I would like to know other people views on this interview, that i find really bad. I for one do not in any way think that a class is overpowered in GW2 atm. I have tried and fought against all the classes of the game (PVP wise, no pve). 

I find it funny how he picks the 2 classes with the LEAST damage of the game and turns it out to be an OP class/builds lol!!  Im glad jon found this to be absurd by saying no we will not remove the death shroud ability, and saying any class can be OP if you can play it right. Jon is truely a star on how he responded with all this silly "unbalance" issues. 

Lewis B: Still with the guardian, many people I’ve played alongside believe they are “overpowered”—how do you even begin to approach and combat such statements? A guardian can certainly survive for very long periods of time…

Jon: There are a few aspects of every profession that are currently wildly overpowered. If you look around on YouTube, you can see examples of mesmer, engineer, ranger, warrior, elementalist, thief, necromancer, and yes, guardian, being overpowered. It is now our job to bring those things into balance with the rest of the game.Lewis B: Moving on to the necromancer, do you think the Corruption changes are working out as intended? Self infliction is a good idea, to create synergy with Consume Conditions, but they don’t actually last long enough to stack them to really affect CC and hinder you far too much. It seems a poor trade off at the moment for not much in return. Is this still a work in progress?

Jon: These are some of the newest skills in the game. When we introduce new stuff, it tends to be either too strong or too weak because we don’t scrutinize the numbers on those skills until we let them get some repetitions in our meta. I think it is fair to say Corruptions are not good enough yet.

Lewis B: Still with the necromancer and similarly to the guardian, necromancers are commonly seen as unstoppable killing machines through their use of the Death Shroud mechanic and their ability to almost gain a second life. In a control-point situation, this can buy invaluable time. Are there any current concerns with how long they can survive and what role this plays in structured PvP and the focus on defending control points?

Jon: One of the goals of Guild Wars 2 is that offense is greater than defense in the long run. It doesn’t mean that spec’ing defense is bad or that we don’t want you playing defensively. It means that we want to make sure that stuff dies and there is progress. There is a fine line here, and you have called out two of the biggest offenders on the “too defensive” side of things, but we will not remove this role, as it is fun; it just needs to be viable but not required.

OP is not always about damage... atm guardian can insta heal completely with their elite, and necromancer's death shroud can sometimes negate more health than their lifebar. I don't know about you, but 1 player holding on to a point against 3 or 4 other players for a very long time does smell like OP... especially in tournaments where you can hold out on a point until reinforcements arrive.

"Jon: One of the goals of Guild Wars 2 is that offense is greater than defense in the long run. It doesn’t mean that spec’ing defense is bad or that we don’t want you playing defensively. "

so does this pretty much mean that "glass cannon" like you see in other mmos isnt really going to be the same as in gw2.cuz you can play more offensive then defensive in other mmos also.but that isnt exactly a good thing alot of the time

Originally posted by pacov

OP is not always about damage... atm guardian can insta heal completely with their elite, and necromancer's death shroud can sometimes negate more health than their lifebar. I don't know about you, but 1 player holding on to a point against 3 or 4 other players for a very long time does smell like OP... especially in tournaments where you can hold out on a point until reinforcements arrive.

It has a lot to do with damage because a person such as a guardian or necromancer can not kill someone but rather hold the point for an extra minute or so. I agree that the guardian elite skill is "OP", but that is the only thing about them not to mention it has 180secon cooldown....it does not last. As for necromancer i just lol'd irl about how perhaps some people can say "unstoppable killing machine", death shroud lasts for seconds and the damage as a necromancer is not even good thus why they need death shroud to make up for thier lack of damage.

As Jon said, there are videos on every single profession that people hold on their own and pretty much rape everything. Any class can be considered to be "OP" no in days.

Originally posted by xalvi

Originally posted by pacov

OP is not always about damage... atm guardian can insta heal completely with their elite, and necromancer's death shroud can sometimes negate more health than their lifebar. I don't know about you, but 1 player holding on to a point against 3 or 4 other players for a very long time does smell like OP... especially in tournaments where you can hold out on a point until reinforcements arrive.

It has a lot to do with damage because a person such as a guardian or necromancer can not kill someone but rather hold the point for an extra minute or so. I agree that the guardian elite skill is "OP", but that is the only thing about them not to mention it has 180secon cooldown....it does not last. As for necromancer i just lol'd irl about how perhaps some people can say "unstoppable killing machine", death shroud lasts for seconds and the damage as a necromancer is not even good thus why they need death shroud to make up for thier lack of damage.

As Jon said, there are videos on every single profession that people hold on their own and pretty much rape everything. Any class can be considered to be "OP" no in days.

umm.. yes they can

ANet have historically been very good at balancing in GW1 and have had lots and lots of practice with it. 

