What Class do you think could use a buff in PVE?

Earlier today I was reading a thread here from a disgruntled player to Anet on how he felt that some classes of PVE have been neglected, or nerfed, to the point that most average teams refuse to take them in parties, because they just no longer fit the desired team mechanics for most areas. He didnt state the class he was playing, but claimed his profession could almost never get a group. In the middle of responding to his post, it was deleted from guru. I wont go into any more detail about his letter specifically, other than to wonder what classes do you feel just dont have a place in GW anymore and why?

We all know that builds of yesterday have been replaced, and what once used to be the best and most powerful, no longer work at all, or have been nerfed into uselessness. IE Barrage/ Pet Rangers in Urgoz and Tombs, Shadow Form Elem farmers, Etc. And that some builds now soley dominate the game. IE 600 Monks, Perma-Sins. We also know that even in balanced team play, certain classes have always been prefered over others. Monks, Necros, Warriors and Elems have always had a slot in almost every team.

To me, it seems that if you dont have a Perma Sin or Monk you will never make any money in this game. For elite missions... Urgoz, you can pretty much be any profession, but how often do you see a Ranger in the Deep or in the DoA other than foundry? Until Perma SF came along, Sins couldnt get a group at all either. Most Dervs ive seen trying to tank have failed miserably in many areas, whether due to being too dependant on enchants that get stripped or lack of understanding on how to play them, i have no idea. Ive never played one, but when im heal monking, if i see one in a group i just cringe.

It also seems that most classes now have just one build that is acceptable and if you dont run it....*KICK*. Rits are now just Spirit Spammers, Monks for RoJ or UA, Mesmers Cryers, Warriors Hundred Blades, Paragons Imbagon, Necros Bip or SS, etc. I know that Rangers have Splinter Barrage but it just doesnt feel like it does much anymore and compared to the Sins Crit/Barrage, pale in comparisson.

Im sure if someone did the research on what classes held the most GWAMM titles we would see many of a few classes and a few of the rest. So again...

Has some class been nerfed or ignored to the point that it no longer has a place in GW? What Skills should be buffed to make it able to be part of a balanced team again? Is there a class that you just wont take into a team build?

Assassin. :3

8 man parties.
10 classes.

There is no way to fit in everyone.

It really seems assassins are getting all the love and attention from Anet.

It would be nice if Anet would look into the vast amount of mesmer skills and make them at least somewhat useful in PvE. Inspiration really needs to stop being nerfed deep miles underground and be fixed to work well with mesmers.

Paragons, um. All they have is SY.

Upier, your post is pretty pointless, no offense.

For each area in the game you should always be able to find a single party build that will be better than everything else.
With 10 classes and 8 man parties, at least 2 guys will ALWAYS be left out. The only way to include a guy into that party is for him to replace a guy ALREADY in the party.


Now if the question on the other hand is if any of the classes is so poor that it's unable to contribute to the success of the party and is always better left in the outpost - then the answer is no.
PvE is easy enough that it doesn't require perfect play at any given time.

paragons, all they really have is SY

Mesmers and maybe rangers.
Degen, interrupts and e-denial? Not so hot in pve.

I think each profession over the years has found its niche. In our alliance, which is mainly oriented toward high-end pve and SC, there are a variety of team builds that accomodate the full range of professions.

That said, I don't think every profession does (or should) perform the exact same role in the game. In DOA, we take mesmers criers because fast-casting is win, and necros because FOC is big damage. In Bogroots SC, my poor mesmer has no place, but the ranger and paragon get to stretch their legs.

If you spend the time, which is quite minimal, to raise up a few characters in addition to your beloved main, you will find yourself in a good position to join a variety of groups. And, the occasions that you do get to use your main toon will be all the more special.

Primary dervishes are at a loss with their primary attribute. The only thing it's good for is arcane orders, which can be done by heroes.

WTB buffs for: Assassins (not including crappy SF), Mesmers (degen and e-denial isn't all that great in PvE.. Nor are interupts. Things Die too fast as it is in "Hard" Mode), and Rangers.

Mostly dervs...

But PvE isn't the problem. PvP is, in which I think the rit needs a buff...

Erm... It may get boring quite fast but Rits were just buffed by reintroducing spirit spamming... Just thought I'd let you know...

Having played my new assassin lately, I would absolutely welcome buffs to this guy.
Sure, I can kill obscenely fast already, but why shouldn't I be able to kill even faster?

Spirit spam was a PvE buff.
PvP they still take 3 - 5 second to cast and about half that to kill. :/

PvP Rits are viable, mostly seen in GvG.

and CoP got nerfed ^^

i seriously run the generic spiritmancer build on my mes rather than the domination line now, it's just faster and most mes skills suck completely out there in pve.

