mesmer's utility comes from their core utilities, so the elite specializations shine on where they put their power.  Chronomancer has good buffing abilities, as well as the devastatingly powerful Chronophantasm trait and Continuum Split combo.  Virtuoso has excellent cleave and recovery, alongside of a simplified system that makes it easy to use and do damage at any combat range.  Mirage... has no real power build.  In fact, I'm not sure that power Mirage is any better than core.  Most of mirage's utilities are based around doing condition damage, and it is dependent on maintaining the cumbersome clones to have any effect.  This makes Mirage bad at regular mobs, and only O.K. against bosses.  If you're alone, Mirage can be really hard to kill, but most people don't do raids/strikes/fractals alone.
• Harbinger: While being the least played necromancer spec, this isn't exactly a rare thing to see.  It has a quickness build, and decent condi DPS, but it's low play numbers comes from it's mechanics.  Harbinger has no shroud and it's mechanics actively make it easier to kill.  
• Catalyst: Ele in general has low representation, partly due to historic discrimination against it being frail, and partly because the skill swapping mechanic.  It sees spikes in use over time, because it ends up with the highest DPS anytime something is released.  That said, things are looking up for ele, as the Jade Cores gave extra health, and EoD gave ele both quickness and alacrity builds, as well as more group healing in weaver.  They're not bad, just not played as much.  Now, as for the specs in general, Tempest is the most common because it is an excellent healer, as well as the source of a relatively easy condi build (Fire Tempest).  You'll see condi tempest and heal-alac tempest because of this.  Weaver is seen a bit more, though having no unique niche it does provide group barrier, as well as good strike and condi builds.  Weaver's main advantage is its high sustained damage, making the rotations more forgiving.  Catalyst, in contrast, is much more frenetic, relying on much more button presses to accomplish the same things, and Catalyst frequently has to press multiple buttons at the same time via the Jade Sphere.  Cata received a recent buff, though, which is why it's numbers are up.
• Holosmith: Though engi is very popular, you don't see as many Holo's around.  The reason for this is because of SotO.  The weapon mastery really removed most of the reasons why you'd play Holo.  Originally, it's appeal was to be a high-risk but high-reward build that did a lot of damage, but was frequently weapon-locked and could blow itself up.  With hammer now available on every spec, Mechanist and Scrapper hit quite hard while having good support/heal builds, as well as being easier to use.  Holo just isn't worth the complexity or the risk compared to those two.
• Untamed: I don't play ranger.  However, from what I hear, Untamed is micromanagement hell with barely any payoff after some recent nerfs. 
• Deadeye: If there is any spec out there that is ill-equipped for strikes and raids, it is Thief.  Fractals and Dungeons, sure, due to all the blinds and stealth.  But, it just seems like Thief always has something annoying to deal with.  I regularly have to tell people how to play it, and this entails long lists where I evaluate each build's strengths and weaknesses.  The short version is that Thief tends to either force movement, or it will force immobility and be inflexible.  You can play thief, but you'll have to kit out your all of your build slots/templates to change what you're doing on the fly.  That said, what makes Deadeye the least played spec is its difficult rotation, and it's inflexibility.  The support spec is almost never played now that it has been nerfed.  The scepter version was also nerfed, and the pistol version throws you violently backward in its rotation.  The power version with rifle + D/D is better, but it also has a very difficult rotation that is very punishing to make a mistake with.  The Deadeye also suffers from the problem where almost everything it has needs to be dedicated purely to damage in order to hit the benchmark, whereas the others don't.  Daredevil forces movement, but it has higher cleave, multiple damaging builds, high evade time to keep it alive, and it is much simpler to use.  Specter has an additional health bar along side of weird mechanics that make it one of the most difficult buff/healing specs to play, and it has a much slower ramp-up on all of it's abilities.  However, Specter does not force movement, and it has a few excellent utilities in its wells.  I play Deadeye regularly, and my advice for most people is to run some alternate builds with more flexibility instead of going for a pure benchmark build.  
• Renegade:  This is another spec that suffered from SotO.  The main thing Renegade had going for it was the shortbow, and now that other specs get it there's very little reason to play Renegade.  Herald was buffed recently, and it now has some low maintenance sustained damage as well as excellent boon/heal builds.  Vindicator initially suffered from SotO syndrome, but the greatsword was nerfed to compensate.  Vindicator, however, is quite fun, has some rather devastating builds with Sigil of Stamina, and it still hits quite hard.  The second problem with Renegade is that it's highest DPS build is a condi build that is incredibly easy to mess up, and very punishing when you do.  This makes it quite hard to play with very little advantage over the other specs.  That isn't to say that Renegade is bad.  Darkrazor's Daring is one of the best CCs in the game, and it does have competent alacrity and healing builds.  But, doing well with it will require sub-second exact timing in its rotation.
• Willbender: I do find this one to be a bit of a headscratcher.  I know Firebrand is played a lot for it's support builds and it's wide AoE condi cleave.  Firebrand gets played a lot, actually.  I suppose the reason why Willbender is played less is because it's abilities require more maintenance.  Dragonhunter Spears its enemies, but otherwise its rotation boils down to "push buttons off cooldown".  Willbender requires sequencing skills in time with it's virtues, and switching between virtues for utility can lead to a DPS loss, making it all more punishing.  That said, Willbender isn't particularly hard to play when compared to everything else on this list.  
• Bladesworn:  Warrior itself saw most of its use drop after Banners were reworked to be generic boons.  Prior to then, Warriors were nearly mandatory for most groups.  Only recently were Warriors given any sort of buff.  That all said, Warriors greatest problem is their lack of useful utilities.  They have good CC... and that's about it.  Well, Spellbreaker has a some unique use with their boon denial.  When it comes to the specs, Berserker is played most because it is the easiest one, conceptually.  It also has the only boon build via Quickness.  Spellbreaker was buffed a few times, and it also has boon removal and self-sustain baked in, but it doesn't get played much because it can be difficult to maximize DPS with full Counter.  Bladesworn is played the least, largely because it puts all of its damage in Dragon Trigger, which is hard to use.  That several-second long wind-up leaves players open, and it requires a lot of foreknowledge about a fight to be really useful.  Finally, Bladesworn overall does less damage than power Berserker, with very little to compensate for this loss.  

