Are all the proffessions equal in pve pugs?

I stopped reading there and started loling, The Skill needed to play a Mesmer (and all other core and most none core proffessions for that matter) and the skill needed to play an Assassin are vast amounts of light years apart. Don't you EVER group Mesmers with Assassin in that way.EVER. Simply put, Assassin take no intelligence to play.

But seriously, you must be very ignorant to think that Mesmers and Assassin take the same intelligence level to play.

In the end, I'm happy Ursan Blessing happened.

It was the final reason for me to move on from what's left of the old days of Guild Wars, long after all my friends have stopped playing.

And I'm also happy for the people who actually enjoy playing the new and improved One-Skill-Fits-All Guild Wars.



Long live Guild Wars 2, where we'll all be noobs in a new world! (except those who have maxed all their titles in the previous game and will shoot laser beams from their heads from the get-go)

If you are talking about when I put professions in order of how good they are for PvE, I am talking about is a combination of two things. 1)How well they fair against other professions in a 1v1 idea using only primary skills, I did this with all 10 professions a while back, shortly before EN's release, and it seemed to me that warrior was teh least effective in both killing and staying alive on its own. 2) How effective my idea of their basic purpose is, I'll list the purposes for you:
Assassin: Head to back fast and take out casters
Ritualist: Spike some damage, support through spirits
Mesmers: Spike damage, send/spread conditions
Rangers: Deal moderate damage, send conditions
Monks: Support Party
Dervish: Takes a moderate amount of damage, Deal moderat AoE damage
Paragon: Support Party, Deal moderate damage
Warrior: Deal moderatly high damage, be able to take lots of damage
Necromancer: Spike damage, send/spread conditions, support through minions
Elementalist:Spike AoE damage, be able to take modeate amount of damage

Of course, as I said, different areas and situations change the order of that list.

Assassins and Paragons can easily clear many areas with only that one profession in the group. In fact, an Assassin and a Mesmer or Necromancer can dual almost every area in Hard Mode. Assassin takes care of non-healers, Mesmer or Necro takes out the healers. Add in a Monk to heal and you got a possibly nearly unbeatable trio. Havn't tried all areas, but I have done a Sin, Mes, Monk trio vanquishing in a few areas before.

1) I never said they take the SAME intelligence level. 2) If playing an Assassin takes no intelligence to play, then why are there so few? I think your just one of those people who think "All you have to do to play sin is press 1,2,3". That is not the case and those who do that are usually minion fodder. The only profession that takes "no intelligence to play" is a warrior, unless your going ursan. And I would have to say you are very ignorant to think that Assassins take no intelligence to play and to imply that I ment that mesmers and assassins take the same amount, I will say Mesmers are more complicated then assassins, but assassins are much more complicated then the other professions, whether its a Necro monk paragon elementalist or whatever.
If you want me to list the "intelligence needed to play" then I will.
Mesmer->Assassin->Monk->Necromancer->Ranger->Ritualist->all others.

Also, please don't imply something that I did not state again, ty.

Then you probably aren't playing Mesmer.
Assassins take almost no intelligence to play. And i'm talking from experience - Played and Against.
Because their effectiveness has withered so much through nerfs - they aren't very viable anymore.

...What? Warriors take a decent amount of skill to play.

And I would say you are very ignorant yourself.
You technically were implying that both Assassin and Mesmer take the same amount of skill. You're just denying it.

Assassin doesn't belong in that list.

Please don't try and worm yourself out of what you said.


Sorry?
It's bad because they will think they're actually good because of it.

I have already said, that I do not play a mesmer, only reason is because they don't suite my style, only caster I can stand playing *not only caster I am good at playing* is necro.


And as I believe I stated, sins that don't use intelligence while playing end up minion fodder, mainly because of their lower *then war* armor. That is, unless I have been playing an assassin the wrong way, while still being effective.