Since GW1 is PvE and PvP but separate, they had to find ways to balance the classes and skills so that they were all equally viable in both PvE and PvP without one class or the other being OP. They also have had to deal with players finding new and innovative builds or combinations of builds that even ANet hadnt thought of that turned out to be OP - "Flavour of the Month" builds etc. Add to this the experience they gained from balancing new skills that were introduced into the game with each expansion and even whole new classes and I think we can trust that ANet will do a good job with balancing :)

Originally posted by stragen001

ANet have historically been very good at balancing in GW1 and have had lots and lots of practice with it. 

Since GW1 is PvE and PvP but separate, they had to find ways to balance the classes and skills so that they were all equally viable in both PvE and PvP without one class or the other being OP. They also have had to deal with players finding new and innovative builds or combinations of builds that even ANet hadnt thought of that turned out to be OP - "Flavour of the Month" builds etc. Add to this the experience they gained from balancing new skills that were introduced into the game with each expansion and even whole new classes and I think we can trust that ANet will do a good job with balancing :)

From how Jon responded, i can honestly say i do trust Anet with balancing. He basically said what needs to be said, and most of implyed that everything is close to balancing which is true.

Originally posted by CrunkJuice2

"Jon: One of the goals of Guild Wars 2 is that offense is greater than defense in the long run. It doesn’t mean that spec’ing defense is bad or that we don’t want you playing defensively. "

so does this pretty much mean that "glass cannon" like you see in other mmos isnt really going to be the same as in gw2.cuz you can play more offensive then defensive in other mmos also.but that isnt exactly a good thing alot of the time

 

After the horrible sieging debacle of WAR, I'm very glad for this knowing we'll at least be able to get into the damn keeps at some point!  

---

Originally posted by pacov
OP is not always about damage... atm guardian can insta heal completely with their elite, and necromancer's death shroud can sometimes negate more health than their lifebar. I don't know about you, but 1 player holding on to a point against 3 or 4 other players for a very long time does smell like OP... especially in tournaments where you can hold out on a point until reinforcements arrive

---

just because people opted to play in tournaments at this stage of the game doesn't mean they are omitted from being bad at playing the game. if they were any kind of good players at all, one player of anything will not hold out, much less, last very long against 3 and 4 enemy players.

---

Originally posted by stragen001
ANet have historically been very good at balancing in GW1 and have had lots and lots of practice with it. Since GW1 is PvE and PvP but separate, they had to find ways to balance the classes and skills so that they were all equally viable in both PvE and PvP without one class or the other being OP. They also have had to deal with players finding new and innovative builds or combinations of builds that even ANet hadnt thought of that turned out to be OP - "Flavour of the Month" builds etc. Add to this the experience they gained from balancing new skills that were introduced into the game with each expansion and even whole new classes and I think we can trust that ANet will do a good job with balancing :)

---

purely subjective, especially if your profession only saw changes that only pushed them out of play. imo, arenanet never gave the community time to counter "fotm" builds. the establishment of "politics" was formed with the sole purpose of eliminating the number of different builds down to set limited number, or currently known as "meta" and used term "balanced build" to spearhead this movement.

What's crazy is that some people still think the Guardian is underpowered, even though myself, my whole guild and even ANet say that they can be overpowered in some respects. Necromancers as well, although not as "super high control" as the Guardian, they can be very frustrating to fight, even in a 2v1 due to their inherent tankiness and sustain. I think ANet makes some very good points here in this interview and I'm glad to see that they care about balance so much.

Originally posted by Kyelthis

What's crazy is that some people still think the Guardian is underpowered, even though myself, my whole guild and even ANet say that they can be overpowered in some respects. Necromancers as well, although not as "super high control" as the Guardian, they can be very frustrating to fight, even in a 2v1 due to their inherent tankiness and sustain. I think ANet makes some very good points here in this interview and I'm glad to see that they care about balance so much.

Anet in this interview actually disagrees with your point of view as necro being tanky and sustain for whatever that means lol. You have to understand that necros damage is very weak which is why they get the death shroud skill. Guardians are not underpowered as i said before i think every class is pretty much balanced ( exept maybe the engi, but thats changing). But yes they do care about balancing.

Originally posted by xalvi

Originally posted by Kyelthis

What's crazy is that some people still think the Guardian is underpowered, even though myself, my whole guild and even ANet say that they can be overpowered in some respects. Necromancers as well, although not as "super high control" as the Guardian, they can be very frustrating to fight, even in a 2v1 due to their inherent tankiness and sustain. I think ANet makes some very good points here in this interview and I'm glad to see that they care about balance so much.

Anet in this interview actually disagrees with your point of view as necro being tanky and sustain for whatever that means lol. You have to understand that necros damage is very weak which is why they get the death shroud skill. Guardians are not underpowered as i said before i think every class is pretty much balanced ( exept maybe the engi, but thats changing). But yes they do care about balancing.