EDIT: Back again.  I did a bit of research, and now I know what is going on with Willbender.  Snowcrows no longer hosts a power build on their website.  This means that a lot of players looking into playing Willbender will believe it isn't an option skip out on it.  The second thing that changed was a recent update that made it so the Virtue passive effects no longer replace one another.  This had the benefit of raising the overall performance of the profession... while also raising the skill ceiling.  Condi Willbender now does the same damage as Firebrand, but with much more effort and no real additional utilities.  About the only thing Willbender has over Firebrand is pulsing Aegis from Virtue of Courage, while Firebrand has innate reflects, stability, cleanses, heals, etc. and so on.  

You used to have to go renegade to get bow which was needed for condi builds. Now its availalbe for all specs. ( condi ).

Can you still go power and drop icerazor and darkrazor and then swap to shiro well they are on cooldown? Does this blow nearly any cc bar and do very very high burst? Yes. Are you going to get your butt blown up well doing so with zero survivability? Is there no sustain and does your damage drop off hard after 10-15sec?.... yeah.

Not really much reason to go renegade. There is so many sources for alac that dont force you to become useless besides providing alac. Get a barrier alac scourge. Get something that does not do little to nothing in exchange for the alac. MAybe if the elite's healing per hit was a flat amount dictated by the renegade instead of dictated by everyone else under the elites effect since its a life steal.... then having that + alac + cc may be worth it. But that is not the case. 

Renegade used to be a lot of fun in open world. Drop icerazor and darkrazor and then attack with swords and you would burst everything down and keep 90-100% hp with scars. I enjoyed it. But if you try it after EoD scars nerf. You just die in 2-3 seconds. 

[Yasai.3549]

On 1/2/2024 at 8:12 PM, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Specter is pretty rare but if played well, a welcome dps/ alacrity provider. 

 

I miss when Condi Alac Specter could just Well-dump and give your subgroup Barriers. One of the reasons why I've started playing my Specter a little lesser. Still good though, just gotta swap some traits and utilities around and not much changed. 

[xellink.7568]

On 1/2/2024 at 6:57 PM, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Just to note. These 3 aren't bad. It's just others do the same but easier. 

There is a bit of delay in response as players need to gear up and adjust to the new meta. Sometimes the player shift isn't fast enough to reflect the power shift as some op builds gets nerfed into oblivion. Unfortunately, ANet's nerf bat has very little restrain and you can see some classes being dominant and then crashing right after. However, almost every auto-build has preferred popularity, demonstrating the playerbase preference for easy builds rather than optimal builds. 

Here is a summary of the chart. I am not a historian, but I will try to mention all the important highlights, at least the ones that are significant to me.