It seems to me that your looking at a PvP perspective. I rarely play pvp so if that is where you are coming from, I cannot argue against you because all of the common sin builds have been nurfed constantly. However, in PvE, my sin has never been effected that much by nurfs, no matter what build I set up.

And as for "Warriors take a decent amount of intellect to play" everything takes a "decent amount of intellect" if you think about it, not just in gw, but everything you do, no intellect, nothing gets done, or at least not correctly. Warriors sem to just put together either PvX builds or a bunch of armor and act as a tank, this is from experience as well as your "sins dont need intelligence" comment.

And, once again, I did not say, nor imply, that assassins and mesmer take the same amount of intellect to use properly. What I said was Notice how I never said "same amount" or "same as" mesmers? Just "same goes for", meaning that assassins need intellect to play as, and "they need some intelligence to play as", with the exact same meaning.

Funny how one opinion and statement can change the entire topic from using ursanway to "which is better, mesmer or assassin." Its all opinion anyways, and I think I defended myself enough, but if you continue to shoot holes in what I say, will continue to shoot holes in what you say about what I said.

Then your Mesmer comments are nothing but false statements.


Sin's still don't require skill to play.
Pop an enchantment on every now and then and watch them refresh over crits while spamming MS/DB or whatever critweapon build you're using.
Sins are incredibly survivable. But they require quite a bit of their bar to be survivable.

Heres where the fun starts....'Sins only have few viable skillset options.
And usually its "Assassins get their builds off wiki" argument.
Tanks fail, and Warriors own face. Capiche?



Sorry?

I always hate people bashing the sin. And mobius/DB. Yeah, PvE sins are easy. PvP, definately not true.
Sins are a lot harder to play CORRECTLY, then people think, especially if you are running your own build and not just using some wikified, stale POS.

Frankly, I thought my mesmer was actually EASIER to play then a sin. A mesmer you just hex and interupt the crud out of the other team's monk and occassionally switch targets to stop other key casts (aegis, etc). It plays no differently then a necro or ele in terms of positioning as a backline caster.

A sin is a weird frontline/backline mix with shadowstepping and in a heated fight has to know a lot about the game to avoid accidentally overextending.


Now, I'll tell you all the same thing I told Mithran on the "universal inscription thread." On a subjective arguement (which class takes more intellegence to play) there is NO such thing as a "right" and a "wrong" opinion. That is why they are OPINIONS. We are allowed to have them.

They still aren't THAT hard.
They are still fun to play though, nevertheless.

A well placed Diversion could gimp even the best of monks.

I herd not overextending wuz hard.

Agreed. But an opinion is bound to cause an arguement anyway.

Although I do not play a mesmer NOW, I have tried it before, as I have tried every profession. So therefore, not false statements in fact, not even real statements, just as your "statements" are not real statements, they are all OPINIONS.

1) only two enchantments refresh with critical hits, critical defenses and critical agility. 2) The point of a sin is to use critical hit builds. 3)Sins are not "incredibly" survivable, a sin equiped with the 2 skills you seemed to have implied *critical defenses and critical agility* and other poor choices can still get spiked to death easily. 3)Every profession requires a bit of their bar to be survivable, and if not, then they rely on the monk.
Sins only have a few viable skillset options when not chained, however, A sin can use almost any skill and make it "viable" in a build, just as people have constantly attempted in PvP with using the same build even after it got nurfed. Also, for your sin's skills being nurfed, all ten professions' skills get nurfed constantly, not just sin skills.

This has gone so off topic that I don't even remember how it started off the top of my head. Bottom line, as I previously stated, its all opinions!

And to back up what I said just before, HawkofStorms proves my point that its opinion. There is no need for you to continue this arguement on a thread that does not deal with it, although, as previously stated, to attack my opinion again, I will defend it. And honestly, you just seem like the type of person who likes to start meaningless arguements. All you had to do to avoid an arguement is say "I disagree, this is why...." after that, it all depends on the person's responce. I suggest trying to state your opinion that way, instead of just attacking the first opinion.

I just noticed how I have yet to attack mesmers in any way, but yet people are attacking my points on assassins. funny...

