Balance Issues - Why were they not ironed out beforehand?

[Vagrant.7206]

I'm not going to say that this is an easy game to balance. It's complicated, with many interweaving mechanics. But balance is one of those important factors that needs to be examined critically when implementing new content. When one class is unusually powerful and gets nerfed, players for the class cry foul. When one class is unusually weak and gets buffed, other players cry foul. By not ironing out balance, damage, CC's, etc. beforehand, ANet is setting itself up for complaints of all sorts. It breeds distrust among players and ultimately hurts the game's perception. In the long run, the wild balance swings make the PvP scene intolerable and causes players to leave the PvP scene, if not the entire game. As an engineer myself, I'm well aware of the nerf hammer, and saddened that the lack of quick balance corrections results in me not wanting to play my own preferred class.

With the latest expansion coming out and all sorts of wonky balance (which many noticed in the preview weekends), I can't help but wonder if ArenaNet spent much time at all considering balance? Let's take a look at the new elite specs and figure out what is going wrong:

• Spellbreaker is pretty much only useful in PvP, but I think this was ANet's design intention.
• Firebrand has incredible DPS in PvE, but rarely appear in PvP. I haven't played it enough to know why, but I suspect it's the lack of cover condis in PvP, which is also the reason they do so well in PvE.
• I haven't seen enough renegades to have an informed opinion about them.
• Deadeye is almost objectively worse than existing builds in PvP, and it's also worse in PvE. It needs to be made worth the time, but not overpowered either. ANet leaned too strongly towards preventing OP status, and resulted in an elite spec that landed with a dull thud.
• Holosmith has underwhelming DPS in both PvE and PvP compared to existing builds. It's even more glassy than existing, better builds. I know that its damaged wowed people at first, but that was the only factor it had going for it before it got ninja nerfed.
• I haven't seen enough soulbeasts to make an informed opinion. It's one of the more complicated elite specs though, so it may take some time to figure out.
• Weaver seems to be overperforming in both PvE and PvP. I don't play the class myself, so I don't know what's going on, but they seem capable of both incredible tanking and DPS output at the same time.
• Scourge is underperforming in PvE and overperforming in PvP, due to the way its mechanics are designed. Some bugs need to be fixed or numbers tweaked, but it's weird how this dichotomy emerged.
• I haven't seen enough mirages to make an informed opinion.

ArenaNet, please consider making balance changes more frequently. The last two years have been abysmal for the rate of balance changes. What happened to the days of GW1 where balance occurred every week, and then major balance changes once every month or two?

[blastingmnktpoo.9637]

I have gotten better dps with both Holosmith and Scourge in PvE than their base and HoT equivalents. As well as i have had luck with firebrand in PvP. Everything is up in the air right now because the community hasn't realized the potential of each class yet, most people are still learning about their new spec. For the most part all of the PoF elite specs are much harder to play then their HoT counterparts as well. We aren't going to be able to judge balance for a little bit at least.

[LUST.2305]

I feel like out of the 14k hours going into PoF QA testing, <1hr was PvP.

Balance changes that need to happen for PoF PvP, imo:

