Zekent: Virtuoso: full ranged dps with no downtime

tercropin: And some people are just salty their stuff gets nerfed over & over: Cue every comment under here that says "Guild Wars 2 is Dead" while they continue to play it because it's dope.

PinkiePink464: This is everything I've been saying for about 3 years now, all put in one place. Dope vid honestly man

FlaxiEverafter: Totally agree that class identity is disappearing. Every class shouldn't have every skill.

StagWithLag: Everything feels the same when you roam. When you duelled the harb and my druid from your last stream its like oh we cant kill each other. Lets just walk different directions now

FalconAvian: I haven't played GW2 in like four years, and just got recommended this video. I am both surprised as well as not that surprised that basically everything that was wrong with profession balance is almost exactly the same as it was back then. And it still sounds like they have the Golden Child issue they had, except with a new balance dev's preference while leaving other professions begging for help.

berrybadplayer: What a well put together video tbh all of these points seem very valid.

alcatraz-nc2814: On the PvE aspect Anet managed to allow a lot of viable build to be played for all content which is quite impressive. But at the same time their balance decision doesnt make sense. They have killed Rifle on Engineer and Rifle Mechanist in all gamemode (quite frankly Mechanist is quite bad in all non PVE gamemode and requires much more work to be able to do what other spec does in less button) but kept Virtuoso relatively untouched just because Virtuoso is not as popular as Mechanist back then. But still, you can play all profession and almost all spec for all PvE gamemode.

I will skip PvP because I barely touch that gamemode. On WvW though, I am surprised no one is talking about the mobility powercreep and the excessive mobility some class (Thief and Willbender just to name a few) have. I used to use terrain as a weapon, houses and tree as shield but these days, these things means nothing when a Thief or Willbender can just instant teleport to your location and burst you. I used to save up some movement skill just so that I can create distance if needed, but now what is the point when a Willbender or Harbringer can just dash towards you, burst and then dash away again with little to no CD. And I wont even talk about exploit that has been in the game since forever and havent been patched. Honestly if PvP is considered by some a "dead gamemode", WvW would sure be the "forgotten gamemode".

matthill2166: Honestly a really solid take. I appreciate your way of looking and analyzing things. I’m subscribing!

0mniZZ: It really does feel like Mesmer is just the favorite kid in the Guild Wars universe, for whatever reason. In GW1 the best team comp for solo play is to have 6/7 mesmer heroes because they just kill everything faster, with less down time, than any other class and it isn't even close. In GW2, virtuoso.

rainbowturtle: As a PvE vet(? Coming up on 5y of pve now, seen pre-alac druid/scourge/pre-quick berserker/scrapper/pre-eod metas and have consistently raided and striked through that time) I think most relics aren't really OP, at least in terms of damage and especially boons. Karakosa is an OP healing relic, but you solve the issue by adding an ICD.

At best, we have:

10% strike damage from Peitha (unreliable on most builds, a bit jank on the ones that might be able to proc it reliably)

10% strike and condition damage from Dragonhunter (not a self buff, needs a specific type of utility to hit a target and hit consistently)

7% from weaver/deadeye (weaker but self buff from a specific utility, really only deadeye is usable on deadeye and weaver relic sucks)

7% strike from Claw (requires burning CC which may not be super available in your kit or rotation, i.e. power weaver doesn't want to hit air sw2 or go to air/earth for sw3)

7% strike from Fireworks

Decent condi damage from Fractal (not a percentage buff but only "op" because there's really no competition)

Part of the problem is that relics initially tried to fill the gap from effects like Rune of the Scholar's t6 effect (5% increased strike damage when above 90% hp) but without the drawback (thief relic). Condi relics just have too many issues design wise (blightbringer) or too little damage to keep up with Fractal, which isn't even that OP but just has nothing to compete with.

