What are the classes the devs dont play so i can avoid wasting my time.

[Panda.1967]

29 minutes ago, asket.5674 said:

Nobody will say ranger, ranger is just a bloated and absurdly stuffed profession. All classes are more or less the same favored except for ranger, ranger is for some reason getting stuff other classes are lacking for years. Like qol mechanics as using stealth skills while revealed. 
 

so if you want your treats every balance or expac, play ranger. Its the easiest class in the game and has a truckload of viable builds. 

Ranger actually does have some problems that its players have been complaining about for years… most notably how bad the pet AI is…

regarding the “QoL mechanic of using stealth skills while revealed”… its not actually a QoL mechanic… ranger spear was just very poorly thought out. Having stealth skills on 2-5 is a neat idea on paper, but in practice it is actually detrimental and largely non-functional. It is all to easy to burn tour stealth with an auto-attack, and Ranger has a lot of delayed damage and continual damage abilities that will end their stealth prematurely. It was clear that the “new innovative mechanic” of Ranger spear was non-functional and was going to need something to fix it.

[asket.5674]

16 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

Ranger actually does have some problems that its players have been complaining about for years… most notably how bad the pet AI is…

regarding the “QoL mechanic of using stealth skills while revealed”… its not actually a QoL mechanic… ranger spear was just very poorly thought out. Having stealth skills on 2-5 is a neat idea on paper, but in practice it is actually detrimental and largely non-functional. It is all to easy to burn tour stealth with an auto-attack, and Ranger has a lot of delayed damage and continual damage abilities that will end their stealth prematurely. It was clear that the “new innovative mechanic” of Ranger spear was non-functional and was going to need something to fix it.

besides the pet ai certainly a problem, thieves dont have! You should try playing something else than ranger sometimes.

[Panda.1967]

6 hours ago, asket.5674 said:

besides the pet ai certainly a problem, thieves dont have! You should try playing something else than ranger sometimes.

I do, I play every class. I mostly play Mesmer and Elementalist. Infact, Ranger is my 3rd least played class… Thief and Revenant being the ones I play the least because I hate their mechanics. There are issues everywhere.

Edited August 17 by Panda.1967

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 8/17/2024 at 12:03 AM, asket.5674 said:

Nobody will say ranger, ranger is just a bloated and absurdly stuffed profession. All classes are more or less the same favored except for ranger, ranger is for some reason getting stuff other classes are lacking for years. Like qol mechanics as using stealth skills while revealed. 
 

so if you want your treats every balance or expac, play ranger. Its the easiest class in the game and has a truckload of viable builds. 

Weird take.  Stealth taking up one of your weapon skill slots as a prerequisite for being effective with the rest of your weapon skills is not a design to be envied.  It might work out in PvP/WvW, but for PvE this is unlikely to ever be competitive.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Weird take.  Stealth taking up one of your weapon skill slots as a prerequisite for being effective with the rest of your weapon skills is not a design to be envied.  It might work out in PvP/WvW, but for PvE this is unlikely to ever be competitive.

Not all tools have the versatility necessary to be effective in every gamemodes. Boon hate, some non damaging conditions, projectile hate, cleanse, stealth or even CC are a lot more effective in competitive modes than in PvE. The devs might try to somehow even the field, however, even after 12 years there is still a huge gap in effectiveness for those tools.

Edited August 18 by Dadnir.5038

[draxynnic.3719]

On 8/17/2024 at 2:09 AM, ascii.1369 said:

I agree but to be fair, that seems to be a more general quirk of Anet. They keep adding mechanics from other classes to specs as if that's what players want. It apparently hasn't crossed their minds that if mesmers wanted to play ranger that's what they'd play. Or if thiefs wanted to play necro that's what they'd do. Class identity has been slowly eroded for years now.

People were asking for mesmers to have a clone-free option well before virtuoso was announced, even if some vocal mesmer players instantly hated it. And in some ways, this makes virtuoso less like ranger than core mesmer, since both core mesmer and core ranger have "relying on AI allies for a portion of your effectiveness" as part of their core mechanics, and virtuoso substantially reduces that.