• Scourge's AoEs are way too spammable and the radius is way too large for PvP. Damage needs to be scaled down, cooldowns lengthened, and the radius needs to be way smaller. Trail of Anguish is pretty much the old Slick Shoes but does ridiculous damage and lasts longer. Scourge is the biggest cheese out of all the PoF specs so far. They are weak to range, but by the time you ranged them (and you somehow avoided all the spam 1v1)...they already captured the point and got 50+ points for their team.
• Firebrand, even with all the boons has almost no survivability and seems like a support spec. Boon stripping them is way too easy and the condi cleanse of Mantra of Lore has almost no effect against Scourge's constant condi spam.
• Mirage is super strong in 1v1 engagements, but most players are throwing away using Portal and Moa which really makes them quite useless in team fights (especially against Scourge--land a Moa, end a Scourge). It's like they never watched or learned anything from Helseth
• Holosmith...Damage is okay but the lack of any real combo fields, combo finishers, low mobility, sword being terrible, shield being terrible, and exceed skills being very lackluster...Holosmith's best purpose is to +1 fights unlike Scrapper where you can actually support yourself and a team. I think the way Bear Stance works should be how Coolant Blast + Cauterize should work because Holosmiths have very little sustainability against Condi.
• Spellbreaker is ridiculously sustainable...it's almost as annoying as the old Endure Pain nonsense. Maybe a few tweaks here and there to tone it down a bit, but should be fine as is. Does Endure Pain and Defiant Stance still contribute to point capture? If so, I'd remove that at least.
• On the fence with Weaver, they do a lot of damage and do have a high survivability...but at the same time they are way more useful than bunker Ele because of it. Focusing them down is way easier at least.
• Deadeye is a hit-or-miss. Mostly just bad players playing them (which is almost always the case for Thieves). They have their weakness by not being able to exploit their mobility to decap at the expense of a huge burst damage to single targets. Doesn't help that 99.1% of thieves have never watched Sindrener to really see how valuable a thief can be to change the outcome of games.
• Soulbeast isn't as sustainable as Druid (like they wouldn't bunker a point against 3 players as easily), but they are like my opinions on Weaver. I really think Bow damage should be toned down if anything.

[BurrTheKing.8571]

You can't make Defy Pain not contribute to capture, it's not an invuln. You can still hit them with condis and life steal. If they wanna make it an actual short invuln though, it can not contribute to the capture.

[Vagrant.7206]

@blastingmnktpoo.9637 said:I have gotten better dps with both Holosmith and Scourge in PvE than their base and HoT equivalents. As well as i have had luck with firebrand in PvP. Everything is up in the air right now because the community hasn't realized the potential of each class yet, most people are still learning about their new spec. For the most part all of the PoF elite specs are much harder to play then their HoT counterparts as well. We aren't going to be able to judge balance for a little bit at least.

I disagree. Scrapper was more complicated than Holosmith, for example.

[Exciton.8942]

As for mirage, I can tell you that even Helseth won't take moa.

It is a 180s CD, super high risk skill. It can be countered by any defensive measure or thing like bind or simply go to the side or back of the mirage and it will fail.

Moa is only strong because its CD got effectively reduced to 90 or so seconds by chronomancer F5. It is not worth taking w/o it.

[setdog.1592]

@Vagrant.7206 said:Balance Issues - Why were they not ironed out beforehand?

Because there would be no games to play if developers had to wait until the game was perfect.

Balance can never be achieved, its just something to aim for. in other words, getting close to a balanced game is actually a tremendous accomplishmentand the devs should be lauded for it.

[bluff.8962]

I agree, scourge needs to be balanced down quite a bit and spell breaker longer cd on fullcounter

[ArthurDent.9538]

@LUST.7241 said:I feel like out of the 14k hours going into PoF QA testing, <1hr was PvP.

Balance changes that need to happen for PoF PvP, imo:

• Scourge's AoEs are way too spammable and the radius is way too large for PvP. Damage needs to be scaled down, cooldowns lengthened, and the radius needs to be way smaller. Trail of Anguish is pretty much the old Slick Shoes but does ridiculous damage and lasts longer. Scourge is the biggest cheese out of all the PoF specs so far. They are weak to range, but by the time you ranged them (and you somehow avoided all the spam 1v1)...they already captured the point and got 50+ points for their team.
• Firebrand, even with all the boons has almost no survivability and seems like a support spec. Boon stripping them is way too easy and the condi cleanse of Mantra of Lore has almost no effect against Scourge's constant condi spam.
• Mirage is super strong in 1v1 engagements, but most players are throwing away using Portal and Moa which really makes them quite useless in team fights (especially against Scourge--land a Moa, end a Scourge). It's like they never watched or learned anything from Helseth
• Holosmith...Damage is okay but the lack of any real combo fields, combo finishers, low mobility, sword being terrible, shield being terrible, and exceed skills being very lackluster...Holosmith's best purpose is to +1 fights unlike Scrapper where you can actually support yourself and a team. I think the way Bear Stance works should be how Coolant Blast + Cauterize should work because Holosmiths have very little sustainability against Condi.
• Spellbreaker is ridiculously sustainable...it's almost as annoying as the old Endure Pain nonsense. Maybe a few tweaks here and there to tone it down a bit, but should be fine as is. Does Endure Pain and Defiant Stance still contribute to point capture? If so, I'd remove that at least.
• On the fence with Weaver, they do a lot of damage and do have a high survivability...but at the same time they are way more useful than bunker Ele because of it. Focusing them down is way easier at least.
• Deadeye is a hit-or-miss. Mostly just bad players playing them (which is almost always the case for Thieves). They have their weakness by not being able to exploit their mobility to decap at the expense of a huge burst damage to single targets. Doesn't help that 99.1% of thieves have never watched Sindrener to really see how valuable a thief can be to change the outcome of games.
• Soulbeast isn't as sustainable as Druid (like they wouldn't bunker a point against 3 players as easily), but they are like my opinions on Weaver. I really think Bow damage should be toned down if anything.