Mesmer

Chrono has always been popular ever since it could do 10 man boons and remained popular even when it couldn't, its still popular as it is the identity of GW2. Chrono is expanding and will continue to expand further. This is because it has one of the best support utilities can has the flexibility of going both alac and quickness. No other espec can do that. Although Virtuoso (arguably not a mesmer), has a bigger marketshare, only because auto condi sceptre is kitten and there are no good condi autos for chrono. 

Mirage is not exactly underpowered under the right hands but it isn't exactly monkey science either. Its play rate will remain low and the very unfortunate confusion nerf recently has hit it real hard without any incentive to play it. Chrono already provides alac so there is no reason to take extra measures to play another alac class in the mesmer line. 

Mesmer is recommended for: Everyone

Necromancer

Scourge is like the legendary pokemon that is banned from tournaments. Sometimes I even forget I have a dodge button. Even Raid Academy says they will not consider validating Scourge raid logs, but everyone uses a masterball to catch it. Its not a particularly good healer, but when you raid, you bring 'enough heals', you don't need full harriers to complete raids and its one of the only especs that can sliding scale DPS into a healer to clear raids faster for exp teams. It can also do niche roles, like pylons, but unfortunately the snake can rarely pierce through the ground and not give aegis, making it unpopular to tank where group Aegis is needed (eg. Deimos).

Harbinger is least popular despite providing quickness. On very mobile fights, harbinger has issues with uptime, which is a big design problem. 

Reaper is the power alternative (fairly recently buffed) to Scourge, which is kitten on power. Condi reaper is pretty strong as well but has a low marketshare because it relies on ice fields which is the rarest field in the game.

Necromancer is recommended for: Players who can't dodge

Elementalist

Elementalist is fairly popular until 2017. Tempest is a gigachad healer that provides great green numbers, but green numbers are not what we need. A 180 radius restriction means might duration may be suboptimal in team fights and this requires more tricks to maintain on moving bosses. Some players will stay and main an ele healer, but a lot of marketshare will be lost to the next gigachad healer: Druid. Weaver and catalyst have too many buttons to press and the LI versions can hardly beat Tempest camping fire (39k) or tempest w 2 elements 43k or tempest w 3 elements (45k) in DPS. Don't get me started on how lousy heal quick catalyst is, its no wonder it has no marketshare. 

All 3 have reasons to be shunned in favor of better classes.

Elementalist is recommended for: Nobody

Engineer Mechanist

Engineers are traditionally one of the least played classes due to complexity, kits and having less weapons to choose from and holosmith was the only viable DPS alternative, its not even good. Scrapper with recent updates is a pretty good as a healer and quick DPS, leaving holosmith collecting dust. 

Everything changed with the dawn of mechanist and its autoattack rifle. Despite DPS being nerfed to the ground, it is a very reliable alac provider both (when the mecha listens to you), both support DPS and healing roles, and two relatively powerful auto attack weapons, hammer and rifle. For condi, p/p plus full signet is pretty much half automated. When you play mechanist, you don't play the game, the game plays you.

Mechanist is recommended for: Sleepy Joe

Ranger

There are only two meaningful especs in this group:

1. Druid for its gigachad heals and recently with the update, condi DPS is really strong now.
2. Soulbeast allows people who hates pets but like bows to actually play by removing the pet mechanic. It does both solid condi and power DPS. It is a very selfish handkite but is more popular than warrior or herald. 
3. Untamed Unplayed, please ignore this entry. Mechanist has replaced this class as the default pet DPS class. 

Ranger is recommended for: Gun-haters

Thief

Thief is a fairly unpopular class because of the time investment of complex interactions, multiple build loadouts required and having multiple equipment investment to match those load outs, legendaries are not enough, with some load outs, you can do crazy things, like solo Cairn, solo towers (and at least have portal as a backup). That kind of dedication is not what most players have signed up for. A deadeye revival occured during the Alac/Quickness balance patch which made it superpowered, but Anet's knee jerk hammered it back down, despite fairly useless solo or OW due to reliance on other teammates. The only way to make thief great again is Deadeye Quick-Heal 2024.

Secretly, there are a few raiders who still enter raids/strikes with P/P (33333) deadeye or staff (22222) dodge daredevil so they can deal decent damage while having lunch at the same time, because F1-5111111 is too difficult. If rifle mecha didn't exist, these auto build would have been more popular, watch this space for staff/pistol buffs.

