Most overpowered builds in gw2 history

[Dusty.6084]

I'm going to skip Path of Fire as that's the only expansion I really missed.

 

Honorable mentions:

 

Pre nerf power Shiro: Dodging nerfs for years, and having lots of anti thief mobility and burst, power shiro was always meta despite not having crazy stats due to its ability to simply kite until a massive burst window showed up. Now Shiro's reign of terror has been ended as Shiro has been nerfed into ash, and people play renegade because renegade was SO BAD at launch that after years of other classes being nerfed renegade shortbow wasn't even touched. 

 

D/P: Once again dodging nerfs for years, thief has always been a massive part of the game's meta. It wasn't as obvious until mesmers got utterly dumpstered, at which point thief was a requirement of any good team.

 

5.  Post POF Condi revenent

After years of nerfs, Condi revenant, which were a joke before having negligible damage and cc, arose to be basically immortal after nobody could punch through rabid amulet + auramancer healing with their nerfed damage. It not only got massive direct nerfs of up to 50% of it's resistance being taken away, but torment itself got massively nerfed, and will never be played again. 

 

4. Pre-HOTS Celestial ele

On launch, warrior was a useless melee creep that just dropped burst until rampage was off cooldown and mesmer, likewise, just kited until their burst was off cooldown. The only build that was trully kitten, however, was called celestial elementalist, which despite running the lulzy celestial amulet, was utterly brainless. You have to remember that launch damage and burst rotations werent that big and revenent wasnt even in the game. Further ele had blind spam on their damage build. They had everything; teamfight, aoe cleave, aoe heal, 1v1, cross CC, mobility, et cetera. Teams ran two of them because they werent allowed to run more. You could just pick up cele ele and outperform other classes in ranked by facerolling through your spells. 

 

This one could be considered a contender for number 1. I remember forum posts saying "just don't walk through the fire." The fire was some zero setup, 12 second cooldown strip of fire that hit for like 4,000 damage every time you stepped over it and blinded. You literally had to just not fight the ele every 16 seconds or die immediately. 

 

3. HOTS launch Chronomancer

How about you start a """duel,""" with 30 seconds of chained Iframes and aoe cc and two full burst rotations. Lets throw down the strongest CC in the game, MOA in there for good measure, if you don't feel like running double gravity well. Did I mention it was almost as mobile as thief and effortlessly won that 1v1 matchup? Had to be overpowered to deal with launch dragonhunter and dodged way too many nerfs, and simply replaced pre-nerf d/p in tournaments for years. 

 

2. Pre nerf scourge/spellbreaker (path of fire)

Again I skipped this expac but it was very clear scourge was going to be brainlet territory on launch. Massive AOE burst burning and healing without even having to be on point. Spellbreaker and scourge were both so overpowered that even after their spells were adjusted to do 1 damage, they were still meta support units. 

 

1. Launch HOTS dragonhunter

Auto attacks with 1800 range dealing 6,000 damage with the rune of air and fire, longbow 2 dealing 10,000 damage. Ring of blades hit for 6,000 damage, and silenced, and crippled for like 16 seconds or something. I remember seeing 4+ dragonhunters in ranked matches, and I personally don't hold in high esteem anybody who was top 250 this season. If you saw ring of blades on the ground you used a defensive cooldown to LOS or you died. Funnily enough people thought this was balanced and nerfed both druid and warrior, dramatically weaker classes, before dragonhunter was even touched. Even with years of nerfs it is still a top duelist class and even played as a support.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Dusty.6084

[Downstate.4697]

I would argue that pre-nerf holo was just if not more broken than cele ele. 

[Swagg.9236]

And now every "good" build just plays like cele ele.  Anet dev team always bringing what the GW2 playerbase demands:  catering to the lowest common denominator.

