What do you mean when you say balanced team?

This could fall under Q&A, but is more of an opinion/discussion type question.

I see lots of talk of balanced vs gimmick team builds, and I would like to know what you guys/gals mean when you say balanced.

To me, I see it as an equal mix of melee, ranged (casters,rangers), and heal/protect. I alternately play 2 accounts, one with Ele main, and one with Ranger main. My basic teams consist of one each melee, ranger, ele, and healer. As team size grows, and depending on bad guys in a given area, I add another caster, ranged, melee, and heal/protect. If the area has plenty of fleshy, I replace one melee with a MM. If there are lots of undead, the MM is replaced with a Smite monk. The first Ele is generally an Air/water and the second ele is most often an earth/warder. Also the second Ranger is often replaced with a mes.

What do you use as a balanced team? No need to discuss skills used, just team members.

2x Front-line (Usually at least one warrior)
2-3x Offensive Mid-line (Spiritspammers, minion bomb with offense, mesmer etc)
1-2x Defensive Mid-line (Minion bomb with prots/rit heals, Earth ele, imbagon etc)
2x Monk (Usually 2 WoH Hybrids)

In NM there is no real need for defensive mid-line, and offensive mid-line would probably be IV necros, SF eles or something, depending on how far in the game and what you're facing.

It looks as if you have it well planned. I've been playing for less than a year, to get that out of the way. These days I use 7 heroes where possible. At least one monk, often two in case the first monk gets ganked. Two dervishes lately, an assassin sometimes but not always, an ele, and one or two tanks. One ranger, usually Pyre as a ranger/necro. One or two ritualists, as secondary profession often. If I'm running out of room in the group, the assassin seems to be the first one to be left out. Hayda the paragon was lasting longer than many of the other heroes yesterday; I sometimes have one paragon in the group.

My groups seem to end up heavier on the ritualists and necros lately, but as noted above I try to have a variety. I know this isn't planned well enough.

PvE
front:1 war/1 derv/1 assassin (derv or warrior usually if only one)
mid: necro, mes, ranger, paragon, rit
back: ST rit/resto rit/ ER ele if necro MM, party heal monk (UA+DH+HD)

PvP
front: warrior/derv/sin <-- pick 2
mid: necro, mes, ranger, paragon, ele <-- pick 3
back: 2x monk, party heal rit (rit flags usually)

see http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/w...t10453687.html ; http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Balanced

realistically the most balanced PvE build will be frontline-less unless you want to deal with melee AI, so you sub in a spear paragon for a melee, losing out on AoE.

for me, PvE balanced with heroes means:
1 Mo - UA with UA+HD+DH+Gift/Healing burst monk
1 Rt - Resto hybrid SoS w/ restor
1 N - Minion bomber w/ Prot Spirit or Soul twist rit in areas without bodies
1 Me - Panic Mesmer
1 P - Command Paragon / dervish running Avatar of dwayna and nothing melee <-- in areas with blind/miss hex swap for necro or mesmer
1 R - Ranger w/ d-shot + sloth hunter + barrage <-- in areas with blind/miss hex swap for necro or mesmer
1 Me - Keystone/Illusion Mesmer (damage)
1 (Class) - Player

unused: Warrior (heroes can only use Warrior's endurance); assassin (heroes fail hard at chains); eles (heroes suck at ER and everything else is meh)

Yes, I'd rather bring 2 mesmers than an ele + mesmer and I tried ST with offensive spirits but the single-targeted nature made me impatient and you need 13 spawning if you don't want to get owned by weakness (3 spirits every 15 vs 4 from SoS + Bloodsong every 30). I feel SoGM rits are too slow unless you sit in a certain place for 45 seconds (the recharge on some spirits in communing: Anguish, Dissonance). Without those 45 recharge spirits you only get Pain, Shadowsong, Disenchantment.

Depends on the Main I am using.

For my ranger.. One monk, Panic Mes, SoS rit, Curse Necro, Earth Ele with wards, Mbomb Necro/resto. The last slot is Para, Derv, another Ranger..depends on mood and area. In non fleshy areas the Mbomber goes and is replaced by a smite/heal monk or another mes.

Sometimes I will run with a bow crit Assassin in the last slot. The constant interrupts amuse me, so I generally run a para with that.

On my War/Derv much the same, but I tend to run more with Para and Smite monk for the smite buffs on my melee. It is hilarious on my Derv to run in with splinter, go for the eyes, strength of honor and Judges insight etc.

To my recollection I've never run with 3 of any prof except when goofing off. I last ran consulate Docks with 3 Dervs, 2 Paras, Jora and a monk just to be silly. Was funny watching the groups of bowmen get eaten alive.

tbh: Axe, Hammer, Ranger, Mes, Ele, Prot, Fuse, Flagger.

7 mesmers, 1 paragon.

Perfectly balanced to me.

Balanced amount of classes in your group.

I define a team to be balanced when it is not unbalanced.

8 players. No assassin. No paragon. And 1 of each from the rest.

Who am I kidding?