I personally don't feel that any of the professions really need a buff, as Upier said, you can't fit 10 people into an 8 man party. So, what I think needs to happen is...

People need to be more open on what to accept into a group, and those playing for acceptance need to be innovative, creative and effective. Everyone swears that everything has been done, but if that's the case, why do new builds keep coming up? Yes, the meta changes with skill updates. Yes, some skills get nerfed out of existence while others are buffed to extremes. But, when people get rejected from a team because the only build that is accepted isn't being run by them, it's becoming too much. When I play with my guild members, we are open to any profession, and to different builds, and believe me... some of these builds that others laugh at may work better than you think.

This forum is a prime example, go look at the Campfire section and you will notice that there are full-scale arguments about whether or not Discordway is effective, and how if you don't run it because "there are faster ways" and you would rather not run what has been considered one of the biggest gimmick teams, you are shunned and ridiculed because apparently, you are seriously misinformed and have no place in the community. It is possible for new things to arise, and it is possible that some builds are going to be better than others in certain areas. But that doesn't mean that everything else is useless. Take paragons, most won't accept paragons unless they are running Imba, while paragons are still decent party buffers aside from spamming "SY!" and in most cases, they can put out a decent amount of damage.

Basically, I guess all I'm trying to say is that the OP is correct in the matter that the community shuns those that don't run "the current meta", of course there are going to be poor players with bad builds, but that doesn't account for the entire populace.

Any class can do PvE well.

The players are what's discriminating, and if there's even the slightest advantage of taking a particular group (even if it excludes a large group of people) they will take it.

You want to play the game? You help ask for seven hero parties so we can do the elite missions without player discrimination.

The current pve-metagame is already too easy compeared to the game style two-three years ago. PvE is too easy now. Nothing needs a buff.

People have done the calculations on damage from CoP, and it actually causes more damage now with the degen after.

However, since it can't be spiked like it used to, people consider it nerfed.

I would see a buff to unused skills for every class.

Dervish, in my opinion. Second is Mesmer, third Paragon.

The reason? Dervs are totally outclassed in almost every way by A/W/R. Avatars are nice for certain things, but it doesn't stretch very far. Mesmers have their own niche, but it's not a very important one in PvE... an effective caller can be nice in spike groups, but how often is that viable in general gameplay? With power creep, a caller is pretty much unnecessary, because a good damage dealer can bring down nearly anything with sufficient timing and build. Paragons last because, meh, at least they have a semi-monopoly. They're the only ranged DPS with party support, and, while it hasn't really caught on, there are some pretty viable builds to accompany a physical-heavy team that only Paragon can do well.

Most likely, nothing in PvE needs or deserves a buff until ANet can bring themselves to nerf all of the overpowered stuff running rampant in the game.

Assasin and Mesmer (suck in PvE so maybe the reason why they take control of PvP)

Ranger.

It must be the most boring profession around, no offense
I've got all profeesions on my account and this is the least I'm playing. Technically you can do plenty with the ranger but there is no excitement whatsoever
Good for running Ascalon <-> LA and Crystal Desert and that's about it
Boring, boring, boring. I apologize all rangers, it's not your fault

Mesmers without a doubt .

Dervishes need a mysticism buff for PvE and PvP, not a damage buff.

Paragons need motivation overhauled.

Rits need a slight communing adjustment.

Rangers need a few PvE/PvP skill splits to make them not have to use another professions weapon to do good.

Mesmers need a slight change to some domination skills. Any mesmers (Gwen, Norgu) I take now run tease.

Assassin's need no buff, they kill extremely fast with daggers in PvE.

Sin's Promise needs nerfed.

PvE skills need removed.

I think every class needs a buff in one way or another:

- Monks need more energy management within their own profession (counts for PvP).
- Rangers need a damage buff to the marksmanship attribute so they can actually contribute to a battle (splinter barrage doesn't count, since it relies on tank-n-spank tactics and is a huge drain on energy, even with a zealous weapon).
- Paragons could definitely use the motivation attribute again instead of its useful-as-tactics-in-PvE current form.
- Warriors (or people who play them) could use a buff to the tactics line, just enough to make it useful again in PvE.
- Assassins almost need an overhaul, since according to most of the GW community, it's either Shadow Form or nothing.
- Dervish desperately need a mysticism buff, as it's close to useless at 8 or lower.
- Mesmers don't need a damage buff in PvE, but the recharge times of most damaging spells need a shorter recharge time.

Strangely enough, I can't think of anything wrong with the ritualist, elementalist, or necromancer.