One vs. One does absolutely nothing, especially in this scenario.

All the classes dont take much skill to play.

Classes in PvE don't take any more intelligence than any other to play, what on earth are some of you talking about. It's not complicated to put hexes on the right target and maybe Shatter a hex or two. Get rid of your 'MESMERS R SUPER COMPLX' idea of superiority, all it does it make it seem like you don't actually know how to play the class.

I think the meaning of my first point regarding mesmers and assassins has been dulled by the idea of "intellect needed." I originally said this:
Also, I now think that my words were misunderstood. What I ment is that both mesmers and assassins are disliked and have hard times getting into groups. Also, one reason they are hated is because they have a "unique" playing style compared to other professions similar to it *sins use energ unlike warrior, and unlike both warrior and dervish, they have lower armor(yes dervish max AL is 70, but there are many skills that increase a derv's armor); mesmers have a harder time with energy and health because they need inspiration in order to heal and get energy*

It is because that mesmers and assassins have harder playing styles *at least for me, but yet I am still good with sins so don't criticize that statement please* that people don't want them in pugs, and because of that, along with arcanemacabre's term of "Intelligence" that I used that word, mainly for simplicity and the fact that some people cannot figure out how to play those professions. Not saying only smart people can play mesmers and sins, just saying that they require a different mindset compared to other professions. Because this small opinion has become so trivial, I will no longer be returning to this thread to avoid wanting to respond to attacks on my opinions. So I just request that you don't expect a responce.

I think you were looking at someone else's posts when you responded to mine. As I was talking about people not letting others use different builds but rather those tank+bonder+nuker builds...

LOL @ all these "pve takes skill" posts. just fyi, i h/h 90% of all hard mode missions and finish all dungeons hm non-ursan, so i know pve. all it takes is a bunch of ppl (or urself) to be not retarded and pve is easy.

i hope this thread gets back on track and discusses the inherent advantages of each class in pve instead of the inane "skill" discussions.

Someone wasn't reading. This started as an Ursan QQ post and evolved only slightly to include mesmers and recently sins. But the OP was complaining about UB originally.(before 9 pages happened)

The title may be somewhat off center for the actual thread.

Well, that is an obvious flamebait if I've ever seen one.

But I'm going to defend my position as follows...
It is easy not to overextend as a warrior or dervish. If you see the "tide" of the battle turning and release you are starting to walk too far ahead, you have time to back off.
A sin on the other hand teleports into the enemies midline/backline instantly with a single press of a button, unlike a warrior/dervish who has travel time to the target (and thus also has the time to back off in the same way). A sin has to be aware of the "tide" the battle is GOING to take as they shadowstep. If a sin shadowsteps into the enemies backline right before/as that enemy team is about to surge forward, and fails to disrupt that surge, that sin will be in quite a lurch. Unless he is using AoD, the sin won't have an ability to escape before being spiked down because his shadowstep is recharging.

Fixed. PvE really isn't complex.

After seeing so many misconceptions about Mesmers, guess I can share my view of being a Mesmer.

Mesmers, as a profession, it really isn't that bad as the general population believes. However, with that said, I would admit, Mesmers have a lot of disadvantages in PvE. As we may know, like Rangers, Mesmers can interupt just as well, and with an addition to penalize foes with hexes. In Hard Mode, as we may know, mobs' casting speed is increased from 33% to 50%, and so, is it still possible for Mesmers to interupt foes under such condition? The answer is yes, but chances are, despite the skill a person has with Mesmers, low when it is compared to Rangers. Consequently, why would anyone bring a Mesmer, knowing that interupts may not always apply, when you could just bring a Broadhead Arrow Ranger and get it done easily? My point is, Mesmers aren't totally unfunctional in PvE, but there are always better alternatives.