Anything without gimmicks is enough.
As long as no one is using things like mantra of frost + winter, invincibuilds or bringing more than 3 skills from a secondary profession it's somewhat balanced.

balanced for me means no spell immunity (e.g. sf/obi/vos/sb)

For me, being a war, balanced has always been a split between offence, defence and healing.

5/1/2 generally speaking.

5 offensive classes are usually 1war/1ranger/1rit/1ele
1 defensive classes is most often mesmer
2 healing are usually a monk and either a rit or a necro/rit

The builds vary from map to map and even the roles switch up a bit with a smite monk in when I swap the ranger for second necro/rit.

Assuming it's eight players in a mostly human group, perhaps 0-4 physicals, 1-2 healing prot roles, and rest casters as either damage or stuff like FD/Orders etc. There can be a lot or no synergy. If it's a group of just heroes and a single player, I don't think it's an issue.

It's when you get unnatural things seen in speed clears with multi-mob balling and splits.

I was in a guild briefly that claimed balanced is not using skills that worked well together or PvE skills. I was kicked. ._.

7min Urgoz is pretty balanced if you ask me..

Ok, no, I don't play so much general PvE anymore, but when I did, I used to take 1/2 warriors, 1/2 Monks, 1/2 eles, 1/2 necro's, mixing however suited me. This was with heroes/henches usually..

Pretty much anything that is not a Gimmick Build. For example, anything that uses SF or can be considered a SC is probably a gimmick.

Balanced builds are much more open to variation. Random pug groups often try to form balanced groups for this reason. Basically, Healer/Prot, Damage, and a Tank/CC. Many different professions can substitute as one or the other. An MM or Spirit Spammer can sub as a tank in PvE. An Ele can go damage or Prot. The builds and professions arent as important. Whats important is that all the roles are filled.

In other words, Balanced builds are interdependent on roles. Where gimmick builds are interdependent on builds.


EDIT: As for myself, I bring 2 healers(one dedicated and one hydrid) in the form of an ER Prot and SoS Resto. An MM and SoS usually cover both damage and tanking. 2 Mesmers for crowd control/damage/damage mitigation. And the rest is whatever. Usually a Command Paragon and another caster for support or another hybrid healer for tougher areas. On my melee's its an RoJ divine healer with SoH. I consider that balanced, because I could substitute all of those with other builds with generally the same effect.

balanced...hhmmmm, I always bring a healing monk, sos rit, mm, another monk of some kind, p/w (heck why not), interupter--either mes or ranger, ele and whatever I am playing replaces one of those.

I RARELY use melee other than paragon and rangers. (mox has yet to see the light of day)....unless required or for the lolz; the minions seem to do enough melee so no need to waste a hero slot.

"Balanced" is a gvg build consisting of two warriors, a ranger, ele, mesmer, 2 monks, and a flagger. I don't see it as anything but just another build name, much like "derv pressure", "hexway", "triple melee", "invoke spike", etc. There's nothing special about the build other than some people's nolstagic hard-on for it.

I don't really use the term "balanced" in reference to PvE. I do deal with random players from random professions ad-hocing a team instead of a speedclear quite often, but I don't consider that especially "balanced" compared to anything else, nor really care if it is or not. I just know that I'm not interested in repeating most content enough to really master a speedclear build, and even if I did for e.g. solo farming, I tend to get bored and move on once the build is mastered. Just too easy to farm zkeys on casual pvp zquests and get whatever I want that way.

Something to soak up damage (minons/spirits), something to prevent it (interrupts, prot), something to heal it and the rest to deal it.

Usually me as SoS, a MM w/interrupts or prot/heal, panic mesmer, necro resto w/dmg, ST rit, rest some kind of dmg.

I don't use melee hero/hench in PVE unless I have no choice due to AI, though I do want to eventually look into the physical-way teams I've heard about. I just don't play my melee characters much, so it's not as intuitive for me.

Balanced, for me, means:

• One guy afk
• One guy with a female ele, dancing naked
• One wammo with mismatched armor, running around in circles, crying "woowoowoowoo!"
• One guy drawing penises on the radar
• One guy wanting me to drop my BDS on the floor, just so he can "see the skin."
• One guy begging me to give him the ecto that just dropped for me.
• One guy saying how much this sucks in comparison to EQ.

For me, and I only PvE, "balanced" basically means a team setup that I can generally take anywhere in standard PvE (non-elite) areas with very minor tweaking to any individual builds (extra hex removal, more holy damage, whatever), and doing so in such a way that the absence or replacement of one or more of those builds won't tank the team's ability to complete an area.

I play an elementalist, my husband plays a ranger, my best friend plays a necro, my friend Missy often plays a rit or mesmer and our other friend is usually a ranger. To my mind, I should be able to slide any or all of them into a team setup amongst the heroes I use regularly and still be able to achieve our goals without greater OR less difficulty. And that's without running something like a Discord team with an AP caller, a straight Sabway or Spiritway, an Imbagon, etc.

I don't want any one part of my team to be basically carrying the rest... we should all have our part to play, all be contributing to the achievement.