Spectre... I don't recall if anyone asked for anything shroud-like specifically, but some spiritual successor to shadow form is something I recall being discussed, and given that ArenaNet was probably not going to remake permasin, a shroud-like mechanic was probably a logical approach there.

It was acknowledged right when elite specialisations were first announced that one of the things they'd be doing with them is making elite specialisations that are essentially like taking a secondary profession in GW1, so some blurring of profession lines was always to be expected. 

[Supernova Starr.2069]

On 8/18/2024 at 2:25 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Weird take.  Stealth taking up one of your weapon skill slots as a prerequisite for being effective with the rest of your weapon skills is not a design to be envied.  It might work out in PvP/WvW, but for PvE this is unlikely to ever be competitive.

Lmao, it's because comments like this that ranger keeps getting buffs on top of buffs

[AliamRationem.5172]

29 minutes ago, Supernova Starr.2069 said:

Lmao, it's because comments like this that ranger keeps getting buffs on top of buffs

It has nothing to do with ranger.  It's just how game design works.  You have 5 skills on a weapon bar and you're balancing for X amount of damage.  You decide the 5 skill is going to be a non-damaging conditional that changes the functionality of 2-4.  So, either you can add utility functions (e.g. CC, boons, etc.) to these conditional effects or you can make them more powerful in terms of damage (which thematically makes more sense when the conditional is a stealth/ambush interaction).  In the latter case, your damage is still balanced around X, which necessarily means 2-4 are weaker in their non-conditional state.  If it didn't work that way, either the conditional would have to produce no additional damage (i.e. utility functions) or you exceed X because 2-4 deal enough damage on their own but become overtuned when using the conditional on 5. 

That's strictly a disadvantage (in PvE, where stealth is useless).  You have an extra button to push to do what you would have done without it.  You lose a skill on 5 to stealth.  And you have a rotation that can potentially fail depending on what happens between activating stealth and your intended attack.

Edited August 19 by AliamRationem.5172

[Varis.5467]

Save yourself the trouble. 

Just play guardian.

[Buran.3796]

6 hours ago, Varis.5467 said:

Save yourself the trouble. 

Just play guardian.

   ...Which has been out of the PvP meta for half a year, and starts with 11k HP and low mobility ...   I moved from maining Guardian and don't miss it.

[Angesombre.4630]

For my part, I'd say Warrior, Revenant, Engineer.

Warrior still underrated.

Revenant always bad Anet choices and a lot of nerfing without bug fixes for years. And weird weapons that aren't necessarily very useful, like the scepter. I have to say, though, that the spear isn't perfect, but it's gotten better. I'd have liked a weapon like the thief, a real hybrid that could be played with power or alteration. Still hate spam 5.

Engineer Some dubious choices in my opinion, like the quickness change for example.

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

Classes the devs are clueless about:

• Warrior
• Revenant
• Engineer

Classes the devs don’t care about:

• Thief
• Elementalist

Classes the devs love but don’t understand:

• Ranger
• Mesmer
• Necromancer

Meanwhile guardian is still settling back in line after the blatant favouritism of the previous dev.  It may be most appropriate to categorise it as one the devs don’t care about.

Pick between ranger, mesmer or necro but don’t expect the classes to be masterfully crafted.  There are plenty of major issues that have plagued these classes for years despite the favouritism.

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

Classes the devs are clueless about:

• Warrior
• Revenant
• Engineer

Classes the devs don’t care about:

• Thief
• Elementalist

Classes the devs love but don’t understand:

• Ranger
• Mesmer
• Necromancer

Meanwhile guardian is still settling back in line after the blatant favouritism of the previous dev.  It may be most appropriate to categorise it as one the devs don’t care about.

Pick between ranger, mesmer or necro but don’t expect the classes to be masterfully crafted.  There are plenty of major issues that have plagued these classes for years despite the favouritism.

Elementalist probably fits more into "don't understand" than "don't care about", with part of it being not understanding what a significant part of the playerbase really want out of it and how that would actually work. Although it wouldn't surprise me if there's a bit of resentment from elementalist weapons requiring more work than others leading to cutting corners without considering the consequences.