[otto.5684]

Most OP? Hard to say for certain. PoF had way more offenders than HoT. Rev at release was too strong. FB, scourge, SB and Holo all had wtf is this periods. Scrappers for a while. Chrono had very broken periods. The sad thing most of these now are not remotely viable. The balance team is… 

[SevlisBavles.3059]

6 hours ago, Swagg.9236 said:

And now every "good" build just plays like cele ele.  Anet dev team always bringing what the GW2 playerbase demands:  catering to the lowest common denominator.

This is the absolute bane of modern competitive gaming. It happens everywhere, in shooters, strategy games, MMOs. Devs think by making competitive games or competitive game modes easier it will draw in more players. Instead, it makes them not actually competitive, ultimately less appealing and engaging, and they wither and end up being completely abandoned. 

 

When will they realise? How many amazing and stunning and engaging games have to kittening die before game developers understand that catering to the lowest common denominator is the biggest mistake they can make? And this is not out of disrespect to new players, everybody was new at one point, because they too are being denied the experience that attracted so many of the top players, and they only became top players because there was an exciting experience to be addicted to and spent time on to improve. That's how those players are so good to begin with, not because the game is dumbed down to the point where there is zero incentive to ever improve and reach a higher more competitive and dynamic level.

[Lucentfir.7430]

55 minutes ago, SevlisBavles.3059 said:

This is the absolute bane of modern competitive gaming. It happens everywhere, in shooters, strategy games, MMOs. Devs think by making competitive games or competitive game modes easier it will draw in more players. Instead, it makes them not actually competitive, ultimately less appealing and engaging, and they wither and end up being completely abandoned. 

 

When will they realise? How many amazing and stunning and engaging games have to kittening die before game developers understand that catering to the lowest common denominator is the biggest mistake they can make? And this is not out of disrespect to new players, everybody was new at one point, because they too are being denied the experience that attracted so many of the top players, and they only became top players because there was an exciting experience to be addicted to and spent time on to improve. That's how those players are so good to begin with, not because the game is dumbed down to the point where there is zero incentive to ever improve and reach a higher more competitive and dynamic level.

🥰This ^ so much.

[mortrialus.3062]

I don't think HOT Dragonhunter and Megabalance Condi Rev make the list.  I would put Phantasm Rework Chrono and Mirage on the list, especially Chrono. And rounding out the list would be gyro rework scrapper.

 

1.  Hot release Chrono bunk.

2.  Phantasm rework chrono and Mirage.

3.  Pof release Spellbreaker and Scourge.

4.  Vanilla Cele Ele.

5. Gyro rework scrapper.

[Axl.8924]

9 hours ago, Dusty.6084 said:

I'm going to skip Path of Fire as that's the only expansion I really missed.

 

Honorable mentions:

 

Pre nerf power Shiro: Dodging nerfs for years, and having lots of anti thief mobility and burst, power shiro was always meta despite not having crazy stats due to its ability to simply kite until a massive burst window showed up. Now Shiro's reign of terror has been ended as Shiro has been nerfed into ash, and people play renegade because renegade was SO BAD at launch that after years of other classes being nerfed renegade shortbow wasn't even touched. 

 

D/P: Once again dodging nerfs for years, thief has always been a massive part of the game's meta. It wasn't as obvious until mesmers got utterly dumpstered, at which point thief was a requirement of any good team.

 

5.  Post POF Condi revenent

After years of nerfs, Condi revenant, which were a joke before having negligible damage and cc, arose to be basically immortal after nobody could punch through rabid amulet + auramancer healing with their nerfed damage. It not only got massive direct nerfs of up to 50% of it's resistance being taken away, but torment itself got massively nerfed, and will never be played again. 

 

4. Pre-HOTS Celestial ele

On launch, warrior was a useless melee creep that just dropped burst until rampage was off cooldown and mesmer, likewise, just kited until their burst was off cooldown. The only build that was trully kitten, however, was called celestial elementalist, which despite running the lulzy celestial amulet, was utterly brainless. You have to remember that launch damage and burst rotations werent that big and revenent wasnt even in the game. Further ele had blind spam on their damage build. They had everything; teamfight, aoe cleave, aoe heal, 1v1, cross CC, mobility, et cetera. Teams ran two of them because they werent allowed to run more. You could just pick up cele ele and outperform other classes in ranked by facerolling through your spells. 

