Curse

Thomas.knbk · Nov 13, 2006, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by just rude

QFT
Diverson spam FTW, what a bitch!

And THAT is the reason he made mesmers a tier 1!

dansamy · Nov 13, 2006, 07:39 AM // 07:39

Almost every build I've ever run in has at least:

2 monks
1 HP bot (either flagging or at the stand)
2 melee characters (thumpers, warriors, etc)

The other three slots have variably been filled in by:

Mes
Nec
Ran
Sin
Another monk (smite)
Another ele

or some combination of the above.

Patrograd · Nov 13, 2006, 09:19 AM // 09:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by just rude

Mesmers tier1 really?

I love mesmers, but I rarely see then outside of the top 100. If you are trying to generalize the top1000 guilds, mesmers would be tier 2 easy if not 3.

Mesmers imo win games, in every meta, regardless of the FOTM, a mesmer wins games. Surely an absolute Tier 1 class by anyone's standards.

ogami_ito · Nov 13, 2006, 09:44 AM // 09:44

What type of Mesmer wins the games? Energy Denial? Energy Burn? Interupting? Hexing Degen anti-melee? Mesmers play so differently depending on the build...what's the most common?

sir lockt · Nov 13, 2006, 10:29 AM // 10:29

The OP puts up the thread with the title: the popularity of Classes in GvG... not what wins games or what is stronger... just look what is used.

sorry to say, but ele is definately tier 1, since most team has them around. even if they only would spam HP, the reason HP is not on any other character BUT on the ele proves not only its value, but at least its popularity.

What I am suprised about is that the factions profs are not as popular as the NF profs. are P and D overpowered or Sin and Rit underpowered?

stueyman2099 · Nov 13, 2006, 10:34 AM // 10:34

little bit of both.

its not so much that assassains are underpowered, but more that warriors got some nice new toys that allow them to replace the sin in the ganking job.

Ritualists got nerfed to hell
Paragons took their place

Dervishes are finding uses.

Novita · Nov 13, 2006, 11:04 AM // 11:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

I still don't understand that assessment when you note rangers and their strength as a thumper. i.e. A ranger that uses a lot of warrior skills.

Expertise and Rampage as one. I wonder why warriors dont have one elite like this instead of the new crappy ones besides YAAA/Crippling slash...

Tier 1: Elementalist/Monk (Heal party)

Patrograd · Nov 13, 2006, 11:16 AM // 11:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by ogami_ito

What type of Mesmer wins the games? Energy Denial? Energy Burn? Interupting? Hexing Degen anti-melee? Mesmers play so differently depending on the build...what's the most common?

Depends on the meta imo, but you cant go far wrong with a dom mes with some enchant hate from the inspiration line in most teams. Caster shutdown in one form or another is imo hugely strong and hugely popular and has been since day 1 as far as I can recall, rarely falling out of favour. The thing about a dom mes is that he has the answer to pretty much every kind of everything. Yes the exact bar changes according to the meta, but the skills you need are pretty much all there in the dom line, aided by the fact that a few of them are also really nice pressure and damage in their own right.

This kind of mesmer has always been around, and I guess always will be, which is why I would put it at tier 1, right alongside warriors.

Riotgear · Nov 13, 2006, 11:20 AM // 11:20

Paragon is probably going to displace Ritualist simply because their skills offer a much wider variety of effects without the scaling and responsiveness issues of spirits.

Rits were originally created with two skill lines effectively overlapping two classes who were supposed to be experts at it. That's kind of a recipe for failure right there. Now they have three.

Dervishes look like a sort of versatile fighter comparable to the current Ranger, which means they probably have a future ahead of them. As people have said before, Mysticism is just too good to not be abusable somehow. That and they're resilliant as hell, signet of pious light is probably the best self-heal in the game right now, and mysticism makes it essentially free.

stueyman2099 · Nov 13, 2006, 11:46 AM // 11:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Paragon is probably going to displace Ritualists...

They already have.