Some of these relics have really interesting effects, I especially like Cerus relic for being an extra set of strikes as opposed to just a flat buff, but its really, really hard to make a relic like that useful without being too good for something (needing nerfs for the one thing that's OP with it). Another example is the Beehive relic, it could be a really cool option for professions with a lot of poison (not many) and especially condition druid (the 8 additional strikes, which could be increased in pve, could add additional astral power generation for condition druid, which depending on how its done could not be too game breaking, in addition to the potentially good poison damage if buffed) but the damage is just too low, same thing with Blightbringer being a poison alternative to fractal.

Others are just too hard to reliably proc or not worth enough when procced. Relic of the Stormsinger could be really cool for mobility builds like Willbender, and Relic of the Steamshrieker could be awesome in specific comps if made a little stronger (to help push a bit of extra DPS out for having extra water fields in your group, such as a heal druid dropping glyph for the potentially inferior healing spring depending on the fight or having a condition firebrand take time to use their tome water field).

Overall relics as a system just did not try to go hard enough into the more out there or "wacky" relics and it is really hard to make those work because something might be balanced on 9 out of 10 DPS builds but the 10th gets it ruined for the rest of them

MatLinnett1: Honestly, I'd like to see them remove gameplay-affecting buffs from food and enhancements (sharpening stones, etc.) completely.

Keep 'em as magic/gold find, XP and gathering bonuses, but remove anything that gives a buff to overall power level.

Edit:

Oh, and even though they've never explicitly said this, and the community is in denial about it, every successive elite spec has been more powerful than the last set in order to drive sales of later content, very much making the game "Pay to Win." This is the reason specs like Virtuoso and Willbender are still ridiculously OP.

Core needs to be able to properly compete with all Elite specs; to that end, those specs should be brought in line with Core, and not vice versa with Core lines being buffed.

welwyrmientertainment4450: As a warrior main (call be biased if you want) I still feel like we can't have nice things. The one thing that was being powerful and usefull after they took away banner slave, and made changes and nerfs to warrior GS and other aspects of the class, and the elite specs, was the spear. And even with the spear we still had problems and were forced to play around them, because of how many projectile blocks and reflects there are in wvw and even pvp.

They decided to nerf it. And although it's still usable and playable, is just not... Whats the word. Worth it ? People don't even want you in their groups bexause there is always some other class with a bigger power creep than you, that do more things than you, cover more boons than you.

Why have a condi berzerker, even if it gives quickness, when you can have a firebrand or any other class that does more damage, more boon coverage, and in most times are even easier to aplly all of these than warrior.

And dont get me started on the distance and duration of shit like rangers immobilize, or the sheer ammount of teleports and stealth professikns like Chronomancer and Thief have. It's fucking ridiculous.

Some people have once said to me:

"Oh just hit them, you still have reveal target to take them out of stealth, you can still hit them even if invisible."

Ok then, maybe, MAYBE, if i was top 50 in pvp or whatever else in the whole server. And even if i was everything is stacked against the warrior because of the sheer ammount of dodges, movement skills and enemy dodges they have. And also, guess what, most of the player base is not top pvp players.

Shit even guardian with the last elite spec can now cover stupidly ammount of distance and aegis uptime, yet somehow people say warriors spear damage and dodges were the problem.

Atokedo: yeah , the current problem with meta is not about how much damage classes do but how EASILY they do it compared to others, some classes have to put oput rotation to heal others while some of them doesnt and can use utility when they want to

KumaBearOso: I was screaming from the rooftops during the Rifle Mecha meta that Virt was even more OP. It just didn't seem that way because Mecha was so easy to play.

aaronkerr3990: No, the issue is that the Virtuoso meta / Skillbender roamer meta has been in place for over a year? At this point it feels like the devs deliberately avoid nerfing their preferred specs

merklyz: If there is not a proper Willbender nerf in upcoming balance patch, I will think twice before stepping into WvW or PvP.

Jmvars: The main reason I grew to truly dislike WvW is the boonball meta. Nothing worse than sitting in a keep watching a 40 man squad roll up and start knocking. There's no point in building siege because they literally deal no damage to a boonball, I just have to sit and watch as they tear our walls down. I beg for our boonball to come and help (if we even have one) and hope they come. Even being IN a boonball is not fun, I sit and tank everything with perma boons.

