What do you mean when you say balanced team?

Didn't read any of the other replies because there's a lot of "x amount of this" going on. Balanced can easily have 3 warrior frontline or 4 dervs or whatever.

PvP: a build that can adapt to the situation and win in more ways than one or two. back when I played it meant you can catch spikes, live through hexway, can spike, can pressure, can split, can fend off a split, etc.

This is compared to gimmicks, like, for example, 8 SF eles or 6-8 hexers.

PvE: no such thing as balanced in PvE imo

So how come you don’t have girls in your teams?

I just accept anyone who wants to go and don't worry too much about their build (pve obviously)- I do like to have a healer tho.

ROFLMAO!! I know this balanced team, I seemed to get stuck in one almost every time I PuG.

The assumption that a balanced team cannot exist in PvE is false. The term applies to both PvP and PvE.

If you say balanced cant exist in PvE because you can change your builds to anticipate what your facing. Doesnt that mean if you do the same thing in PvP balanced can not exist there either? The logic of that arguement is flawed.

The wiki definition has it right. It simply means that you rely on roles within a team instead of gimmicks in order to be flexible and prepared for a wide variety scenarios.

You can think of it this way, Discord is a gimmick as it relies on several party members having the same skill and typically hero AI spike damage. Whereas Sabway is balanced because it revolves around different builds doing different things. So the amount of professions doesnt always dictate if a build is balanced. Multiples of the same type of build, like Discord, constitutes a gimmick. Both Discord and Sabway are often used effectively throughout most of PvE without changing a single skill. The only difference is that one is a gimmick and the other is balanced. The same rules apply to PvP.

While I agree, this argument sucks tbh. The difference is in PvP you NEVER know what you'll be facing, where as in PvE you always know what your facing. So theres no reason to run balanced teams because you should be adapting your build for the area. That said theres no reason why you could make or use builds that work just about everywhere if not everywhere for the hell of it, but you'd most likely be gimping yourself

Or you just don't want to spend time fine tuning a build for some random VQ you'll do once.

And I agree with what your saying. You should make your builds in PvE to expect the area involved. My point is that "why" you use balanced builds isnt what makes it a balanced build. What makes it a balanced build is the lack of a gimmick and designated roles within a party that are created to handle most situations.

In PvP, as I understand it, its used to expect the unexpected. I think the PvP understanding is getting confused with the general definition. In PvE, balanced builds are used to accomodate different professions into a team, personal preference in play style, ease of use when transistioning to different enviornments, and probably other reasons I havent mentioned. And even if you change a few skills in PvE to accomodate the area, its still considered a balanced build as long as it meets the criteria.

I'm not trying to troll or flame anyone here. I'm just trying to raise awareness that the term can be used in both PvP and PvE. They are used for different reasons, but the core of what makes a team balanced will always be the same.

Name ANY "balanced" build that doesn't involve some form of gimmicky quasi-invincibility strategy that can do Domain of Anguish HM.
Pointless example is pointless.

I'm not arguing in favor of using discordway or anything, but it's a clear example of how you cannot define "balanced" with relation to its ability to deal with a diversity of threats in PvE.

Why would you draw the "balanced" line between triple necro and discordway?
With triple necro you're relying on the same mechanic (Soul Reaping) to power all 3 necros. With Discordway you're using the same 1 skill on all 3 to power damage, and you have 7 variable skill slots to customize each one's functionality. I don't see what's wrong with everyone having the same skill... I mean, even with triple necro, don't you have Signet of Lost Souls on each character? If I make a build with 2 Warriors and 2 Rangers and I put Frenzy on all 4, does that make it a gimmick?

The aim was to highlight the futility of what was trying to be done.
But I would call this a relatively balanced setup. I can't off the top of my head, think of anywhere that would hard fail in bar the Underworld, Deep and Urgoz.


Discord is a simple caster spike. Against very heavy condition and hex removal, Discord is liable to fail. This isn't important in PvE because the AI is terrible.
Complicate is a strong counter to a Discord team, but the AI is terrible so it isn't a factor. With Discord gone, a lot of your damage disappears. Even then, the enemy PvE mobs are so bad the rest of your damage just crushes them.
Things like this only matter when the AI is given insane abilities or advantages and/or the player is made to work under very nasty conditions.