 

This one could be considered a contender for number 1. I remember forum posts saying "just don't walk through the fire." The fire was some zero setup, 12 second cooldown strip of fire that hit for like 4,000 damage every time you stepped over it and blinded. You literally had to just not fight the ele every 16 seconds or die immediately. 

 

3. HOTS launch Chronomancer

How about you start a """duel,""" with 30 seconds of chained Iframes and aoe cc and two full burst rotations. Lets throw down the strongest CC in the game, MOA in there for good measure, if you don't feel like running double gravity well. Did I mention it was almost as mobile as thief and effortlessly won that 1v1 matchup? Had to be overpowered to deal with launch dragonhunter and dodged way too many nerfs, and simply replaced pre-nerf d/p in tournaments for years. 

 

2. Pre nerf scourge/spellbreaker (path of fire)

Again I skipped this expac but it was very clear scourge was going to be brainlet territory on launch. Massive AOE burst burning and healing without even having to be on point. Spellbreaker and scourge were both so overpowered that even after their spells were adjusted to do 1 damage, they were still meta support units. 

 

1. Launch HOTS dragonhunter

Auto attacks with 1800 range dealing 6,000 damage with the rune of air and fire, longbow 2 dealing 10,000 damage. Ring of blades hit for 6,000 damage, and silenced, and crippled for like 16 seconds or something. I remember seeing 4+ dragonhunters in ranked matches, and I personally don't hold in high esteem anybody who was top 250 this season. If you saw ring of blades on the ground you used a defensive cooldown to LOS or you died. Funnily enough people thought this was balanced and nerfed both druid and warrior, dramatically weaker classes, before dragonhunter was even touched. Even with years of nerfs it is still a top duelist class and even played as a support.

This so much, plus of course pre nerf mirages withd their evades you forgot to mention Deadeye which was nuts when it came out and weavers were OP too. Every class in pof was OP to some or another oh and what about soulbeast?

I saw pre nerf deadeye in video camping ranged attack and just 1 shotting folks as they came along with his rifle.

 

Jesus you didn't even need a kitten soulbeast to be op, because you could cleave for huge damage while also doing huge melee dmg, because rangers were power creeped to all heck. I saw a video where a ranger was doing huge dmg before the nerfs with soulbeast with ranged and melee 1 shotting everyone and they had insane sustain too and escape tools.

 

What about the complaints about scrapper? didn't folks used to hate scrapper cause of those turret things before they nerfed?

 

[Math.5123]

1: HoT bunker chrono

2: Phantasm Rework chrono

3: Boonbeast

4: On release rev

5: On release Firebrand

[Widmo.3186]

12 hours ago, Dusty.6084 said:

I'm going to skip Path of Fire as that's the only expansion I really missed.

Thats kinda funny, because compared to both Vanilla and HoT, PoF provided the biggest amount of unbalanced things - and its also funny that after few years some of those still exist. You can only imagine what its gonna be with EoD (if any1 of you peeps plan to still play PvP in this incredibly well administrated game, lol). 
I think most of the "OP" builds had been already mentioned. Ill put here Terrormancer, who didnt love damaging fear spam, ikr? 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Widmo.3186

[Genesis.5169]

HoT release chrono.

Pof Release Spell breaker

Pof release scourge

 

That's it everything else has been okay to strong forum tears are strong in gw2.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Shiro herald is still very good. Its just that renegade is 10x easier to play.

[Exile.8160]

kitten no one even mention Hambow that thing was oppressive af lol.

[ArthurDent.9538]

3 hours ago, Math.5123 said:

1: HoT bunker chrono

2: Phantasm Rework chrono

3: Boonbeast

4: On release rev

5: On release Firebrand

Oh god boonbeast, you're the first person to mention it but it was probably my least favorite thing to fight in this game ever. Just pure stat check that beat basically everything by spamming axe skills while passively sustaining with raw tankiness + healing. Other op builds could generally be outplayed but boonbeast was pure stat check and had insane stats.