With this said, I guess people would point out the usefulness of Empathy and Backfire. Let us first consider Backfire, as someone has already point out that it is possible to negate enemy monks' healings, but the problem is, throughout many areas of Guild Wars, these monks would have abilities to remove this hex. Even so, the objective of taking down monks is not just negating their healings, but instead, we want to overcome their healing and damage them, eventually killing them. In saying this, wouldn't an Elementalist be better for the job?

Of course, there are still Inspiration and Illusion spells, which can e-drain and degen our enemies. Now then, the problem with e-drain spells is that foes in Hard Mode have infinite amount of energy, and e-drain seems more or less a waste of a party slot. Now with degen, I guess this is probably one of the best parts about being a Mesmer, we can ignore people's armor and inflict them with cancer. And once again, by the time Mesmers have hexed the foes to the point of maximum degeneration, it is believed that Elementalists would have the foes dead by then, and it isn't totally false.

Another point I have seen made in this thread is about Cry of Pain spike. One of the flaws I see to this build is that the group seems to heavily depended on just mere one skill. What if the enemy foes did not stay in one spot, and what if the spike itself was somehow interupted and decreased in its efficiency? Will these Mesmers really be strong enough to stand against foes in Hard Mode? Of course, we are talking about 6 Mesmers and 2 Monks here, which are all spell casters.

With all these said, I'm not claiming that Mesmers are totally useless in comparison to other professions, but I'm merely pointing out how it is possible to use Mesmers in PvE, but there are always better alternative options. The truth is, Mesmers aren't built in inproperly, but Hard Mode was built to the extent where Mesmers are always not as useful compared to other professions. If anyone knows any effective builds for Mesmers that can match the efficiency of Searing Heat Elementalists, let me know, but until then, I'm going to stick with Ursan. And if anyone is going to continue saying how just because I'm running Ursan, I have deceived the purpose of being a Mesmer. Please, spare me your politics speeches; I ran a FC nuker for 2 years after I bought the game back in 2004 just so I can join PuG's, and the only reasons I actually used Mesmer skills were the fact I needed to kill an Elementalist boss in Cantha and degening Kuunavang. Consequently, if you haven't suffered much from the discrimination, you really can't express what many of us have gone through, and with all these points I see people make as if they know about these sufferings, I find it rather hypocrite.

I never said Mesmers are super complex, but to suggest that they and assassins are on the same level, is pure stupidity.

And, you clearly never played in GvG if you think it's that simple. Monk are not complex in anyway, just press a few buttons for Prots and a big red bar pusher when in danger, nor a Warrior, just hit stuff, then use attack skills, so simple is it not?

Core Proffessions > Non core proffessions > Assassins

That pretty much sums up the skill levels needed to play stuff.

Backfire and Empathy good, brain hurts. None of them two skills actually do any form of Shutdown, hence they are useless on a Mesmer IMO.

This is a PvE thread. No amount of experience I got from the hundreds of GvG's I've played is going to change that fact.

The quoted message does an excellent job of describing exactly how PvE is played.

Completely agree. It didn't use to be that way, but mesmers have been nerfed every time there's been a skill rebalance, and now they've simply been nerfed one time too many to be particularly useful in PvE. Not useless, but, like you say, a ranger or a necro is always a better choice.
However, that mesmers are underpowered in PvE doesn't mean that Ursan is not overpowered. And if you're playing ursan you're not playing mesmer at all.

I don't believe Mesmers received many nerfs when comes to skill balances, but instead, PvE was not created to use them at all, and Hard Mode just completely killed nearly all the reasons of having a Mesmer.

Yeah, they did. From their only unconditional AoE (Chaos Storm) losing all steam when mobs started walking out of the very small AoE, to the entire energy drain line being completely gutted. E-drain was one of the original focuses of mesmers, and they were once upon a time able to drain PvE bosses, but people felt the draining was annoying in PvP and the entire line was nerfed. After that they've received minor nerfs pretty much every skill re-balance, usually because some skill had been abused by another class.

They did receive a boost of their interrupting a couple of months ago, when recharge times for several of the interrupts were reduced from "ridiculous" to "fairly high", but as interrupting HM bosses is very difficult for all but the longest casts that didn't really help them in PvE.