The most fun I've had in WvW is one unorganized squad attacking against an unorganized defense. It feels like a true battlefield and it's possible to punish mistakes and target people down. Building siege is more impactful. That, or small group roaming, like 3 - 4 people.

tydeb1780: one of the hardest things for me to get into with anyform of combat in this game, is the boon stacking meta, it being defining of your skill, im fine with your gear and skill determines what level content you can enjoy, but these days range is useless because if you not all on top of each other stacking boons your dead,

Darkpirox: Very interesting video! but here is my concern about the energy thing, i also live in WvW/PvP and make content (Mostly as a Ranger Soulbeast) and i can tell you that if, lets say they implement that without doing some extra stuff first... the game will be even more broken because currently there are certain professions/builds that have a bit of too much and then invulnerable. Let me explain what i mean: There are things far more unfair and broken/tonned down than this, like willbender's toolkit being just too much and on top of that having so much invulnerability windows and yet if you learn the match-up it becomes very doable. Same with eles, you can run a glass-cannon build and get away with it but not due to how many dodge rolls you get, mostly because you have a plethora of blocks and invulnerability, similar thing with mesmers... We start to see a pattern here, and the real issue is that even when you find the windows to kill those matchups, they have a free get out of the jail card ON TOP of all the other tools. Currently the evade thing is just a real issue with or against most thief specs because on top of the perma-stealth and one shot capabilities they can evade and dodge roll forever in those few windows that you have to kill them. To further sort of advocate for my point, when i started i was extremely confused and frustrated but after a while and also going over my own game-play i understood that the real issue was me. I really believe that things right now are not as unbalanced as to be a problem (Stormsinger needs a nerf tho). I think we have fallen into the trap of just pretending that if i get rekt its easier to attribute it to cheats or something being broken, you can't imagine the amount of times i have been Dm'd with the, nice cheats bro just because i space my buttons and dodge rolls and skills properly... and when i offer to go over the game-play because i was recording, they just insult you and nothing else. THAT is the real issue, players refusing to learn. When i started, everything killed me without a chance of fighting back, now i can deal with ALMOST anything and also, as you get better players and fight against better players... yeah, the fights are not over so quickly, even when 2 glass-cannon builds are happening, since movement and spacing are the most BROKEN/IMPORTANT skills in this game and yet a very low part of the player-base tries to improve on those. My conclusion: If you take away those sigils and essentially nerf the evading/dodging capabilities without toning down some of the previously mentioned stuff, you will only increase the gap and make the meta even more pronunciated towards what it is essentially already overturned because why would i run a class without popper evade options that doesn't have easy access to mobility/blocks/invulnerable when i can literally play some of the mentioned before and have all of those... like... sure, i can dodge less but guess what? i still have more broken defensive tools than you do on top of my absurd mobility and damage!

Bladebark: Your point on the weapon unlock i disagree with, the main reason is that with this lock you are either saying these elite spec weapons should just be better than all others and if they are not then every build will just use the already available big weapon such as guardian greatsword, for engineer, you need to consider that the sword just wasn't all that good to begin with it doesn't really have a real niche for the engineer so it of course is going to get overwhelmed by the hammer, we generally see a similar factor with the ranger one hand sword which isn't really used that much.

In particular what I like about this weapon unlock is that it allowed use to use mace/shield scrapper which is by far the most fun way to play a support bunker engineer, it's capabilities fit far better into scrapper than into mechanist which displays the sheer advantage of allowing this, at the end of the day you didn't even need your elite spec weapon in many cases so there is little "fantasy" lost in them being unlocked and alot of "fantasy" gained.

Trisander: BUFF WARRIOR NOW!

ocean_bat: Going to push back hard on "every class feels the same". Warrior doesn't play anything like an Elementalist, Elementalist doesn't play anything like a Theif, Theif doesn't play anything like a Reverent. Classes applying the same boons doesn't mean they play the same. That's like saying every character in Street Fighter plays the same because they all have throws.

EvOILLuSionZ: Hot take - you don’t need virtuoso to do LCM

Jan 06 2025

Buy GW2 Gold