And for renegade, I don't know seen like 3 total and they all died easily while not doing much of anything.

[R E F L H E X.8413]

@Vagrant.7206 said:What happened to the days of GW1 where balance occurred every week, and then major balance changes once every month or two?

I dont think this is well known in the gw2 playerbase but gw1 did get a lot of pvp attention. I dont understand how we ended up with such little formats for a company that was so pvp oriented.

They do do a lot of things right compared to other companies in pvp like not having to grind armor and have armor based pvp and its more pay to play than pay to win. They are definitely better at pvp than trion, however I like some of trions formats for pvp.

Codex/sealed deck is a cool concept in an mmo to get people playing different things Id also like to see this return as well as normal arenas. Some days mesmers would be forced to run something like scepter and utilities not normally used if they go mesmer etc etc.

I'm still dissapointed about smiters boon though.

[Swagg.9236]

Said this before, but GW2 is too shallow for 9 classes. Balance issues come from the fact that this game has too many professions for its own good. PvP isn't in tune with PvE like it was in GW1, so that gives the devs excuses to release niche specs that will either never see use or use only in certain circumstances. Everyone asking for buffs at this point doesn't understand that GW2 is already way in over its head when it comes to the things that any one player can do on any given class.

Mechanically speaking, there isn't a lot to do in GW2, and so when we have 9 classes (even 8 was far too many), its entirely a craps shoot as to which class gets which abilities to what extent (since everybody already basically does the same thing as everyone else on some level). The only way to "iron out" GW2's balance issues would be to delete 5 classes and just consolidate the good mechanics into the remaining ones. That'll never happen, though, so enjoy your arbitrary balance. Maybe one day, the class you like will have a playstyle that you like which will also be meta viable in some way.

[R E F L H E X.8413]

@Swagg.9236 said:Maybe one day, the class you like will have a playstyle that you like which will also be meta viable in some way.Still hoping for mes to get something that strays away from shatter into interrupts the psychic/domination side of gw1 mes.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Vagrant.7206 said:I'm not going to say that this is an easy game to balance. It's complicated, with many interweaving mechanics. But balance is one of those important factors that needs to be examined critically when implementing new content. When one class is unusually powerful and gets nerfed, players for the class cry foul. When one class is unusually weak and gets buffed, other players cry foul. By not ironing out balance, damage, CC's, etc. beforehand, ANet is setting itself up for complaints of all sorts. It breeds distrust among players and ultimately hurts the game's perception. In the long run, the wild balance swings make the PvP scene intolerable and causes players to leave the PvP scene, if not the entire game. As an engineer myself, I'm well aware of the nerf hammer, and saddened that the lack of quick balance corrections results in me not wanting to play my own preferred class.