Blame the Monks · Nov 13, 2006, 02:10 PM // 14:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by dansamy

Almost every build I've ever run in has at least:

2 monks
1 HP bot (either flagging or at the stand)
2 melee characters (thumpers, warriors, etc)

The other three slots have variably been filled in by:

Mes
Nec
Ran
Sin
Another monk (smite)
Another ele

or some combination of the above.

Maya is pretty much dead on. Most "balanced" teams have only 3 spots of legitimate variety.

Lax Stick · Nov 13, 2006, 02:20 PM // 14:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

Maya is pretty much dead on. Most "balanced" teams have only 3 spots of legitimate variety.

Well, conformity in builds leads the better team to win imo.

As far as the op goes. HP spam is only available because of an ele skill: ether prodigy or in some cases second wind. Therefore, I'd put ele into tier 1.

Zuranthium · Nov 13, 2006, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

I still don't understand that assessment when you note rangers and their strength as a thumper. i.e. A ranger that uses a lot of warrior skills.

Secondly, Blinding flash has always been strong enough to run a flagstand ele. Elementalist's large energy pool allows it to use overpriced monk skills without batting an eye. It's part of game design (allowing classes to use secondary class skills) and as such, they will always be a tier 1 character until another profession comes along that can compete with them.

Also, I still see a ton of searing flames teams. So I'm not so sure what you were referring to when you said that it has died down. If I went through the guild battle history, I'd estimate 85% of the teams we've faced have had searing flames somewhere.

I dunno, my guild has only played a few teams with Searing Flames and I haven't seen many on observer.

Anywho...there is no other Primary class that depends on one skill from a secondary class for their character to be desired. Yes, people have experimented with E/A runners, but they don't seem to last long (I've seen more Me/A or Dervish runners than E/A runners). I suppose you could argue Thumpers and Hammer Bash but, if we pretend that skill was suddenly a Req. 6 Strength skill, a R/W with an Axe would have better DPS than a regular Axe Warrior and therefore still be useful for some teams.

I'm just really frustrated that an entire class in GvG is defined mainly by Elite E-Management + Heal Party. I really wish they would fix the retarded amount of bad Elementalist skills so that other types of Elems would become useful and the class as a whole would see a wide variety of play.

But, that said, I'll still switch Elems to Tier 1 and Rangers to Tier 2. I understand your argument.

Zuranthium · Nov 13, 2006, 04:37 PM // 16:37

Also, I had Ranger as Tier 1 because I've seen a lot of Thump-way and the thread was supposed to be about determining how popular each class is right now.

Zuranthium · Nov 13, 2006, 05:07 PM // 17:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir lockt

The OP puts up the thread with the title: the popularity of Classes in GvG... not what wins games or what is stronger... just look what is used.

sorry to say, but ele is definately tier 1, since most team has them around. even if they only would spam HP, the reason HP is not on any other character BUT on the ele proves not only its value, but at least its popularity.

Yes, well, I explained why I had wanted to cheat with Elem placement earlier. The Multitude of Poor Elementalist Skills is Stooooooooooopid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir lockt

What I am suprised about is that the factions profs are not as popular as the NF profs. are P and D overpowered or Sin and Rit underpowered?

Paragons are overpowered, or at least ENERGIZING FINALE is anyway.

I really do not like Dervishs (easily my vote for worst conceptualized class ever) but I'd call them mostly balanced. They have niche uses but definitely aren't in high need.

Rits are underpowered when alone. They require spirits to be up for their abilities to be fully functional and therefore you need to use multiple Rits in order to always have a spirit up consistently. They need better item + weapon spells.

Assassins are underpowered in general, imo. With the way Shadowsteps work, there's usually no point in using a Dark Prison Sin when you can just throw that skill on a W/A and have him do basically the same thing, but with better Armor. The same goes for ganking...a YAA W/A can do everything an Assassin ganker should do, but with better Armor. I really believe that Shadowstepping should disable adrenaline abilities for a couple seconds. Plus, the Assassin suffers from a ton of poor abilities as well. See For Yourself.