That being said, spectre remains a fairly popular efficient eSpec because its a necromancer. Nothing is as inelegant as waving a chicken drumstick at your enemies. 

I main a thief now because I have a credit card, lots of gems and able to buy multiple equipment slots for each load out wishing that one day I don't need to swap characters for quick heal.

Thief is recommended for: If your team has no alacrity

Revenant Herald

When HOT was first released revenant was less played because not everyone had the expansion and not everyone has rev unlocked. But that slowly changed. The original firebrigade team dominated the PVE meta for at least half of the raiding lifespan from 2019 to 2022, providing quickness and alacrity through firebrand and renegade. Anet had 2 daughters, and initially they preferred the younger daughter, Firebrand. Fortunately for rev mains, Anet has a new son, Quick Herald, and with a new son, goes all the inheritance, being best in slot for everything, even niche roles.

Revenant is recommended for: Wanting the best quickie in the game.

Guardian Firebrand

When raids were first released, people needed a way to explore with 100% protection, defensive skills, aegis, burst heals and 25k DPS (7k was the average then). Hammer DH was one of the easiest ways to perform raids blind without pressing buttons. However, as people started to learn how to dodge and avoid damage, easy builds became less popular and players started chasing the stars. Better knowledge share on the wiki and online benchmarks also progressed that trend. Hammer DH fell out of favour, being a relatively selfish build compared to the alternative, Anet's favourite daughter, Firebrand, especially for fractals.

Firebrand is recommended for: Firebrand

Warrior

In 2017 I used to main a warrior when berserker was so powerful. I switched to other classes in POF, because not having a ranged weapon is so kitten and I didn't want to be a banner slave. When someone complained that their class needs a buff, I'd mention spellbreaker and win the argument because spellbreaker deserved a buff more than anything else. It was unusable in all game modes, even pvp.

When EOD came back and they did the quickness banner kitten, I mained warrior again. It was the best time for warrior. Warrior could do quickness on all its especs and even core. Spellbreaker was BiS for hand kite, being able to provide quick and hand kite at the same time. Spellbreaker was particularly buffed, with the dagger changes, and again later, hammer breaker. I am very sad that my spellbreaker can't give quickness on HK anymore, but it is less selfish than soulbeast.

Now with the latest update and quickness from banners removed... if you don't play berserker, I'm not sure what you are doing.

Recommended for: As long as you don't bladesworn

[Stalima.5490]

I think Core engineer is the king of unplayed

[Phyb.6704]

11 hours ago, xellink.7568 said:

There is a bit of delay in response as players need to gear up and adjust to the new meta. Sometimes the player shift isn't fast enough to reflect the power shift as some op builds gets nerfed into oblivion. Unfortunately, ANet's nerf bat has very little restrain and you can see some classes being dominant and then crashing right after. However, almost every auto-build has preferred popularity, demonstrating the playerbase preference for easy builds rather than optimal builds. 

Here is a summary of the chart. I am not a historian, but I will try to mention all the important highlights, at least the ones that are significant to me.

Mesmer

Chrono has always been popular ever since it could do 10 man boons and remained popular even when it couldn't, its still popular as it is the identity of GW2. Chrono is expanding and will continue to expand further. This is because it has one of the best support utilities can has the flexibility of going both alac and quickness. No other espec can do that. Although Virtuoso (arguably not a mesmer), has a bigger marketshare, only because auto condi sceptre is kitten and there are no good condi autos for chrono. 

Mirage is not exactly underpowered under the right hands but it isn't exactly monkey science either. Its play rate will remain low and the very unfortunate confusion nerf recently has hit it real hard without any incentive to play it. Chrono already provides alac so there is no reason to take extra measures to play another alac class in the mesmer line. 

Mesmer is recommended for: Everyone

Necromancer

Scourge is like the legendary pokemon that is banned from tournaments. Sometimes I even forget I have a dodge button. Even Raid Academy says they will not consider validating Scourge raid logs, but everyone uses a masterball to catch it. Its not a particularly good healer, but when you raid, you bring 'enough heals', you don't need full harriers to complete raids and its one of the only especs that can sliding scale DPS into a healer to clear raids faster for exp teams. It can also do niche roles, like pylons, but unfortunately the snake can rarely pierce through the ground and not give aegis, making it unpopular to tank where group Aegis is needed (eg. Deimos).

Harbinger is least popular despite providing quickness. On very mobile fights, harbinger has issues with uptime, which is a big design problem. 