Guardian is an odd case between the firebrand favouritism of the previous dev (his favouritism was to specific builds and weapons, not professions as a whole - there are others he favoured but which actually suffered as a result because he buffed what he liked while leaving the rest to rot) and because they got the fundamentals for core guardian pretty much bang on in the pre-HoT trait rework and it just hasn't needed as much attention as others as a result. Pistols show that they can still do stupid things with guardian, though.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

The devs absolutely understand their classes, and how they are currently being used. They just don't have the same goals for them and don't value our build opinions over our own. They have a rather specific build design for how they want each skill and trait to be used, which flies in the face of the OG GW and even early GW2 open build design, and are sticking to their guns except under vocal (read: popular streamers) opposition. What they don't understand is how we will react and find new new adaptations for their balance choices.

I'm actually extremely and pleasantly surprised they listened to our feedback for the spears, and I hope that trend continues.

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Elementalist probably fits more into "don't understand" than "don't care about", with part of it being not understanding what a significant part of the playerbase really want out of it and how that would actually work. Although it wouldn't surprise me if there's a bit of resentment from elementalist weapons requiring more work than others leading to cutting corners without considering the consequences.

Guardian is an odd case between the firebrand favouritism of the previous dev (his favouritism was to specific builds and weapons, not professions as a whole - there are others he favoured but which actually suffered as a result because he buffed what he liked while leaving the rest to rot) and because they got the fundamentals for core guardian pretty much bang on in the pre-HoT trait rework and it just hasn't needed as much attention as others as a result. Pistols show that they can still do stupid things with guardian, though.

Yeah I wasn’t sure where to put elementalist.  Their attitude during the spear demo and the spear skills themselves portray a disdain for the class.  The state catalyst has been left in is further evidence for this but the recent attention towards tempest shows the class is not entirely off their radar like guardian and warrior.  Guardian appears to be off their radar because to them it is good enough and doesn’t need attention, which is my bad for conflating the two distinctions under the one banner.  Thief, as well, feels like they only make pointed concessions when the community screeches loud enough.  They do not appear to have a fleshed-out vision for thief.

Its just very depressing that every class has major flaws and anti-synergies, and they’re too busy buffing ranger’s power weapons to bother with any of it.

[Teknomancer.4895]

On 8/15/2024 at 2:13 PM, Panda.1967 said:

Virtuoso performing as good as it does actually shows off exactly why core/chrono/mirage need improvement.

I'd agree with this for PvE, with an emphasis on Mirage. Yes Chrono could use some tweaks but overall isn't in a bad place, and honestly Core+Weaponmaster is surprisingly viable; I have an alt acct with Core+SotO only, so Core is the only build option available on that acct for all classes.

Mirage, however, always seems to get the short end of the stick for balance patches. Virt is just so easy to play that it seems to be the one that gets the most attention. 🤷‍♂️ 

[Doggie.3184]

Guardian has been flawless since launch. Necro would be 2nd place.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

11 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

The devs absolutely understand their classes, and how they are currently being used. They just don't have the same goals for them and don't value our build opinions over our own. They have a rather specific build design for how they want each skill and trait to be used, which flies in the face of the OG GW and even early GW2 open build design, and are sticking to their guns except under vocal (read: popular streamers) opposition. What they don't understand is how we will react and find new new adaptations for their balance choices.

I'm actually extremely and pleasantly surprised they listened to our feedback for the spears, and I hope that trend continues.

Pretty much this.  Making suggestions on improving a game is a bit like arguing with a person who never outwardly states their ideas, their intentions, or even if they're listening.  In a sense, it is like arguing with a paradigm that never says what it actually is.  That makes it difficult, because it requires a great deal of accurate mind-reading to get anything done.  

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

Guardian has been flawless since launch. Necro would be 2nd place.

Guardian has its flaws, even now, and it's had some that have been fixed. It certainly is in a better state than most, though - the issues are more "pebble in shoe" level when some others are sporting sprained ankles and fractured shinbones.

[Teknomancer.4895]

8 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

Guardian has been flawless since launch. Necro would be 2nd place.

True, Guardian (and its variants) appears to be the balance team's Golden Child and has thus been overtuned for quite some time. I wouldn't go so far as to call it "flawless," though.