[anjo.6143]

Thief dodging nerfs... THIEF DODGING NERFS

 

Hauehauheuahuehauheuahuaheuha jeeZ

[bLind.6278]

7 hours ago, mortrialus.3062 said:

I don't think HOT Dragonhuntermake the list.

Do you have any idea how many people died to invisible traps in a single global because they didn't/couldn't dodge, or mistimed it due to Anet's immaculate server response times?

 

 

Happened to me a couple of times on my warrior where I'd trigger a trap with no enemies in sight, so I figured I'd just tank it, heal up and move on. Nah, 25k crit.

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by bLind.6278

[witcher.3197]

17 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

I would argue that pre-nerf holo was just if not more broken than cele ele. 

I remember it was possible to play holo without weapons and still dominate just with the forge and the old explosive dodge trait. You had to dodge their dodges..

[ArthurDent.9538]

20 minutes ago, witcher.3197 said:

I remember it was possible to play holo without weapons and still dominate just with the forge and the old explosive dodge trait. You had to dodge their dodges..

Engi has always kind of worked like that as kits simply work as alternative weapons and forge is basically a different kind of kit. It also helps that their normal weapon skills have typically been on the weak end of the spectrum aside from scrapper hammer.

[Leonidrex.5649]

19 minutes ago, ArthurDent.9538 said:

Engi has always kind of worked like that as kits simply work as alternative weapons and forge is basically a different kind of kit. It also helps that their normal weapon skills have typically been on the weak end of the spectrum aside from scrapper hammer.

and their kit and holo skills have extreamly low cooldowns to compensate for having only 1 weapon set

[Quadox.7834]

tldr; u dont know what you're talking about

[mortrialus.3062]

3 hours ago, ArthurDent.9538 said:

Engi has always kind of worked like that as kits simply work as alternative weapons and forge is basically a different kind of kit. It also helps that their normal weapon skills have typically been on the weak end of the spectrum aside from scrapper hammer.

When POF first came out Xan got Legendary on EU on Holosmith straight up without a weapon equipped.  It's definitely one of the sillier things anyone has ever accomplished. 

[Stand The Wall.6987]

in no particular order, all on release pre nerfs (chrono auto include)

druid

holo

herald

- knight scrapper honorable mention

best meme builds

deadeye

soulbeast

berserker

Edited August 16, 2021 by Stand The Wall.6987

[apharma.3741]

How are we defining "most overpowered" build? I know it seems like a daft question but it would produce different lists, do we define most OP as:

 

Builds that had the fewest counters/required the largest amount of outnumbering people to kill?
The strongest builds there has ever been, looking at it's power on a continuous timeline?
The strongest builds in terms of power difference between it and other builds at the time?

The builds that have been meta/strong for the longest amount of time?

 

I think contesters for the top spots are things like bunker chrono, scourge, D/D celementalist, rev on launch and possibly boonbeast but depending on the way you look at it, something like D/P thief suddenly becomes a top contender.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

It's not in PVP, but special mention goes to the Ghost Thief.  It terrorized WvW for awhile, but it could also do a couple of neat PVE things.  I watched a video of a ghost thief soloing Slothasor.

[BlackTruth.6813]

Spirit ranger was annoying back in around 2013-ish, ranger as a class was already annoying as hell with all the evade spam and etc. One of the spirits used to do damage too.

 

Literally was called the "petting zoo" by the brain damage developers. They really want the poorest most talentless schmuck to be able to succeed and that's fine. But why are the numbers mathematically unfair? You already have evades why does that air spirit hit too hard along with the pet damage + knockdowns (when double dog was good).

 

I don't even defend hambow with soldier's amulet the first time it was a thing on my own class, and you get ranger mains justifying brain damage specs cause talentless XD. You have evades, the class plays for itself 50% of the time because the pet does reasonable damage, why are you complaining about how hard your life is.

 

And every time a  spirit ranger player played a different class, it was too hard for them.