I've always felt that the problem with mesmers is that a lot of the stuff they should be doing is done by other classes: monks are much better at hex removal, necros have Spiteful Spirit even though that clearly is the bigger brother of Empathy, and eles have Maelstrom even though that clearly is the bigger brother of Chaos Storm.

It's telling, IMO, that the the supposed best interruptors of the game doesn't have a single skill which gives Dazed.

Good secondary class, weak primary.

e-drain used to be good ? when??? :s

September 20, 2005, was the update which removed edrain as a viable PvE tactic for mesmers, apparently because edrain was annoying to casters in PvP.

The line was further nerfed some time later because it was being used by boonprot monks to get near infinite energy.

That's because Avarre has like over 9000 ping. And who cares about GvG? PvE is simple. Simple for assassin. Simple for mesmer. I can pretty much c-space through just about anything, with an occasional esurge/eburn tossed in for big damage.

E-denial was never a viable PvE tactic because monsters can't run out of energy. Feel free to try something else to troll about.

Forgot a skill there.

Either way - ShadowStepping is easy not to overextend. Keeping an eye on the battlefield is key.

Tried - only tried.

Critical Hit builds? Crit *insert weapon* Builds actually.
The point of a sin is to jump in, assassinate the target, jump out. Not to quarrel around using crit-daggers build...

[/quote]
Those 2 skills are very powerful in self defense.
Perma 75% block is gud.

Yes, quite obvious no?
'Sins are still nice to play - but they just aren't as good. Unlike other professions that got nerfed - they're still extremely strong.

(By the way, it's nerfed. )

(Also - can we please stop being off-topic?)

No.

12 characters

Monsters do run out of energy if you force them to... which the DoA famine/smite is built off of (and the Urgoz Smite farming builds).

Besides that, before this thread became a pissing contest, the trivium is still in effect.

Having said that, is it me, or have I been seeing a ton of warriors drifting from good ol' tanking and becoming the damage dealing beasts they should be?

I am in an Elite PvE guild (and Elite meaning we do nothing else but Hard Mode everything... including FoW, UW, Urgoz, Deep, etc...) and we have players that play every profession. I am also familiar with running with every character class.

If anyone here has stated that it takes no intelligence to play a class (choose one)... you are absolutely right. Anyone can create any character and screw it up and make it look retarded and unusable. After running with people with intelligence running varying classes... I have concluded the following...

Play with a retarded monk long enough and you think that all monks suck...

Play with a really good monk and you think they are easy to play with...

Play with a retarded assassin and you think that all assassins suck...

Play with a really good assassin and you think they are easy to play with...

Same goes for mesmers, rangers, elementalists, paragons, etc...

I see a lot of people who don't accept sins, paragons, dervishes, or mesmers into their parties because they are only looking for Monks, Nukers, and Tanks. ... which some of us older players know has been the unbroken trivium in all of gaming.

In short, players with intelligence play any character class and find the utility in them. Hence, the constant nerfing of skills and builds.

Anyone who calls a Ranger a moderate damage dealer hasn't been on the oppossing side of a spiking crip ranger...

Anyone who calls a sin easy to play hasn't played with one that has no intelligence and runs into mobs arbitrarily. That same assassin then gets mad at the monks because they don't heal him fast enough.

People with intelligence generally know that a warrior can "tank" more damage, not because they have been traditionally called tanks, but because the mechanics of the friggin system are that warriors have the most armor. Doesn't mean they are tanks, or that their soul purpose is to just hold aggro, but it means that they are more resilient to damage. Understood?

Anyone here who engages in any kind of pissing contest about which profession sucks and which is the uber leetage, needs to do two things...

Play another profession in both PvE and PvP and test it for yourself. Become leet at it and utilize the classes as they are designed, and not throw UB on and swear you are a great sin in PvE.

Make educated opinion on topics like mesmers, i.e. play one, or play with one consistently, then comment on it.