Thom Bangalter · Nov 13, 2006, 05:18 PM // 17:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Novita

Expertise and Rampage as one. I wonder why warriors dont have one elite like this instead of the new crappy ones besides YAAA/Crippling slash...

Tier 1: Elementalist/Monk (Heal party)

Rampage as one, while incredibly strong, did not justify rangers as being tier 1 caliber, when ether prodigy qualified eles as tier 2. Rangers have two playable elites in a balanced build: rampage as one or crip shot. Eles also have two: ether prodigy and searing flames. One of those fuels heal party. Heal party is a must on any team. However, things have been righted so I'm pleased, I agree with the assessment now.

Also, YAA is rediculous, and I'd still like to see it re-balanced. I'd really like to see it become earshot range, because I've been hit by it standing really close to my team. If warriors had a rampage as one type elite, they'd be even more powerful than they are now.

Riotgear · Nov 13, 2006, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

I'd really like to see it become earshot range

Earshot range got increased to full casting range on NF's release, which is quite big, even bigger than "in the area."

I can think of many ways to adjust it, and all of them have some merit, pretty much anything toning it down would be acceptable, such as raising the energy cost to 10, increasing the recharge, decreasing the duration, causing adrenaline loss, adding more conditionality, etc.

Zuranthium · Nov 13, 2006, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Earshot range got increased to full casting range on NF's release, which is quite big, even bigger than "in the area."

He means the actual effect should only hit someone if they are not within earshot of an ally.

Also, Earshot range is bigger than "in the area".

The actual distance at which you can use YAA is bugged, I think. I really doubt it was intended to have full spell range intsead of normal shout range.

Seamus Finn · Nov 13, 2006, 10:01 PM // 22:01

A flagger complains about You're All Alone, what a surprise! YAA isn't overpowered in my opinion. Like searing flames, it was something that wasn't seen in the metagame. YAA becomes available in the same expansion that has a great deal of condition removal, mending touch being a clear counter. And this is all not even pointing out that running one means he's still gimped at teh flagstand compared what else you could be running on that war(unless you want to run three, which is another issue entirely). Someone said Dom mesmers win games; I would pretty much agree. Mostly what a pretty standard dom bar with diversion blackout etc. does is keep people from getting away with lame crap i.e. caster spikes and skill spamming along with multitudes of other things. Off topic I know... Mesmers are still tier two classes in popularity though, I won't argue it even though I think more people need to run more to clean up the garbage metagame at the moment(even obsid spike is already back). Ele's are tier 1 in popularity but at the bottom of teir one. ALmost every team needs one, but two are quite a bit rare whereas monks and warrior almost always come in pairs. Rangers are tier two. Even with thumpway, more people will opt for warriors, and the crip shot has died down in popularity(I've seen a new poison arrow build a few times though...). A high teir two though.

Poor assassins though. I have one and love to use him, but the hardest part about running an assassin is picking an elite that someone else couldn't use better and still have a viable build. They really should have gotten something broken in the crit strikes line. I still think assassins are stronger and more viable than people seem to think, but it gets too hard to convince guildies to use em...

Wasteland Squidget · Nov 13, 2006, 10:09 PM // 22:09

YAA is strictly better than any single-character ganking options prior to YAA. I don't think its really hurt the gank meta though, because you don't see nearly as much YAA in two or three-man splits. YAA gets less effective when fighting multiple opponents because they can stick together and avoid its effect, so other gank teams (like the Crippling Angiush + Mind Shock) have become more popular.

Also, remember that any good new chapter will always feature some power creep. People use skills that are good, and they'll only make use of new skills if they allow builds that are better than the old versions. Most of the Factions skills are never used because they're strictly worse than Prophecies versions and don't allow you to do anything new. Most of Nightfall DOES get used because it's a little better than some Prophecies equivilants, and opens up a lot of new tactisc when used in combination with Prophecies skills.