Its that time, hitting the tenth month mark deserves a current review of Guild Wars 2! It is important that readers know that Guild Wars 2 does accept user feedback and tries to implement that feedback through updates, however it seems impossible for them to do so without breaking something. (Globs of Ectoplasm from recycling Rare Items  - 5/29/13)

I am going to cover a lot of ground in a precise manner, as to not make this too lengthy. This will be unbiased and make reference to repeated topics within the Guild Wars 2 forums –

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2

Let’s talk about the classes in Guild Wars 2 –

Mesmer –This is a squishy class with a whole lot of power, especially with a great sword spec. They specialize in duplicating their image, or cloning in hopes you don’t figure out which one they are. This is extremely effective if you fail to mark the original in a timely manner. Mesmer is of the light cloth wearing group, When in the fray they rely on their clones and high damage output to kill their target, before their target kills them.

Thief – Thief is much like an assassin, a little more acrobatic and invisible 90% of the time. The thief is one of the most played classes due to being over powered in WvW and PVP. Thief is also desired because of their burst damage output, and survivability within dungeons.  Thiefs are of course medium armor wearers, they rely on stealth and unsuspecting prey to burst down instantly with little to no resistance.

Warrior – If anyone has played as or against a Warrior, you will quickly realize how powerful this class is! In all modes of game play (PVE, WvW, and sPVP) Warriors reign supreme. It is not uncommon for a Warrior to burst 40k damage in PVE/WvW environments, making this the most played class in GW2. Warriors are Heavy armor wearers, however most focus on Power, Precision and critical Damage, making them somewhat squishy.

Ranger – Like any other MMO, Ranger has a sidekick  a partner in crime that does most of the dirty work. When it comes to the gameplay of ranger, be prepared for PVE easy mode! Not quite as deadly by themselves, rangers rely on heavy damage output from their pets, or tanking abilities depending on how you play.This class is a Medium armor class, depending on pets and maneuverability to keep the action going!

Guardian – The Guardian is like a typical Tank, soaking up large amounts of damage, and is amazing at maintaining boons. In WvW, a Guardian in the right hands will rarely die, and with the right team, Dungeon crawling will be done with ease! This class is a heavy armor class, and depends on toughness and boons to stay in the fight.

Necromancer – This class is comparable to a Warlock from other MMO’s, summoning the dead to steal health, condition their foes, and keep the enemy at bay. Necromancers are cloth type class, and are capable of high health, I defense, while having the best AOE damage output in game.

Elementalist – Meet the multi talented caster, capable of using four primary elements with a large array of weapons and skills to burst down targets in a fiery display of power! If Fire isn't your thing perhaps electric whips with daggers are? This class is definitely deadly in one on one duels, and capable of getting out of some of the stickiest of situations with the help of mist form.

Engineer – A utilitarian for the utilitarian! The engineer is a jack of all trades and master of none. This class is extremely difficult, and is considered by most the most difficult class to play. Engineers wear medium armor and have low health, relying on turrets, gadgets, tools and projectiles to break their foes down over time. Engineers are a support class at best and are seen in the rear devastating foes from a safe distance.

World Events – The good, the bad, and the ugly truth –

World events happen across the world of GW2, spawning numerous events that are “dynamic”.

I will cover both positive and negative aspects of this type of event, in as brief of a method as possible!

World Boss fights –

When facing Claw of Jormag, Tequatl the Sunless, Shadow Behemoth, or Shatterer , most players are faced with a monotonous task of killing these spawned bosses for a chest to spawn with the super rare chance of getting an exotic item. The fights are not dynamic, in fact the bosses don’t do anything except perform one skill to temporarily avoid player damage, and then they return to their original position and take it, with little to no resistance, except for the occasional “fear”. Each boss has a unique AOE that affects the area causing players to lose small increments of health over a period of time.

This forces the player to run outside of the AOE’s effect and regain their health returning to the fight, this is a rinse and repeats method. Most players converge on “safe spots” attacking the boss until it dies, then loot and move on to the next boss spawning. This is extremely boring, and uneventful, (no pun intended) at best, making the epic boss fight feel more like a chore.