For ritualists, Communing could use some buffs to make it a more viable source of party protection. Spawning Power still isn't on par with other primary attributes. The only 'good' uses of a ritualist at present are Splinter Weapon at 16 Channeling and Signet of Spirits builds.

Elementalists are fine in NM but are seriously disadvantaged in HM due to reduction of their damage capabilities. Armour-ignoring damage from necromancers (e.g. Discord, Necrosis), monks (RoJ) and to some extent mesmers (CoP, Clumsiness etc.), as well as physical damage, outclasses elemental damage. Two possible changes:
1. Decrease enemies' resistance to the elements
2. Add an 'armour-ignoring factor' to Energy Storage for PvE, e.g. for each rank of Energy Storage, 5% of your elemental spells' damage ignores armour. This also addresses another problem, which is the relative weakness of Energy Storage to other primary attributes.

Necromancers are one of the most powerful professions in PvE and if anything their damage potential ought to be reduced.

Generally though, I agree with this:

A MASSIVE skill rebalance is needed for PvE. Anet however was going the easdy way of doing some absurdly imba buffs to make a class viable instead of making a large pool of skills work for that role. It's now waaaaay too much about the few specific skills that got buffed to absurd power levels with everything else being just terribad in comparison.

A good balance update should nerf the most absurdly overpowered elites to reasonable power levels and at the same time buff a bunch of others, but not randomly. This operation needs a lot of thought to be given into it as it's practically designing the classes again.

Every class needs it's role and in some cases more than one role (like for example Necros can now do many different things efficiently), so even with just 8 party slots and 10 classes none should be left out, just because many of them should be able to do for example efficient DPS or defense+support.

First, I'm surprised it gets no mention here but ELES outside of imba Ether Renewal builds are pretty useless in HM, none of the currently used teambuilds for anything use any eles. Ele damage is bad for HM since it can't ignore armor like other classes can and most of it suffers from the AoE scatter problem.

Then MES much more obviously also needs some buffs and giving him an important role in PvE. Mesmer is a class clearly designed for PvP where it's disruption and denial abilities generate long term advantage. But in PvE a mes should be able to quickly shut down It could be done through the PvE skills but it shouldn't turn into an imba all-mes-spike rolls over all pve faster than ursans. Maybe a Fast Casting attribute buff would be good, doing something like Fast Casting effect in PvE doubled on all Mesmer skills and also applying the same % to a faster recharge of Mesmer skills.

Secondly we got the melee problem - melee damage in PvE HM is severelly underpowered in comparison with caster/ranged damage (from minions/spirits) unless the whole teambuild has a lot of support for it. A class like Dervish can't contribute much to a team's victory plan and the same goes for Assassin if it's not a God-Tank. (I know A/D critical can do some pretty good damages).

ASSASSINS just like mesmers were not a well designed class for PvE, without permanent-GOD-mode they're just frontline squishies that don't even kill stuff fast. Assas probably need the rebalance the most, since SF absolutely should be nerfed so maintaining it is impossible, sins have to get a series of buffs in the same update, giving them an important role in full team PvE. But what role would that be? Maybe short time invulnerability and single target shutdown+spike damage and ability to retreat just as fast, without a significant penalty.

I'm of the opinion that every class should be nerfed and AI should be buffed.

paras are awesome in pve, as are rangers.

mesmers though... no. they got a decent pve skill, cry of pain, now it's crap again and they're worthless.

• 1. Dervishes. Hands down the weakest class in PvE right now. They can't do anything that another class can't do better.
  
  Fundamentally, the problem is this: To rival warriors and sins, a melee needs to do at least 2 of the 3 following things very well: (1) generate a ton of buffable packets, (2) spam SY!, and (3) knock things on their butts. Well, sadly a dervish fails at all of these. Scythes are too slow to be good at generating packets, and none of the attack skills are very good for adding extra packets, and the packets you do generate aren't fully buffable because of damage type shifts. And, the adrenaline gain is too slow to spam SY! well. And, no native knockdowns, and no advantage with the PvE knockdowns.
  
  Suggestions:
  • Start by removing the team-synergy-gimping damage type shifts from AoHM and the avatars. Being able to participate in the MoP/Barbs/Orders paradigm would be a huge buff on its own.
  • On top of that, Mysticism needs something (either skills or an inherent effect buff or both) to make it more useful to a scythe user than CritStrikes, Warrior's Endurance+Strength, or Expertise.
  • Next, do something useful in the packet-generation department. More multi-swing attacks or full-AoE attacks.
  • Finally, either give them some way to gain adrenaline quickly (probably disguised as multi-swing attacks) or a decent knockdown skill.
  
