Problems with Guild Wars

[Severak]

Played the World Premiere Event, and I loved it. In fact, I Pre-Ordered the sucker so I could participate in the weekend events. However, there is a serious problem with GW. And that's Class Balance.


Now, I know there are balance problems in every game.....however in this it is fairly blatant.


Anyone who becomes a Ranger or a Mesmer as a main-class cannot expect to do nearly as much DPS as a Warrior or Elementalist, or nearly as much usefulness as a Monk or Necro. Period.


Elementalists, ranged casters, absolutely own the DPS department. No one really comes close aside from Warriors in their DPS. Therefore anyone looking to do ranged DPS should choose an Elementalist, and forget about even thinking about a Ranger for ranged DPS. And the melee damage from a Ranger is a joke, seeing as a Warrior hits so much harder it's ridiculous.


Moving onto the Mesmer, I suppose it is meant to be some type of illusionist/EQ-enchanter-esque caster, however it is pretty friggin weak. Most of the hexes are useless in the fast paced missions, seeing as an Elementalist casting 30-40+ damage nukes in succession does much more damage then a Mesmer casting a 22 damage dot on a mob that dies in <30 seconds. Pretty much the only thing good about a Mesmer is their snare and the partial-cripple. However, both of those skills can be found in the Ranger and Warrior class, so usefulness is completely shot out the window for Mesmers.



Monks are pretty much EQ Clerics. Good heals, good cures, good buffs. Not really much to say about them. If one is interested in nuking, sub an Elementalist. Interested in sucking...er.....hexes, sub a mesmer. Interested in owning shit, sub a necro~


Concerning Necros, I didn't get a chance to try one out, so all I know is that my friend raised a metric fuckton of mobs for every battle and was owning shit left and right, so it appears that the Guild Wars holy trinity is the Necro, Monk, and Warrior.



Albeit it is a few months before final release, NCSoft needs to think about upping the usefulness of Rangers and Mesmers if they want to have a relatively balanced game.

[Kalahad]

Monks have some crazy offensive spells actualy, just pretty much all are from exotic charms. Can pump off 500sh ae damage in 10 seconds with all the AEs. Only problem can be recasts. Also a monk with warrior sub and hammer/smite spec can smite for over 200s on undead, 100-120 on normal mobs/players.

[Sampo]

I sell digital crackrocks.

[Kodylan]

Well, backfire is pretty fucking nasty, and I think it's much more powerful as a primary mesmer ability than a secondary mesmer ability. So a mesmer/monk for example could cast a more powerful version of backfire than a monk/mesmer, etc.

Rangers have the advantage of being able to live longer than casters when a warrior runs up to beat their ass too, granted when a warrior gets close you'll have a tough time living if the warrior is smart, unless you're a warrior yourself.

Classes seem pretty balanced though since it's 8v8 pvp instead of 1v1. A mesmer to cast backfire on the opposing teams elementalists is nice.

But necro does have some balance issues, especially in the pve that's currently available. Then again pve isn't the focus of the game at all, and is basically being designed as an afterthought.

[Wanand]

i setup a monk/mez next event i gonna go monk/ele

but as a monk i would say we way over powered with healing hands , pom , and quick heal i had 2 warriors beating on me for pretty much a whole fight and they never got my hp down below 50% once (ammidlty the wars where stupid and had crap weps)

Another thing that really pissed me off is war/monk you have no idea how many retards play this combo with charge/healing hands, quick heal, they can run around all damn game if you got no one with a snare you screwed , i had 4 peole do it to me we had there grp killed so they just kept doing the combo of skills and run around for 20minutes.

the ideal grp of the 8v8 combat is 4 war/monk 2 monks 2ele or 1ele 1 necro

Had a setup of 3war,2monk,2ele,1necro and we pretty much were unstopable we kept winning and then we come up against the same grp of koreans all the time , and they wooped us was good fun tho hard fights.

But i must admit i felt the E3 event was better cannot put my finger on it but for some reason i thought this game felt boring this time and it never looked that nice this time either

[Daesun]

I played Ranger/Mesmer, so I guess I just sucked outright.

Actually, I found that with the right combination of skills I did very well in PvP. I'd snare, start up the fire arrows and the pet would start wailing on my opponent as they tried to get close to me. By the time they did I'd have them at 60% health and could just cast my self-regen and arrow them to death.

Granted, I think a lot of people playing GW over the weekend were ratshit at PvP, but I consider myself terrible at PvP and I was pretty much unkillable unless I was jumped by several opponents at once.

[Darkmyst]

Actually I could see Mesmers turning out to be like EQ shaman - The class everyone overlooks but is ungodly powerful.

Mesmers have so many "fuck with you in little ways" spells I could see them being a serious PIA in PvP. Stack a spell on the opposing teams healer that for every time they cast a spell for the next 20 seconds does 30 dmg to them with one that steals energy from them everytime they cast a spell sounds pretty freaking nasty in PvP to me.

You may have a point about rangers - that 5% death penalty thing for using ritual is just lame - it's not that powerful of a ability.

[KianwanCT]

Especially when you considder that the ranger things give the bonus to EVERYONE on the battlefield, even your opponents.

I played a ranger/monk and with healing hands, the one that gives everyone half recast timer and self regen I had 2 warriors beat on me for a good 15 minutes before they gave up and left the game (was an arena battle)

I couldnt really kill them, but they couldnt do enough damage to kill me since I had healing hands up always and same with regen.