Not much of a challenge is had here, however if anyone is in dire need for ectoplasm, you can farm at least 15 events for rare items, and then roll out to the dungeons to get even more! These events temporarily bring the community together, and the humanitarian side of players comes out. Players are  on a constant cycle of combat swapping by picking up their fallen comrades and taking their place on the front line. When they reach low health the newly restored player comes rushing back in to contribute to the cause. Arenanet has implemented “scaling” which makes the boss harder to kill, but not harder to fight. The more players show up, the longer you stand in place attacking a stagnant boss.

Dynamic/Living Events –

Living events are Segues to the story line, and they don’t actually affect the world itself. These events and the result of successful completion are temporary, and will eventually reset (i.e. Temple of Lyssa). Currently Southsun Cove is temporary content, where players zerg around attacking an Instigator, while he deals AOE damage. Yet again uneventful  and un-dynamic. These events are very similar to World Boss fights, just on a smaller scale, same amount of players, just a smaller target. Be prepared for a light show during combat, and an un-viewable target! The events in Southsun Cove reset about every 5 minutes and provide mediocre loot at best, on occasion fellow players post their uber awesome Exotic, or better yet precursor weapon, making you feel as though it's never going to happen for you (it probably won't). 

The monotonous grind seems to be continuous as most players will never receive an exotic worth more than 5G on the Auction House.This portion of the game is boring, and will make you feel unaccomplished. There isn’t anything fun to take away as there is no challenge to a boss that walks 7 meters and then returns to his spawn location. Like the Boss fights, just stand in a safe place and rain down the damage.

It would be more rewarding if the boss used the environment around it to maneuver and avoid players attacks, providing obstacles and a whole new level of difficulty to gameplay. Players would be forced to fight mobs pulled by the boss, fighting against the boss and players alike. Obviously with proper tweaking this could be made un-exploitable, while adding dynamics making the kill much more rewarding

Classes in real world testing-

People have their own observations as to why a class is broken, each with a biased belief that a particular class should be nerfed, or buffed.

Arenanet has been put on blast for constantly mis balancing ALL of the classes, so much so that the player base has gone way of the thief and warrior. Currently Thief’s and Warriors are in high demand for PVE Dungeon crawling because of their extreme damage output ( warrior recorded with 40k damage ) and Thief’s exploiting dungeon bosses and mobs to swiftly get past difficult portions of an instance.

Arenanet has been frantic trying to balance the classes and the combat system through PVP… Not only has this broken some aspect of some classes, but in others, completely ruined the gameplay and combat system of others ( Thief and Engineer ) while giving other classes an upper hand in WvW ( Warrior and Elementalist ). However yet again classes were tampered with leaving them utterly undesirable in WvW and PVE Dungeon crawling. Currently, and this is my view point, Engineer is broken and is now called the walking Junkyard. Out of 19 Builds Engineer is only Viable with two, and continues to be the red headed step child of GW2. The thief is currently on the chopping block, and is being tweaked in such a way that the class doesn’t play the same way, making them vulnerable to all manners of beat down.

It is extremely difficult to understand why Arenanet would base class success in a player vs. Player environment and accept the results therein as acceptable changes. I am sure most players would agree with me. It would be best to design WvW, sPVP and PVE as separate entities of the game itself, creating limitations and unique gear set for ALL game modes. This would remove the ability to exploit bugs, and prevent one class from being superior to another.

sPVP - structured Player vs. Player-

When entering sPVP, players are given unique armor with base stats all across the board, with no superior stats that PVE armor provides in WvW. Players have access to an array of weapons and Armor combinations associated to their class, which can be equipped with runes and sigils of the players choosing free of charge! Along with free items to equip your character, players also have a separate trait setup, that is unique only to PVP, and reverts back when you return to PVE mode.

Players expecting to play with their friends and allies should be prepared to feel alienated, as balancing and team adjustment is involuntary and annoying. On many occasion during my sPVP experience I would be assisting my friends, pulling a winning streak, when suddenly I was placed on the opposing team against my will, experiencing a devastating loss against my friends! This is not only a nuisance but a deterrent to stay away from sPVP, as it is broken and extremely disappointing. Every match myself or a teammate were switched mid fight, and forced to compete against one another making the overall experience awful.

Arenanet would receive better player attendance if the auto adjust was removed altogether, and sPVP structured much like World Of Warcraft’s Battlegrounds. I am not saying it should be exact, however they are an exemplary example of what is right. Allowing players to join up as a group, and maintain that group throughout a fight would improve overall numbers as whole, and then perhaps sPVP would be taken more seriously.

World vs. World – Prepare to be zerged!-

Player expecting a fair fight in WvW had better be prepared for a wake-up call! WvW is a game mode where player are in control of their own servers map, much like capturing the flag, but your own flags. You will be pitted against two other servers that may or may not out number you, and or may or may not work together to ensure your servers downfall (Jade Quarry vs. Blackgate and Sanctum of Rall).

Not only will you more than likely be out manned, it is now randomized as of 05/28/13 patch. This means that Northern Shiverpeaks (Tier 7 – 3^rd place) will face off against Sanctum of Rall (Tier 1 – 1^st place)and Sea of Sorrows in a completely unfair showdown of 10 to 1.

Expect the rage to come out from your servers community, the blame game of blame games, and the overall demise of moral as player will rarely be able to leave their keeps without dying. The best part is player get to keep their PVE gear, along with every special item and Op sigil imaginable. Expect player to exploit their skills in a way never before seen Thief- Thief duo hiding a zerg squad and ambushing you while you make your way to your commander’s location. 

This experience is as dreadful if not worse than sPVP. If you are one of the broken classes ( currently Engineer and Ranger ) expect to be the target, the easy pickings of WvW. Not much can be said for improving this game mode, due to Arenanet’s forward stance on how they want it to be played. Expecting a rotation will only spread dismay as lowly populated servers are crushed by the might and man power of dominant servers. 

The only way that this could be adjusted is by putting a cap on how many players could be in WvW, preventing the chance of being overrun and making all the present WvW’ers equal in numbers. Keep in mind all maps have a player cap, and this is known as overflow, which is not what I am talking about. If a server has 500 players, but only 100 players participate in WvW, than all other servers will have their map caps lowered to 100 players at any given time.

Auction House-

Like every other MMO player put too much emphasis on the value of an item, or exploit an items rarity beyond reasonable measure (Precursor Weapons/Legendary weapons). Making the acquisition of such items distant dreams. The actual functionality of the Auction house is also lacking, much worse than traditional MMO’s, and is very clunky to maneuver through. Items searches are not specific to which type of armor you wear, which is extremely annoying ( I am sure a lot of player have accidentally purchased an item thinking they could use it, and it be for a differently class). To sum it up it is rudimentary at best and a pain to use. Anet needs to focus on user ease, and navigation. By Redesigning the Auction House to have better search variables, this could easily be remedied!

LFG – What LFG!?

Party searches are nonexistent in GW2, though players have come up with many ways to work around this error, it is the responsibility of Anet to implement a party search. Though it is in the works, that is a key feature that should have been released with the launch, not introduced nearly a year later. There is nothing positive to say, as this is a blatant choice and one that has drawn severe criticism from the GW2 community.

Overall –

As an experienced MMO player, it is important that all games be put into their own categories, and not compared to one another. Though reflecting in a constructive way to make a game better, it is important that it is done in an unbiased manner, and to NOT compare apples to oranges.

My overall review leaves me disappointed with Guild Wars 2, and with the community itself. Players are given the opportunity to attend all game modes but very few ever do. My observation is to separate these player into their own servers being strictly to sPVP/WvW/PVE combination, sPVP/PVE combination, WvW/PVE Combination, and PVE by itself. This would build stronger community support for each aspect the player wished to take advantage of. However many servers and their players don’t care for one game mode or the other, which overall hurts the community.

LFG is a joke, solely relying on the keen eye of party members to pick up that pug for a hoped dungeon crawl that often doesn't happen, because there is no central location for players to make known their willingness to participate in a Dungeon.

Until Arenanet fixes the above issues, Guild Wars 2 isn’t worth the time, and money (Gems, and game purchase). I would advise anyone considering the purchase of Guild Wars 2 to wait another six more months and revisit the opportunity. With revamped games like Final Fantasy 14 – A Realm Reborn and Blade and Soul around the corner July/August it may be in your best interest to invest in those while you wait.