  
• 2. Mesmer. After the CoP nerf, they've got one decent build left that other classes can't do better (Mandragor-in-a-Can).
  
  Suggestion: Change CoP and do it right this time. "Interrupt target foe and remove one Mesmer enchantment. If a Mesmer enchantment is removed in this way, that foes and all foes in the area take 50...100 damage."
  
  That would restore the class to being a decent damage dealer. To go further than that, the Hard Mode fast cast buff would need to be removed, or the class totally redesigned.
  
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Verene People have done the calculations on damage from CoP, and it actually causes more damage now with the degen after. However, since it can't be spiked like it used to, people consider it nerfed.

  No, Verne, it's terribly, horribly nerfed. Degen doesn't stack. Even one CoP guy running CoP + Arcane Echo (+ AP) by himself gets far, far less damage out of it. Besides, a dead monster now is worth more than a dead monster in 10 seconds.
  
  
• 3. Ranger. The only thing this class does better than any other right now is dazed, which is only sometimes useful.
  
  It's hard to fix this class with a total redesign. I can only suggest a couple of incremental changes:
  
  • Allow preps with Barrage/Volley.
  • Rework redundant bow attacks.
  • 1 decent non-elite energy management skill. (Body Shot has too low e-gain to benefit if you apply cracked armor yourself, but is unreliable if you need to coordinate with someone else; Scavenger Strke requires 2 skillslots.)
  • Some sort of party-buff role. Possibly make pet buffs have a ward-sized AoE around the pet??
  
  
• 4. Elementalist. The only thing this class is good for right now is monking. Armor-creep on the Hard Mode monsters renders eles impotent as damage dealers.
  
  Suggestion: Change Intensity to grant significant armor penetration % to all elementalist skills. This will cause ele skills to gain effectiveness in step with monster armor as it increases.
  
  
• 5. Monk. Totally outclassed by ER eles. Only superior in areas where ER eles are unusable due to heavy enchant stripping.
  
  ER eles have 2 significant advantages over Monks: First, effectively unlimited energy. Second, effectively no health sac for Infuse. At the very least, the energy problem needs to be solved for monks to become competitive.
  
  Suggestions:
  • Return Selfless Spirit's cost reduction to 5, AND
  • • EITHER: Do it the simple way and reduce Selfless Spirit's recharge to make it maintainable or very nearly maintainable,
    • OR: Take a worthless Divine Favor skill and change it into a reliable skill recharger to use to maintain Selfless Spirit. Example: "Holy Haste. cost 5; cast 1/4; recharge 20. Gain 5...20 energy and all of your monk skills are recharged."

dervish are the fastest runners hands down, if you've raced down to droks- you know what I'm talking about.. mesmer has always been weak in pve cause fast casting is more pvp related

oh yeah eles can exploit cracked armor.. the problem is some of their aoe causes scatter- monks roj the mobs like to sunbath in it

Every class is overpowered because of pve skills.They need to go away.

There appears to be some truth to this statement at first glance, but when you think about it the worth of a player in a group depends on his skill. A skillful ranger or mesmer on a pve is going to make some great contributions to the mission, but no one will notice and credit may even be falsely contributed to a member of the holy trinity. I play both of these and it happens more than you think. The biggest problem they have is perception and other team members not knowing what actually is going on since these classes have no special effects.

Paragons need to be functional at something that will make them acceptable in Elite areas. They either need to be able to pump out DPS or Heal sufficiently to replace a monk. Other than that they are pretty much only good for HH support.

Hello, this is my first post from off topic high end items etc. But nevermind of it my english is kinda bad. But I must admit after nerfing uwsc I wud like to see old CoP again or even better, yes I know more dmg now whit degen but still 50dmg+some degen isnt quick enuf to kill full of raged margos and titans in DoA. Yes theres FoCway but still kinda bad to think how it was beafor, yes me and guild tryed CoP (todays one) it kills abbadon creatures to 33% hp and bam they loose aggro = fail :/ but anyway thats just my thinking.Happy gaming

This cover it.

I have seen this many times myself. First time I saw it was years ago playing Abaddon's Mouth on my Mesmer with 2 Monks, 2 Warriors, 1 Necro, and 2 Elems. Willa went down fast and easy, and one of the Monks thanked the Elems for some good nuking (could see the Firestorm). However, they didn't realize that I had Power Blocked Willa's Orison and Shattered his elite.

Not sure what order these would be in, but the only BUFFS I see PvE needing are:

Warrior Tactics
Ritualist Communing (small one)
Dervish Mysticism