With the latest expansion coming out and all sorts of wonky balance (which many noticed in the preview weekends), I can't help but wonder if ArenaNet spent much time at all considering balance? Let's take a look at the new elite specs and figure out what is going wrong:

• Spellbreaker is pretty much only useful in PvP, but I think this was ANet's design intention.
• Firebrand has incredible DPS in PvE, but rarely appear in PvP. I haven't played it enough to know why, but I suspect it's the lack of cover condis in PvP, which is also the reason they do so well in PvE.
• I haven't seen enough renegades to have an informed opinion about them.
• Deadeye is almost objectively worse than existing builds in PvP, and it's also worse in PvE. It needs to be made worth the time, but not overpowered either. ANet leaned too strongly towards preventing OP status, and resulted in an elite spec that landed with a dull thud.
• Holosmith has underwhelming DPS in both PvE and PvP compared to existing builds. It's even more glassy than existing, better builds. I know that its damaged wowed people at first, but that was the only factor it had going for it before it got ninja nerfed.
• I haven't seen enough soulbeasts to make an informed opinion. It's one of the more complicated elite specs though, so it may take some time to figure out.
• Weaver seems to be overperforming in both PvE and PvP. I don't play the class myself, so I don't know what's going on, but they seem capable of both incredible tanking and DPS output at the same time.
• Scourge is underperforming in PvE and overperforming in PvP, due to the way its mechanics are designed. Some bugs need to be fixed or numbers tweaked, but it's weird how this dichotomy emerged.
• I haven't seen enough mirages to make an informed opinion.

ArenaNet, please consider making balance changes more frequently. The last two years have been abysmal for the rate of balance changes. What happened to the days of GW1 where balance occurred every week, and then major balance changes once every month or two?

-Weaver OP in pvp/pve?.....the only weavers I see are in wvw...where they try to 1v1 people and lose everytime, they're non existent in pvp teams or wvw zergs. You must be confusing yourself with some tempest you've seen in pvp when he was paired with a scourge who increased his apparent sustain and for pve you only seen a video of a guy using weaver full glass bugged build on a stationary target golem ..so basically it only showed what ele has always been good at: large stationary hitbox, by comparison a sword weaver with same build only achieved 25k DPS-Spellbreaker only useful in PvP?....I beg your pardon but right now pretty much every single zerg in wvw from t1 to t5 uses at least 5-6 spellbreakers out of 40-50 people and there are near unkillable gank groups made up entirely of spellbreakers-Holosmith...underwhelming DPS in pvp/pve?... a holosmith combo can literally eat 80% of your HP in one go and they have great level of sustain with elixir S/stealth/heling turret and plethora of CC. I have seen holosmith surviving the assault of 2-3 people like nothing both in pvp and in wvw ( pve)

[R E F L H E X.8413]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:-Weaver OP in pvp/pve?.....the only weavers I see are in wvw...where they try to 1v1 people and lose everytime, they're non existent in pvp teams or wvw zergs. You must be confusing yourself with some tempest you've seen in pvp when he was paired with a scourge who increased his apparent sustain and for pve you only seen a video of a guy using weaver full glass bugged build on a stationary target golem ..so basically it only showed what ele has always been good at: large stationary hitbox as I am sure you know a sword weaver by comparison with same build only achieved 25k DPS

I met a good weaver last night named koto z... after I got on his team two times after fighting him the warrior on the other team was like shit its koto z again, id have said the same thing.

[Arheundel.6451]

@R E F L H E X.8413 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:-Weaver OP in pvp/pve?.....the only weavers I see are in wvw...where they try to 1v1 people and lose everytime, they're non existent in pvp teams or wvw zergs. You must be confusing yourself with some tempest you've seen in pvp when he was paired with a scourge who increased his apparent sustain and for pve you only seen a video of a guy using weaver full glass bugged build on a stationary target golem ..so basically it only showed what ele has always been good at: large stationary hitbox as I am sure you know a sword weaver by comparison with same build only achieved 25k DPS

I met a good weaver last night named koto z... after I got on his team two times after fighting him the warrior on the other team was like kitten its koto z again,

The next sensible choice is to play a mender weaver to increase your personal sustain but effectively you're not much use to anybody and you still can't win any fight unless the opponent is terrible, even more with a mender amulet you'd do even less dmg than your already negligible one

[Arheundel.6451]

double post

[Vagrant.7206]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:I'm not going to say that this is an easy game to balance. It's complicated, with many interweaving mechanics. But balance is one of those important factors that needs to be examined critically when implementing new content. When one class is unusually powerful and gets nerfed, players for the class cry foul. When one class is unusually weak and gets buffed, other players cry foul. By not ironing out balance, damage, CC's, etc. beforehand, ANet is setting itself up for complaints of all sorts. It breeds distrust among players and ultimately hurts the game's perception. In the long run, the wild balance swings make the PvP scene intolerable and causes players to leave the PvP scene, if not the entire game. As an engineer myself, I'm well aware of the nerf hammer, and saddened that the lack of quick balance corrections results in me not wanting to play my own preferred class.