[findar]

all i know is, the koreans were freaking unstoppable.


on that note, mezmer is pretty balanced for PVP. they got some cool tricks. i went E/ME and they complimented each other well for pvp and pve. could nuke when i had to and drop hexes as needed.

[Angerz]

I played a ranger monk, but I didnt stock any heals.

I did rez/smite from the monk (26 damage for 5 energy is nice)

The rest of my skills were ranger.

Charm/Rez for my pet

Interuppt Arrow, Power shot arrow, Quick Shot and pin down.

Pin Down owns. Interrupt is pretty good, stoping a rez then smashing the monk is fun. Quick shot was ok, there was one that couldnt be dodged as well. I never got the last trainer so I dont know what he held.

I only bought one exotic charm and it was the monk enchantment that prevented you from taking more than 5% damage per hit. that was pretty cool. Do all the exotics last for 24 hours?

My only real complaint about rangers was that the death of your pet gave you a full 15% death penalty, that coupled with the fact that the rituals give you 5 as well sucked. Thats why I dumped the rituals.

[0hz]

Anyone who becomes a Ranger or a Mesmer as a main-class cannot expect to do nearly as much DPS as a Warrior or Elementalist, or nearly as much usefulness as a Monk or Necro. Period.


Elementalists, ranged casters, absolutely own the DPS department. No one really comes close aside from Warriors in their DPS. Therefore anyone looking to do ranged DPS should choose an Elementalist, and forget about even thinking about a Ranger for ranged DPS. And the melee damage from a Ranger is a joke, seeing as a Warrior hits so much harder it's ridiculous.


Moving onto the Mesmer, I suppose it is meant to be some type of illusionist/EQ-enchanter-esque caster, however it is pretty friggin weak. Most of the hexes are useless in the fast paced missions, seeing as an Elementalist casting 30-40+ damage nukes in succession does much more damage then a Mesmer casting a 22 damage dot on a mob that dies in <30 seconds. Pretty much the only thing good about a Mesmer is their snare and the partial-cripple. However, both of those skills can be found in the Ranger and Warrior class, so usefulness is completely shot out the window for Mesmers.

1.) The game isn't about DPS and Rangers in particular are not about DPS. They are there for ranged support damage, buffing and harassment via pets. A good ranger will be firing off pin down, power shot on opposing healers with his pet further harassing them while maintaining Symbiosis and the ever annoying Edge of Extinction.

2.) How much skill did you have in Domination for the Mesmer? I had Mesmer as a secondary monk skill with 9 (12 max) domination and Chaos Storm dealt 70 aoe dot dmg and -12 energy to people who cast in aoe over 10 seconds. That should have scaled to 100/15 with max skill. Likewise Energy burn dealt 40/4 dmg/nrg which should have scaled to about 50/4 or so with max. A good mesmer is a nightmare with backfire, dots and mantra of hex shattering.

all i know is, the koreans were freaking unstoppable.

Not true, they just stick together, had better teamwork than most and understood how to use monk enchantments. We demolished the same group of "unstoppable" koreans endlessly last night in the temple. Many US players just made random groups or were just plain stupid (standing in aoe rain, splitting off from group, quitting instead of waiting for res etc...).

I only bought one exotic charm and it was the monk enchantment that prevented you from taking more than 5% damage per hit. that was pretty cool. Do all the exotics last for 24 hours?

If you used a necklace, yes. If you put it in a skill ring it is permanent. I managed to score a ring for each of my professions but didn't come across anything good enough for bond to them.

[Algol Devilstar]

Originally posted by Darkmyst
Actually I could see Mesmers turning out to be like EQ shaman - The class everyone overlooks but is ungodly powerful.

I assume this statement is meant for PvP only, because if you are also including PvE... well let's just say I would have coke streaming out my nose.

[Darkmyst]

Originally posted by Algol Devilstar
I assume this statement is meant for PvP only, because if you are also including PvE... well let's just say I would have coke streaming out my nose.

I am reserving final opinion of Mesmers in PvE until I can play with a group of people I am familiar with and can try playing with one as a primary profession.

But I expect that I will find them mostly useless in PvE. I see a few things that could be very useful in certain situations but not much that's generally useful in PvE.

I played a Mo/Mes this time around and by the time I reached the last mission of the PvE game I didn't have any of the Mes skills loaded.

EDIT: I really wish they had some areas/missions that allowed changing skills while in them. I'd have played around much more with my Mes secondary profession if I could ahve done that but I wasn't going to gimp my primary profession just to answer a few "I wonder how this skill would work with that other skill in tandem?" type questions.

[Severak]

Heh, I suppose I forgot to mention that in my post I meant balance concerning PVE. PVP I believe there *is* fairly good balance, but I will concur with a point someone made earlier in that PVE seemed to have been added as an afterthought.

[0hz]

Heh, I suppose I forgot to mention that in my post I meant balance concerning PVE. PVP I believe there *is* fairly good balance, but I will concur with a point someone made earlier in that PVE seemed to have been added as an afterthought.

Yeah, PVE is *not* a priority in this game.

Unfortunately, most people will never grasp that, as shown in other threads on this board which evaluate the game from a purely EQ-centric mindset.

Though, thanks to evolution in the genre, there's a flavor for everyone.