Reaper is the power alternative (fairly recently buffed) to Scourge, which is kitten on power. Condi reaper is pretty strong as well but has a low marketshare because it relies on ice fields which is the rarest field in the game.

Necromancer is recommended for: Players who can't dodge

Elementalist

Elementalist is fairly popular until 2017. Tempest is a gigachad healer that provides great green numbers, but green numbers are not what we need. A 180 radius restriction means might duration may be suboptimal in team fights and this requires more tricks to maintain on moving bosses. Some players will stay and main an ele healer, but a lot of marketshare will be lost to the next gigachad healer: Druid. Weaver and catalyst have too many buttons to press and the LI versions can hardly beat Tempest camping fire (39k) or tempest w 2 elements 43k or tempest w 3 elements (45k) in DPS. Don't get me started on how lousy heal quick catalyst is, its no wonder it has no marketshare. 

All 3 have reasons to be shunned in favor of better classes.

Elementalist is recommended for: Nobody

Engineer Mechanist

Engineers are traditionally one of the least played classes due to complexity, kits and having less weapons to choose from and holosmith was the only viable DPS alternative, its not even good. Scrapper with recent updates is a pretty good as a healer and quick DPS, leaving holosmith collecting dust. 

Everything changed with the dawn of mechanist and its autoattack rifle. Despite DPS being nerfed to the ground, it is a very reliable alac provider both (when the mecha listens to you), both support DPS and healing roles, and two relatively powerful auto attack weapons, hammer and rifle. For condi, p/p plus full signet is pretty much half automated. When you play mechanist, you don't play the game, the game plays you.

Mechanist is recommended for: Sleepy Joe

Ranger

There are only two meaningful especs in this group:

1. Druid for its gigachad heals and recently with the update, condi DPS is really strong now.
2. Soulbeast allows people who hates pets but like bows to actually play by removing the pet mechanic. It does both solid condi and power DPS. It is a very selfish handkite but is more popular than warrior or herald. 
3. Untamed Unplayed, please ignore this entry. Mechanist has replaced this class as the default pet DPS class. 

Ranger is recommended for: Gun-haters

Thief

Thief is a fairly unpopular class because of the time investment of complex interactions, multiple build loadouts required and having multiple equipment investment to match those load outs, legendaries are not enough, with some load outs, you can do crazy things, like solo Cairn, solo towers (and at least have portal as a backup). That kind of dedication is not what most players have signed up for. A deadeye revival occured during the Alac/Quickness balance patch which made it superpowered, but Anet's knee jerk hammered it back down, despite fairly useless solo or OW due to reliance on other teammates. The only way to make thief great again is Deadeye Quick-Heal 2024.

Secretly, there are a few raiders who still enter raids/strikes with P/P (33333) deadeye or staff (22222) dodge daredevil so they can deal decent damage while having lunch at the same time, because F1-5111111 is too difficult. If rifle mecha didn't exist, these auto build would have been more popular, watch this space for staff/pistol buffs.

That being said, spectre remains a fairly popular efficient eSpec because its a necromancer. Nothing is as inelegant as waving a chicken drumstick at your enemies. 

I main a thief now because I have a credit card, lots of gems and able to buy multiple equipment slots for each load out wishing that one day I don't need to swap characters for quick heal.

Thief is recommended for: If your team has no alacrity

Revenant Herald

When HOT was first released revenant was less played because not everyone had the expansion and not everyone has rev unlocked. But that slowly changed. The original firebrigade team dominated the PVE meta for at least half of the raiding lifespan from 2019 to 2022, providing quickness and alacrity through firebrand and renegade. Anet had 2 daughters, and initially they preferred the younger daughter, Firebrand. Fortunately for rev mains, Anet has a new son, Quick Herald, and with a new son, goes all the inheritance, being best in slot for everything, even niche roles.

Revenant is recommended for: Wanting the best quickie in the game.

Guardian Firebrand

When raids were first released, people needed a way to explore with 100% protection, defensive skills, aegis, burst heals and 25k DPS (7k was the average then). Hammer DH was one of the easiest ways to perform raids blind without pressing buttons. However, as people started to learn how to dodge and avoid damage, easy builds became less popular and players started chasing the stars. Better knowledge share on the wiki and online benchmarks also progressed that trend. Hammer DH fell out of favour, being a relatively selfish build compared to the alternative, Anet's favourite daughter, Firebrand, especially for fractals.