With the latest expansion coming out and all sorts of wonky balance (which many noticed in the preview weekends), I can't help but wonder if ArenaNet spent much time at all considering balance? Let's take a look at the new elite specs and figure out what is going wrong:

• Spellbreaker is pretty much only useful in PvP, but I think this was ANet's design intention.
• Firebrand has incredible DPS in PvE, but rarely appear in PvP. I haven't played it enough to know why, but I suspect it's the lack of cover condis in PvP, which is also the reason they do so well in PvE.
• I haven't seen enough renegades to have an informed opinion about them.
• Deadeye is almost objectively worse than existing builds in PvP, and it's also worse in PvE. It needs to be made worth the time, but not overpowered either. ANet leaned too strongly towards preventing OP status, and resulted in an elite spec that landed with a dull thud.
• Holosmith has underwhelming DPS in both PvE and PvP compared to existing builds. It's even more glassy than existing, better builds. I know that its damaged wowed people at first, but that was the only factor it had going for it before it got ninja nerfed.
• I haven't seen enough soulbeasts to make an informed opinion. It's one of the more complicated elite specs though, so it may take some time to figure out.
• Weaver seems to be overperforming in both PvE and PvP. I don't play the class myself, so I don't know what's going on, but they seem capable of both incredible tanking and DPS output at the same time.
• Scourge is underperforming in PvE and overperforming in PvP, due to the way its mechanics are designed. Some bugs need to be fixed or numbers tweaked, but it's weird how this dichotomy emerged.
• I haven't seen enough mirages to make an informed opinion.

ArenaNet, please consider making balance changes more frequently. The last two years have been abysmal for the rate of balance changes. What happened to the days of GW1 where balance occurred every week, and then major balance changes once every month or two?

-Weaver OP in pvp/pve?.....the only weavers I see are in wvw...where they try to 1v1 people and lose everytime, they're non existent in pvp teams or wvw zergs. You must be confusing yourself with some tempest you've seen in pvp

when he was paired with a scourge who increased his apparent sustain

and for pve you only seen a video of a guy using weaver full glass bugged build on a stationary target golem ..so basically it only showed what ele has always been good at: large stationary hitbox, by comparison a sword weaver with same build only achieved 25k DPS-Spellbreaker only useful in PvP?....I beg your pardon but right now pretty much every single zerg in wvw from t1 to t5 uses at least 5-6 spellbreakers out of 40-50 people and there are near unkillable gank groups made up entirely of spellbreakers-Holosmith...underwhelming DPS in pvp/pve?... a holosmith combo can literally eat 80% of your HP in one go and they have great level of sustain with elixir S/stealth/heling turret and plethora of CC. I have seen holosmith surviving the assault of 2-3 people like nothing both in pvp and in wvw ( pve)

1) No, I am referring to weaver. Just not one of the ones who's still figuring out how to play it.2) I don't play WvW, but it is technically a form of PvP, so thanks.3) I encourage you to read the engineer subforum (https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/categories/engineer) right now. If the holosmith combo is eating 80% of your HP, you are either terrible at dodging, or terrible at dealing damage.

[Razor.6392]

@Vagrant.7206 said:

• Weaver seems to be overperforming in both PvE and PvP.

LMAO no. Scepter weaver is objectively worse than core FA. Staff still has no place in pvp, dagger I haven't found a build that can survive and sword idk but I've seen some competent weavers using it.

[Zoltreez.6435]

@LUST.7241 said:

• Scourge's AoEs are way too spammable and the radius is way too large for PvP. Damage needs to be scaled down, cooldowns lengthened, and the radius needs to be way smaller.

so you want to make scourge a forgotten useless Spec in all existing gamemodes ?

also reduced radius ? WUT ? freaking go and play scourge its one of the most annoying thing is manage and trying to hit with 3 tiny shades that everyone runs out and away from..... you reduce the radius of shades even more and you prety much delete the shades from the game....