Edit: I wouldn't call triple Nec particularly balanced in any form really.

balanced, in my opinion, isn't loading up on a bunch of the same class. Therefore, I don't see discordway "balanced". Here is what I see as the "balanced" team:

1-2 frontliners
3-4 midline damage
1-2 midline support (not necessarily offensive or defensive, usually a mix of both)
2 backliners (1 heal and 1 prot)

In general, the only gimmick that I run anymore in PvE is triple (quadruple including myself) paragons. With 8 heroes, gimmicks arn't required to breeze through PvE, so I far prefer using more fun balanced builds.

Balanced style of play is originally based on the warrior.

Warriors, as long as they can hit, have infinite resources and so they will kill (and 1 or 2 frontliners, as long as they pack deep wound and can hit, will be able to kill any unprotected target themselves).

The rest of the team is there to make that happen and help to exhaust the opposition backline resources and shutdown enemy warriors.

Clearly builds like discord or SF-tank+spike don't fall in line with a couple of frontliners doing the killing.

This is much more PvP related than PvE related, since most PvE mob backlines are a joke. For PvE you can say that balanced play is something that doesn't obviously exploit AI incredible shortcomings and don't rely on balling the enemy and/or spike them to death.

Since the melee AI isn't good, it is hard to go for balanced play when the human players aren't the physical characters.

Well you don't have to do a lot of fine tuning tbh. You can go on wiki, find out theres a lot of melee in the area an take mass blind and or blocking. Or a lot of healing and take Soul Bind and Defile flesh or w/e. Which would mean you're using a gimmick for the area.

Again I'm not saying you cant have a balanced build in PvE, but that generally speaking theres no point to have one unless you're trying to make one.

Balanced is......
wait why would this matter, this games been busted down to Auto pilot with 7 heros.

I am mostly agreeing with what Maverick has to say, but on the topic of this challenge my old guild currently does sub 1hr with

2 warriors as frontline
1 Necro 1 Mes and 1 Channeling rit as midline
2 monks (1 UA 1 P&H) and one Rit (communing) as backline

No spell immunity is allowed in the run, but like anyone nowadays cons are used to speed the process.

I will allow though that the communing rit is shelter union spam, so that is damage mitigation even if it is not immunity . It will still be about as balanced as is going around for HM DoA.

Balanced builds are terrible, run overpowered stuff.

7 Nukes. keepin' it real.

This is balanced.

http://www.gw-memorial.net/nav/b_mat_i.php?id=128

For me in PvE it simply means not using gimmicky setups. It could be any 6-7 dmg and 1-2 heal/prot for all I care.

Tank and spank set up=/=balanced
Any run past everything setup =/= balanced

For the most part joining up with others and running whatever type of build and not worrying so much about what everyelse has as long as there is dmg and heal/prot.

Balanced?

- 2 Melee
- 2 Healers
- 2 Advantage
- 1 AA Long Range
- 1 Damage Caster

-- Melee is melee. Anything that can take the brash first attacks from enemies to keep everyone else from being targeted.
-- Healers are healers. People who heal, prevent death and make sure everyone stays alive to keep on fighting.
-- Advantage are those who apply conditions to enemies so the melee can have an, what else, advantage. Advantage also remove conditions on allies.
-- AA Long Range is the person in the back, but also is "AA" or All Around. Mostly meant for added heal or maybe Advantage, it's the person who can do a little bit of everything.
-- Damage Caster is the person who deals heavy damage and usually is the person to kill off groups of foes or deal nearby or collective damage.

In terms of GW, I'd say:

- 1 Warrior (Melee)
- 1 Dervish (Melee)
- 2 Monks (Healers)
- 1 Ritualist (AA Long Range)
- 1 Paragon (Advantage)
- 1 Elementalist (Damage Caster)
- 1 Mesmer (Advantage)

Balanced was GW before heroes, when you fell down to your knees and thanked God once you got Lina as a second henchie healer.

The great thing about the current meta with heroes, is that they are learning what NOT to do in GW2