Well over half the people in this forum suffer from PvXwikitis... a very common disease that originally helps noobs, but sometimes lingers in veteran players, crippling their minds and making them conformists that snap at anyone who doesn't run their build because they are unfamiliar with it and don't understand how it works.

Are you on drugs? You can still drain monsters of energy.

Which did nothing unless you had Mind Wrack on them. You can get them to 0, but the monsters cheat when it comes to energy (at least, they did when e-denial wasn't nerfed; I don't know if it's still the case). You might as well wand them.

Incorrect, most people do not notice if a monk is good at all. They judge monks by the success of the group: if the group succeeds, you praise the monks; if the group fails, you scream at the monks for not healing fast enough.

When I was a Ranger, before I played a monk, I immediately noticed when a monk was bad. I would ask them to ping their build plz and would get the following... "no Elite, five 10+ energy skills with no E-Management..., cross-class attack skills (just in-case), or they would just scream at me for being an Elitist and /ragequit

You do bring up a good point though, people do call a monk bad if the party fails... hehe... in most pugs. Having said that, I think the game is filled with a ton of bad players... noobs excluded. Bad players make me cringe.

We had a Ritualist in my guild, during an Underworld clearing, that kept suiciding himself into Obsidian Behemoth traps because he had dp and thought it was a great idea to use himself to set off the traps so we could pass. When I showed him that you could set off the traps by just going near the vicinity and backing away quickly, he yelled at me and told me his way was faster. I then explained that we could just walk around the damn things anyway, and he got mad and /ragequit.

I had a monk in a pickup group who had Spell Breaker as his Elite with all healing spells and proceeded to tell me that HB builds sucked and I needed to get creative. After quickly scanning his build, I realized that he only had Prophecies skills and commented on it.... /ragequit

This is what I mean by bad players... understood?

Looking at someones build is normally the precursor to determining if they suck or not. However, I am still astonished that players can ruin a good build. Intelligence... lol... is lacking in most of guildwars.

I think they have a 5 energy "rebate" on the cost of spells, because they continue to cast 5-energy spells even when at zero energy, but I don't know if I'd say that shutting down all >5 energy skills equals "might as well wand".

yes but the thing ur forgetting is the different relative levels it takes to suck at certain classes in pve. its kind of hard to suck at fire ele in both pve and pvp unless that person is extremely horrible, because the job is relatively simple. however, in pve, the game gets dumbed down even further so sucking at a relative class takes extraordinary ability to reach aforementioned level of suck. for example, playing a mesmer in pve takes the ability to not aggro, and tab through targets assisting in some shape or form. thats all it takes for a mesmer to not suck in pve (and suprisngly ppl still fail at this). however take paragons for instance. its even simpler to not be bad because all you do is stand outside of aggro, and spam shouts/chuck spears.

in the end its all about how much leeway certain classes allow for the individual to suck to have that class considered not useless in pve.

I speak of the vast majority of retards out there. Not the exceptionally special ones who think a bringing a polar bear as a monk is a great idea because it will help them kill them enemy faster.

There are a surprising number of people out there that just don't get things. This is evident when people play every profession as if they are warriors with high armor ratings. There is not thought, they just run into mobs, die, rez, run in again, die rez, and continue to repeat, claiming that the mission or scenario is really hard and anet should make things a little easier. hehe

Actually, in PvE, the AI goes for the characters who aggro first. They then go after the lowest armor rated player (with a preference for monks). That is the system mechanics of PvE in a nutshell. So, anyone who has no intelligence and strays from the "let the warrior take the aggro" mentality, finds the game difficult and normally have no clue that there is actual thought that can be put into the game.

Depending on age level, I find that older players are far better players (on average), than younger ones. Thinking about it, I remember having difficulty with a lot of games as a teenager, that I can breeze through now... many years later. I think it is a matter of how older players perceive the game and possible solutions, where a lot of younger players attempt to muscle their way through the game(s) and don't stray to far from what they know.