Firebrand is recommended for: Firebrand

Warrior

In 2017 I used to main a warrior when berserker was so powerful. I switched to other classes in POF, because not having a ranged weapon is so kitten and I didn't want to be a banner slave. When someone complained that their class needs a buff, I'd mention spellbreaker and win the argument because spellbreaker deserved a buff more than anything else. It was unusable in all game modes, even pvp.

When EOD came back and they did the quickness banner kitten, I mained warrior again. It was the best time for warrior. Warrior could do quickness on all its especs and even core. Spellbreaker was BiS for hand kite, being able to provide quick and hand kite at the same time. Spellbreaker was particularly buffed, with the dagger changes, and again later, hammer breaker. I am very sad that my spellbreaker can't give quickness on HK anymore, but it is less selfish than soulbeast.

Now with the latest update and quickness from banners removed... if you don't play berserker, I'm not sure what you are doing.

Recommended for: As long as you don't bladesworn

I agree with most. Warrior I honestly do not see much use beyond berserk. The other specs need some rework badly.
Necro is about what you said however reaper celestial is probably the highest self survival in the game currently in pve. The solo aspect is high. 100 bleed stacks and tons of self healing. Play it if you want to solo champions. It can get a bit boring though.
Revenant the same as necro. There is a celestial build that is tied with reapers celestial. It is amazing solo. 
The problem with revenant is your either going with a very boring herald quickness build..... boring herald open world..... vindi bunny mode dps.... and yeah. They kinda nerfed the hell out of renegade. Most of the rev builds are boring. I personally dont like the feel of vindi for the same reason I retired my daredevil after HoT. The jumpy jumpy gets old.

I do really hope to see some warrior rework though. It feels like warrior needed necro blood trait line. Necro enough survival without blood bank and the whole trait line. Also feels like spellbreaker should have been the high survival support. But I never see much reason to use spellbreaker. 

[Raarsi.6798]

19 hours ago, ohericoseo.4316 said:

I do really hope to see some warrior rework though. It feels like warrior needed necro blood trait line. Necro enough survival without blood bank and the whole trait line. Also feels like spellbreaker should have been the high survival support. But I never see much reason to use spellbreaker. 

As a warrior main (currently), I do see the occasional spellbreaker since the hammerbreaker build is still a thing even though they were a lot more popular prior to the zerker buff.  I definitely haven't seen any bladesworns in a long time, and the big reason is the Murphy's Law of GW2 stating that you will always need to dodge the second you start charging up your Dragon Trigger, although staff bladesworn could wind up as an interesting candidate for alac healer (it still won't be the best by a long shot though).

Also as a former revenant main who kept getting shoehorned into playing alacrigade for years even going into the start of EoD, I'm pretty happy that renegade has fallen into the miserable obscurity it deserves.  Maybe if it gets dev treatment, it'll finally be able to work underwater.

 

[Phyb.6704]

2 hours ago, Raarsi.6798 said:

As a warrior main (currently), I do see the occasional spellbreaker since the hammerbreaker build is still a thing even though they were a lot more popular prior to the zerker buff.  I definitely haven't seen any bladesworns in a long time, and the big reason is the Murphy's Law of GW2 stating that you will always need to dodge the second you start charging up your Dragon Trigger, although staff bladesworn could wind up as an interesting candidate for alac healer (it still won't be the best by a long shot though).

Also as a former revenant main who kept getting shoehorned into playing alacrigade for years even going into the start of EoD, I'm pretty happy that renegade has fallen into the miserable obscurity it deserves.  Maybe if it gets dev treatment, it'll finally be able to work underwater.

 

I agree about alacregade and honestly.... feel that way about quicknes herald. I do miss battle scars having good healing power scaling though. It was fun to drop kalla's icerazor and swap to shiro. The battle scars play style with kalla was fun though not meta. Sadly now rev since EoD is honestly.... really boring. All the play style builds I enjoyed really dont work anymore. For me whom mained rev for years its kinda just dead to me tbh. 

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Profession (Playtime)

#1 Guardian

151,876,538 hours (15.68%)

#2 Necromancer

138,190,092 hours (14.27%)

#3 Ranger

128,741,292 hours (13.29%)

#4 Warrior

117,058,990 hours (12.09%)

#5 Elementalist

111,306,180 hours (11.49%)

#6 Mesmer

103,708,850 hours (10.71%)

#7 Thief

90,953,946 hours (9.39%)

#8 Engineer

71,310,852 hours (7.36%)

#9 Revenant

55,396,996 hours (5.72%)

 

https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics