jase90009: Seems like the only thing the balance team considers right now is SnowCrows benchmarks.

Another problem with balance in this game, is the amount of utility each CORE class brings. Mesmer is a complete outlier in that most (if not all) of its builds have extreme flexibility and can bring things like pulls, portals, boon rip, teleports, etc., things that other classes have to spec for, give up other utility or just can't do without using a certain elite spec.

DonnieCee: Range vs Melee has been an ongoing fight forever. I remember in WoW at one point there were like 3 limited melee spots and they went to rogue because their kit was strong and ranged was just so strong and could avoid mechanics while also still DPSing. But for GW2 I think a big problem will always be the limited range of boons and heals.

TheHelltribute: This is all good in theory, but how can you achieve “balance” with 36 elite specs across 9 classes, with build variations on top of that, considering 3 game modes (PvE/PvP/WvW with different spectrums within them) OW?

Also, I thought you would bring numbers or data to actually indicate where the problem is, but you just generalize that balance is somehow bad.

Another point: the reference for your pillars is in a context versus bosses that could be raid or fractals. Even if they are similar modes, they have build variance depending on the boss fights and team composition. If that’s the focus, people who play OW complain about specs being more group-oriented and having less sustain, and the same happens in PvP enviroment.

There’s also the factor of casual and hardcore players. If a build demands more execution and reaches something like 50k DPS, and the easy one reaches 40k, is that the number we’re looking at as ideal? if not, I think guilds will force you to play the best DPS regardless in a competitive environment. And pugs will demand minimum numbers while also “forcing” you to bring a toolkit to help the raid, whether you like the spec or not.

Factor in class fantasy, not making every class play the same, movement vs facetanking, ranged vs melee, gearing vs easily swapping specs, boon spread vs self boon generation, cc and utility, and you end up with an unsolvable problem.

In the end, with the variation between condition and power fluctuating within a small margin regardless of a spec’s difficulty, people will adapt and play according to whichever spec shines the most in a specific environment. Their focus should be to avoid dps discrepancy and way too much tool in the hand of one spec.

cameirusisu1024: More complex builds should not do more dps than simplier ones. I've seen that idea in other games, its toxic. people start to demand people play the complex builds, even if they simplier ones do perfectly adequate dps, and its used as a gatekeeping measure.

I agree builds that take more utility should do less dps, though still viable. than a pure glass cannon low utility dps build.

Ranged or melee is a tricky one, in theory gw2 is melee favoured as we stack, but in reality and against the community hivemind's opinion, ranged always performs better as you can instant target swap and have 100% uptime doing mechanics.

I personally think most melee builds should be more bursty power builds with lots of cc. Ranged builds should mostly be condition builds with lower cc. You could have exceptions, but the general rule should apply.

Shrek_The_Mathematician: you've touched on this a bit in the video, but the 2 biggest problems with balancing the game are :

1. boons & heals and how they work. the ultra short duration nature of boons forces players to constantly reapply them and in order to do so, must be stacked together because most skills that grant boons are really short range. For heals it's mostly all point blank aoe heals with a few exceptions not worth mentioning.

2. the build system and the balance problems it creates. In most other MMOs, like WoW for example, each class has between 3 to 4 specs -- each of them made to fill a specific role (tank/dps/heal) and a specific play style. This makes it a lot easier to balance even with talent trees because the talents don't magically turn your spec from a tank into a healer. In FFXIV it's even simpler, each job does only 1 role and there are no talent trees -- balancing is simple enough. In Guild Wars 2, there are an almost infinite amount of builds that cover every role and play style under the sun for every class. A single elite spec can have 5 dps builds, 2 hybrid dps-support builds, and 1 healer build for example. Just looking at snow crows benchmark for the PvE dps builds, theres over 130 of them !!! While the build system is amazing freedom for players, it also creates a few problems on top of balance problems -- It's extremely easy for a newbie to end up with a randomly put together build that is complete trash, affecting their enjoyment of the game and possibly preventing them from accessing end game group content.

The build system is the #1 reason why there is such a massive gap between the bottom and the top players without any gear difference -- And this gap is hard to balance the end game group content around, especially for raids, fractals and hard open world bosses (like old soo won for example, or even eparch).

Anonymous121212: As a solo player who doesn't do instanced content I'm fine the balance, with the exception of some builds that make it either inconvenient, slow, or not as fun like druid, herald, and some core profs.