If your talking about savant... you do know necros give up 33% of their dmg for that trait right ?

another crying that just want to ruin a class without knowing the mechanics.....

[Arheundel.6451]

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:I'm not going to say that this is an easy game to balance. It's complicated, with many interweaving mechanics. But balance is one of those important factors that needs to be examined critically when implementing new content. When one class is unusually powerful and gets nerfed, players for the class cry foul. When one class is unusually weak and gets buffed, other players cry foul. By not ironing out balance, damage, CC's, etc. beforehand, ANet is setting itself up for complaints of all sorts. It breeds distrust among players and ultimately hurts the game's perception. In the long run, the wild balance swings make the PvP scene intolerable and causes players to leave the PvP scene, if not the entire game. As an engineer myself, I'm well aware of the nerf hammer, and saddened that the lack of quick balance corrections results in me not wanting to play my own preferred class.

With the latest expansion coming out and all sorts of wonky balance (which many noticed in the preview weekends), I can't help but wonder if ArenaNet spent much time at all considering balance? Let's take a look at the new elite specs and figure out what is going wrong:

• Spellbreaker is pretty much only useful in PvP, but I think this was ANet's design intention.
• Firebrand has incredible DPS in PvE, but rarely appear in PvP. I haven't played it enough to know why, but I suspect it's the lack of cover condis in PvP, which is also the reason they do so well in PvE.
• I haven't seen enough renegades to have an informed opinion about them.
• Deadeye is almost objectively worse than existing builds in PvP, and it's also worse in PvE. It needs to be made worth the time, but not overpowered either. ANet leaned too strongly towards preventing OP status, and resulted in an elite spec that landed with a dull thud.
• Holosmith has underwhelming DPS in both PvE and PvP compared to existing builds. It's even more glassy than existing, better builds. I know that its damaged wowed people at first, but that was the only factor it had going for it before it got ninja nerfed.
• I haven't seen enough soulbeasts to make an informed opinion. It's one of the more complicated elite specs though, so it may take some time to figure out.
• Weaver seems to be overperforming in both PvE and PvP. I don't play the class myself, so I don't know what's going on, but they seem capable of both incredible tanking and DPS output at the same time.
• Scourge is underperforming in PvE and overperforming in PvP, due to the way its mechanics are designed. Some bugs need to be fixed or numbers tweaked, but it's weird how this dichotomy emerged.
• I haven't seen enough mirages to make an informed opinion.

ArenaNet, please consider making balance changes more frequently. The last two years have been abysmal for the rate of balance changes. What happened to the days of GW1 where balance occurred every week, and then major balance changes once every month or two?

-Weaver OP in pvp/pve?.....the only weavers I see are in wvw...where they try to 1v1 people and lose everytime, they're non existent in pvp teams or wvw zergs. You must be confusing yourself with some tempest you've seen in pvp

when he was paired with a scourge who increased his apparent sustain

and for pve you only seen a video of a guy using weaver full glass bugged build on a stationary target golem ..so basically it only showed what ele has always been good at: large stationary hitbox, by comparison a sword weaver with same build only achieved 25k DPS-Spellbreaker only useful in PvP?....I beg your pardon but right now pretty much every single zerg in wvw from t1 to t5 uses at least 5-6 spellbreakers out of 40-50 people and there are near unkillable gank groups made up entirely of spellbreakers-Holosmith...underwhelming DPS in pvp/pve?... a holosmith combo can literally eat 80% of your HP in one go and they have great level of sustain with elixir S/stealth/heling turret and plethora of CC. I have seen holosmith surviving the assault of 2-3 people like nothing both in pvp and in wvw ( pve)

1) No, I am referring to weaver. Just not one of the ones who's still figuring out how to play it.2) I don't play WvW, but it is technically a form of PvP, so thanks.3) I encourage you to read the engineer subforum (

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/categories/engineer

) right now. If the holosmith combo is eating 80% of your HP, you are either terrible at dodging, or terrible at dealing damage.

How can anything be overperforming if only an apparent handful( assuming it exists somewhere in this reality) can manage to play ? Overperforming respect to those who as well haven't figured it out how to play?.....................