Core Necro, however, is in a dreadful state of disrepair. Necro e-specs are basically fine but its Core specs (especially the shroud) are a hot mess, Weaponmastery or not. It's like they were all tuned to synergize with Reaper/Harb/Scourge, while forgetting that they should also work with each other. Even just tuning up the vanilla shroud would go a long way toward making Core Necro not completely worthless.

[XenesisII.1540]

On 8/24/2024 at 9:22 AM, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

Classes the devs love but don’t understand:

• Mesmer

Thanks for the laugh of the day.

They're loved so much they're the only class to be punished by losing a dodge for 3 years because the devs didn't care enough to make a proper adjustment.

🙄

[Rogue.8235]

The developers don't "main" classes.  They holistically develop the game.  Classes are merely a component of the game in the same way that maps are.  Only players have a "main" in which they view the entire game.  Only players limit the entire game to 1/9 (11%) of the total game.

As a player I play the game, not a single profession.  Again, to limit yourself to a single profession is limiting yourself to only 11% of the game.  This game is excellent at account0wide progression, which is how the game should be viewed as.  You have an account with multiple characters.  Each character is not a separate account.

[draxynnic.3719]

48 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

The developers don't "main" classes.  They holistically develop the game.  Classes are merely a component of the game in the same way that maps are.  Only players have a "main" in which they view the entire game.  Only players limit the entire game to 1/9 (11%) of the total game.

As a player I play the game, not a single profession.  Again, to limit yourself to a single profession is limiting yourself to only 11% of the game.  This game is excellent at account0wide progression, which is how the game should be viewed as.  You have an account with multiple characters.  Each character is not a separate account.

Eh. While I play all professions, the very concept of a "main" is not that you play that thing exclusively, it's just that you play that thing... more than the others. I definitely have some professions I play more than others, and I'd be willing to bet you do too.

As people have said, some of the devs, including the balance devs, have been upfront about having a main (but generally not an exclusive main). The real question is how much, if any, favouritism there is as a result. The last balance lead got caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, but I'm not convinced that favouritism is the problem now.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

2 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

The developers don't "main" classes.  They holistically develop the game.  Classes are merely a component of the game in the same way that maps are.  Only players have a "main" in which they view the entire game.  Only players limit the entire game to 1/9 (11%) of the total game.

As a player I play the game, not a single profession.  Again, to limit yourself to a single profession is limiting yourself to only 11% of the game.  This game is excellent at account0wide progression, which is how the game should be viewed as.  You have an account with multiple characters.  Each character is not a separate account.

This is disingenuous. I can experience a vast majority of what the game has to offer on a single toon. The game is much MUCH bigger than just classes. I suppose you could say I'm limiting myself to certain playstyles, but not "the game."

I can also main a class (i.e. spend the majority of my time on one class) and still experience playstyles of the other classes by playing some of them periodically.

[Rogue.8235]

23 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Eh. While I play all professions, the very concept of a "main" is not that you play that thing exclusively, it's just that you play that thing... more than the others. I definitely have some professions I play more than others, and I'd be willing to bet you do too.

As people have said, some of the devs, including the balance devs, have been upfront about having a main (but generally not an exclusive main). The real question is how much, if any, favouritism there is as a result. The last balance lead got caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, but I'm not convinced that favouritism is the problem now.

 

22 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

This is disingenuous. I can experience a vast majority of what the game has to offer on a single toon. The game is much MUCH bigger than just classes. I suppose you could say I'm limiting myself to certain playstyles, but not "the game."

I can also main a class (i.e. spend the majority of my time on one class) and still experience playstyles of the other classes by playing some of them periodically.

 

 

Again, players are conflating/equivocating their perception of the game with a developer's.  In the same manner that a painter does not play favorites with a specific brush stroke, neither do the developers.  The idea that there is "class favoritism" from a development perspective is just absurd.  The creator views their creation in totality.  

Yes, there are some professions I play more than others.  I still don't care what gets nerfed or buffed as I enjoy every profession.  More accurately, I get bored playing the same profession too many days in a row so switch out frequently, just to keep the combat experience fresh.