That said, I can't use my solo builds (most from this channel lol) in instances because those require cookie cutter gatekeepery builds which I'm not into. So much is restricted or invalidated by moving from open world solo to other game modes and the reason why I play gw2 is because you can do most content solo with any build.

Since most players play open world, I'm guessing that's why balancing isn't top priority in other modes.

GoldenFlash0: Idk if I agree that range build should have less dps, its a fantasy game with magic what range you are in should not matter much, but imo melee builds should have better CC and be way more tanky to make up for range disadvantage.

jogada8032: PLEASE give us a competitive breakdown on dps for gw2! The devs need to see it. SPvP is one of the best game modes in mmos i have ever played.

Ironwu-s5h: This is super valuable information, and not just for ArenaNet! It really opened my mind to a new way of thinking about builds, balance, and what I should do related to the different types of content I am doing (Solo vs Fractals vs World Bosses, for instance).

Now, what really yanks my chain is other players who declare that because their Profession / Build cannot do as much damage as THAT Profession / Build over there, then there is something wrong with the whole system of 'Balance' in the game. And routinely sh*t all over GW2 or make demands that the developers MUST modify the Professions to meet their demands and expectations. Insanity.

I wish every player could watch this video and thus learn a thing or two! :)

As always, Thank You.

Vishnuification: Honestly, while agree with almost everything you said, I don't get a melee vs ranged argument - what difference does it make, when you have to hug your group and thus stay in melee range almost all the time?

Magnilous: This connected a lot of dots for me on picking a main

Sniperfire24: Great vid. Range too OP yes

HEZ63: For me most new elites work perfectly well in VoE, while older elites do a good job with older content, but do not work as good in VoE, especially not in the Meta's. You anyway never can balance out things correctly, on the other hand, sometimes a light armor Necro can be a better tank than a Warrior or Guardian, sometimes not. On the other hand, an Ele or Ranger can be really good group healers in Meta fights, if properly skilled, but with the same skill you hardly will have much fun in solo playing.

My Ele uses fire mainly, but I switch it to more of a healer in VoE Meta fights, as this simply makes more sense to me than creating more damage by myself, but with a higher risk, to die.

I also like my mellee Revenant (mace - axe), but for the Meta's I prefer using it with far distance hammer, which also supports the group with conditions.

Even created a new necromancer with the ritualist skill, as I liked my double sword necro reaper, but meanwhile I found out, that the reaper does not work as good in VoE as it did up to now. So maybe I also change it to a second ritualist, which anyway is a lot of fun.

So, maybe not as much damage as possible or other things are the scale, but, how well do your survive in almost every situation most comfortably....

But, after all the years, I still am happy with GW2, sometimes I need some Youtube help for certain achievements, as the GW2 wiki unfortunately is not reallly up to date always, but apart from this it still is a lot of fun and keeps you busy.

I also made the experience, that a lot of highly recommended builds did not work for me, maybe because of a different playing style, so I mostly rather use them as recommendations, which I then customize to my own, personal needs. This usually works then for me.

Meanwhile I have my Selachimorpha and Bellum I anyway do not need or want, so I hardly can do things completely wrong.

I3ullet: 100% correct.

On the other hand, when we look at other MMOs, guild wars might be the most balanced one. In world of warcraft you often get denyied from groups for playing certain underperforming specs. In guild wars, the worst DPS spec is only like 10-25% worse than best spec.

CarnaghSidhe: I have been playing since beta, and in my view the game has never been well balanced from day 1. That's not the worst thing ever as it has tended to focus well on the fun and flavour of different builds, but there's always a couple who get left out in the cold. Today, that might only happen for maybe a year before it gets picked up, but earlier in the game's history imbalances lasted years at a time... and, while there's always hope, I think many long-term players just expect the balance jankiness. The best coping strategy remains to have a wide selection of available builds, and don't become overly attached to any one... None of this is to condone the balance situation, but just to shrug and say, "same as it ever was".

I think your analysis is well made, but I'm not sure it needs to be as complicated. Some builds suck compared to others in different roles and modes. You make your rank charts for differrent game modes, ideally in different roles, and if a class represents poorly across the board, it has real problems. This is the area that the devs have slowly improved at over the years. Very slowly, but I guess in fairness, it is a complicated space.

Nicely done, and a good conversation to kick off again.