[Vagrant.7206]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:I'm not going to say that this is an easy game to balance. It's complicated, with many interweaving mechanics. But balance is one of those important factors that needs to be examined critically when implementing new content. When one class is unusually powerful and gets nerfed, players for the class cry foul. When one class is unusually weak and gets buffed, other players cry foul. By not ironing out balance, damage, CC's, etc. beforehand, ANet is setting itself up for complaints of all sorts. It breeds distrust among players and ultimately hurts the game's perception. In the long run, the wild balance swings make the PvP scene intolerable and causes players to leave the PvP scene, if not the entire game. As an engineer myself, I'm well aware of the nerf hammer, and saddened that the lack of quick balance corrections results in me not wanting to play my own preferred class.

With the latest expansion coming out and all sorts of wonky balance (which many noticed in the preview weekends), I can't help but wonder if ArenaNet spent much time at all considering balance? Let's take a look at the new elite specs and figure out what is going wrong:

• Spellbreaker is pretty much only useful in PvP, but I think this was ANet's design intention.
• Firebrand has incredible DPS in PvE, but rarely appear in PvP. I haven't played it enough to know why, but I suspect it's the lack of cover condis in PvP, which is also the reason they do so well in PvE.
• I haven't seen enough renegades to have an informed opinion about them.
• Deadeye is almost objectively worse than existing builds in PvP, and it's also worse in PvE. It needs to be made worth the time, but not overpowered either. ANet leaned too strongly towards preventing OP status, and resulted in an elite spec that landed with a dull thud.
• Holosmith has underwhelming DPS in both PvE and PvP compared to existing builds. It's even more glassy than existing, better builds. I know that its damaged wowed people at first, but that was the only factor it had going for it before it got ninja nerfed.
• I haven't seen enough soulbeasts to make an informed opinion. It's one of the more complicated elite specs though, so it may take some time to figure out.
• Weaver seems to be overperforming in both PvE and PvP. I don't play the class myself, so I don't know what's going on, but they seem capable of both incredible tanking and DPS output at the same time.
• Scourge is underperforming in PvE and overperforming in PvP, due to the way its mechanics are designed. Some bugs need to be fixed or numbers tweaked, but it's weird how this dichotomy emerged.
• I haven't seen enough mirages to make an informed opinion.

ArenaNet, please consider making balance changes more frequently. The last two years have been abysmal for the rate of balance changes. What happened to the days of GW1 where balance occurred every week, and then major balance changes once every month or two?

-Weaver OP in pvp/pve?.....the only weavers I see are in wvw...where they try to 1v1 people and lose everytime, they're non existent in pvp teams or wvw zergs. You must be confusing yourself with some tempest you've seen in pvp

when he was paired with a scourge who increased his apparent sustain

and for pve you only seen a video of a guy using weaver full glass bugged build on a stationary target golem ..so basically it only showed what ele has always been good at: large stationary hitbox, by comparison a sword weaver with same build only achieved 25k DPS-Spellbreaker only useful in PvP?....I beg your pardon but right now pretty much every single zerg in wvw from t1 to t5 uses at least 5-6 spellbreakers out of 40-50 people and there are near unkillable gank groups made up entirely of spellbreakers-Holosmith...underwhelming DPS in pvp/pve?... a holosmith combo can literally eat 80% of your HP in one go and they have great level of sustain with elixir S/stealth/heling turret and plethora of CC. I have seen holosmith surviving the assault of 2-3 people like nothing both in pvp and in wvw ( pve)

1) No, I am referring to weaver. Just not one of the ones who's still figuring out how to play it.2) I don't play WvW, but it is technically a form of PvP, so thanks.3) I encourage you to read the engineer subforum (

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/categories/engineer

) right now. If the holosmith combo is eating 80% of your HP, you are either terrible at dodging, or terrible at dealing damage.

How can anything be overperforming if only an apparent handful( assuming it exists somewhere in this reality) can manage to play ? Overperforming respect to those who as well haven't figured it out how to play?.....................

Overperformance isn't measured by the average player -- that's a bad way to look at balance.