I'm not disagreeing with you on this, I'm just saying that the constant QQ on the official forums about the Guardian being trash really took me by surprise. As for the Necro, their damage can be pretty high actually. The popular curses/blood magic build is amazing with condition damage gear/runes. Constant bleeds that can be stacked up to 14 stacks easily and multiple condition removal makes that build not only do decent damage (not as much as a "bleed thief", but still close) but have amazing survivability as well. With 19k health and a ton of life steal, it's hard to deal with them. Now, I'm not saying either class is overpowered, but they need some tuning. If played right, both can be amazing for any group, and Guardians, as of BWE2, should be almost a must-have in any tournament group. We always had ours with us in every match since he was so vital to the group.

Originally posted by Kyelthis

I'm not disagreeing with you on this, I'm just saying that the constant QQ on the official forums about the Guardian being trash really took me by surprise. As for the Necro, their damage can be pretty high actually. The popular curses/blood magic build is amazing with condition damage gear/runes. Constant bleeds that can be stacked up to 14 stacks easily and multiple condition removal makes that build not only do decent damage (not as much as a "bleed thief", but still close) but have amazing survivability as well. With 19k health and a ton of life steal, it's hard to deal with them. Now, I'm not saying either class is overpowered, but they need some tuning. If played right, both can be amazing for any group, and Guardians, as of BWE2, should be almost a must-have in any tournament group. We always had ours with us in every match since he was so vital to the group.

highlighted talking point:

you're speaking about one build here for the necro, im pretty sure that it doesn't involve a ton of life steal. bleed stacking necro is the most dangerous right now. that is the problem. no one is worring about a necro hitting them for huge numbers. its always going to be a race. "can i do enough damage to this necro to kill him before he dots me to death?" toning down survivalbility should automatically mean increasing damage and/or CC in the areas where it is needed. ("main hand dagger for 1000 Alex." **Daily Double**)

I'd replace necro with ranger.  Currently specced for survivability, both guardian and ranger are impossible to kill 1 on 1 and most times 2 on 1.  Necro is more annoying than OP.

Originally posted by stragen001

ANet have historically been very good at balancing in GW1 and have had lots and lots of practice with it. 

Since GW1 is PvE and PvP but separate, they had to find ways to balance the classes and skills so that they were all equally viable in both PvE and PvP without one class or the other being OP. They also have had to deal with players finding new and innovative builds or combinations of builds that even ANet hadnt thought of that turned out to be OP - "Flavour of the Month" builds etc. Add to this the experience they gained from balancing new skills that were introduced into the game with each expansion and even whole new classes and I think we can trust that ANet will do a good job with balancing :)

Historically it is quite the opposite.ArenaNet is horrible at class balancing. Due to the billions amount of skill combos from the billions amount of skills in the original game, the balancing was horrible and it was a train wreck. Then they thought up of PVE only skills which were quite overpowered because they were afraid content was too hard which ofcourse the content difficulty was pretty easy in hard mode.

Originally posted by Alders

I'd replace necro with ranger.  Currently specced for survivability, both guardian and ranger are impossible to kill 1 on 1 and most times 2 on 1.  Necro is more annoying than OP.

I'd actually agree with the removal of Necro being more annoying  "OP", they are a DOT/Bleed class ffs people lol. Rangers are pretty tough, probably the hardest class i had fought so far. I still do not think any class i OP though.

Originally posted by jayce

 

---

Originally posted by pacov
OP is not always about damage... atm guardian can insta heal completely with their elite, and necromancer's death shroud can sometimes negate more health than their lifebar. I don't know about you, but 1 player holding on to a point against 3 or 4 other players for a very long time does smell like OP... especially in tournaments where you can hold out on a point until reinforcements arrive

---

 

just because people opted to play in tournaments at this stage of the game doesn't mean they are omitted from being bad at playing the game. if they were any kind of good players at all, one player of anything will not hold out, much less, last very long against 3 and 4 enemy players.

 

---

You must have played against some bad guardians to form that opinion

Originally posted by pacov

Originally posted by jayce

 

---

Originally posted by pacov
OP is not always about damage... atm guardian can insta heal completely with their elite, and necromancer's death shroud can sometimes negate more health than their lifebar. I don't know about you, but 1 player holding on to a point against 3 or 4 other players for a very long time does smell like OP... especially in tournaments where you can hold out on a point until reinforcements arrive

---

 

just because people opted to play in tournaments at this stage of the game doesn't mean they are omitted from being bad at playing the game. if they were any kind of good players at all, one player of anything will not hold out, much less, last very long against 3 and 4 enemy players.

 

---

You must have played against some bad guardians to form that opinion

Guardians can def not hold 3-4 players, i'd like a video convincing me otherwise...

I'd admit that when i played my guard i held on 2 people, but i did not kill them it is more of a time waster or hold the point for an extra minute type of thing, until they will kill you after that minute. To say 3-4+ is basically just wrong lol.

As a guardian, I don't see the op pov. I was able to mitigate a lot of damage but didn't have shit for hit points so it didn't mean much in the end. Offensively it was very middle of the roadish.

Just because Anet wants to focus more on offensive than defensive abilities doesnt mean they want glass cannons; I take it to mean they wants players -fighting- eachother, using defensive cooldowns as a counter to certain abilities.