Snaggedsalmon06: When you tie meaningfully higher damage to harder rotations, you’re not rewarding skill — you’re telling people YOU HAVE TO PLAY THIS build.

Incentives always win. If the game’s success metric is DPS, the outlier highest-DPS option becomes the only socially acceptable one. Players aren’t choosing between “easy” or “complex” anymore; they’re choosing between “viable” or “dead weight.”

that's what happens when the damage difference between "complex" and "simple" builds becomes too significant.

It’s the same thing you see in fast food:

when you give huge bonuses for speed, workers stop caring about quality.

They rush orders, cut corners, and everything tastes worse.

Not because they want to — but because the system pushes them that way.

Over-rewarding complexity in a game does the same thing.

It’s coercion/social blackmail pretending to be “choice.”

Once the incentive gap gets big enough, build diversity dies. Roles get gatekept. Communities start policing who is “allowed” to play what. People feel forced into specs they don’t enjoy.

FFXIV already lived through this — jobs with an 8–12% gap weren’t “banned,” but they were treated as unplayable in hard content.

the community discriminated naturally.

imagine being kicked out of non hard-core parties just because you were using a non meta job.

content creators played a massive role in the discrimination - because rage content farming is king.

speed runners on youtube

build makers

news rage bait farmers of the game.

it reinforces the narrative

"If i don't play these builds/jobs/specs, I'm dead weight"

This is why sticking to a tight 2–5% band matters (max) in terms of damage difference between highest and lowest damage builds.

It protects player freedom.

It keeps the ecosystem healthy.

It makes space for accessibility, disability constraints, preference, and expression.

High-complexity builds should feel rewarding. YES

A higher ceiling is fine. YES

A gaping difference in how they perform is NOT OK.

if anything this game should reward parties that have diverse team compositions more if they want their player base to grow even more.

TheDeadgedd: A problem for a small minority of the player base to most of us if the mob/boss dies and you/your party do not its a win damage/dps meters be damned

jeanFickel: Tbh i trink you are hard lost in what kind of ppl are playing gw2. Gw2 Player dont want to invest Lots of time to get good in anything. So the Team Balance for cashual players and thats why gw2 is Alive. Your in a bubbel investing pro hunderts of hours into ther gameplay And play with ppl doing the same. But 90% of gw2 Player dont do that so leav your bubbel befor doing a take like that.

tchoumetatante2652: Very interesting video thank you !

Wagmon-hz8nj: I would be happy if at least every profession had at least a dps build, a quickness build and an alacrity support build. The only difference being in the specific utilities each profession has as identify. And of course they should be balanced and tested to achieve more or less the same numbers.

Like now a dps alacrity tempest might hit below 40k dps, and antiquary over 60k, no point of ever bringing a tempest then, a 20k dps is worth more than any utility. So yeah. I pretty much agree with all you said even tho it's too much work.

Mish844: 10/10 take, I see VERY few people mention damage profile at all.

Granted I don agree condi virt and scourge are a good example of being overtuned since scourge was nerfed towards bottom of condi benchmarks around 2 years ago and virt had somewhat similar treatment around a year ago I think? Regardless, it's just a nitpick about good point, bad example.

jarlskjoldur: Several really great points.

Especially since I only recently started to invest more time into GW2, which I previously only played for a short time after an expansion, I have been looking very closely at my own damage, comparing it with others in the different game modes, difficulties, and situations, and, aside from realizing how much I need to improve, I found pretty much the same things that you mentioned.

To be fair to Anet, it's pretty difficult to balance power, condi, burst, sustained, melee, ranged, etc. and also take the complexity into account, but there are so many outliers that haven't been touched for some time, and the recent expansion made things even worse, and in general I think the difference between low intensity builds and those that are easily messed up by the player or the circumstances is too small.

Out of curiosity: How prevalent is the use of macros in the GW2 high end?

And you are right: Most people do in fact not look at the damage profiles.

vexxed4934: Hey Syrma! Awesome content! Can we expect more High DPS Low Intensity Builds around the corner? Like the mechanist build we had in the previous expansion :D Thanks again man!

tharhlatharhla9230: Please do competitive spvp breakdown because I don’t think it’s healthy for the game to have only 2 classes in the recent competitive matches

hollowzangetsu: Specially in pvp man ,I can't even know what kills me these days .it all happens so fast

Dec 06 2025

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