Guys, did you realize the class shifts during the initial month? I think it's near proof if the much disputed fact that people just play what's powerful. If a pink girl-only musical-singer class with attacks consisting of punchlines from andrew lloys webber shows was the faceroller of the month, people wouf go for it.

Like, when I started this game (on human) you ran across the classes people though would do most damage and be most uber. Namely, there were a sh*tload of Elementalists, a huge number of rangers, thiefs were mid-range and practically no mesmers and engineers. Everywhere you went there were meteor storms and arrow rains.

Fast forward to now. After one month, newly 80s are MOSTLY mesmers and thiefs. The number of Elementalists I see has drastically decreased both in low level areas and at 80 and in PvP...

To me, this is the first time I can really nail it down. Once people realized the elementalist is hard to play and definitely not a FOTM class they stopped playing it... And once the fact got round that Mesmer is a beast in PvP suddenly everyone and their mom like pink butterflies...

So hilarious.

M

Originally posted by Meridion

Guys, did you realize the class shifts during the initial month...

This being different to other games how, exactly...?  This has probaly happened in every MMO ever released, yet you think it's a new phenomena!   THAT, my friend, is the funniest thing in your post.   :D

I think that Mesmer is a little more complex than just dropping AOE bombs.  Now that people are used to the game they might be trying some of the more "complex" classes.  I have had no time to play and am still level 12.. . so still a necromancer.

I agree that it does likely happen for a percentage of the population though.  I would hope that people figured out that as classes get adjusted that the FOTM might not be that powerful after a future patch. . I suppose some people also powerlevel to the top in a week so maybe they don't care.

Anything that can lay down ranged dps (AOE's in particular) will always be popular in PVE/WvWvW.

In sPvP you will notice class migration more often than in other mmorpgs simply because within 5 minutes of logging in you can have a new toon up and running to full capacity and you suffer no impact to your overall pvp standing. All it takes is someone to get roflstomped on and they think "oh that must be easy/OP" so they switch.

Lot's of people jump on class bandwagons but then in all honesty, there are lots of bads who often seem to spec out really poorly. Most seem to just look for easy loldps set ups without actually thinking about A) group play or B) how they are going to land that dps.

Many of the FOTM thieves were Heartsteeker spammers with no idea about PW/venom share. Many of the ELE's were dagger/dagger dps with no idea about group dynamics/cc/heals. Many of the warriors are 100B spam with no idea about actual burst skills or the cc/movement utilities needed to land said skills.

Personally I've never been an "alt man" and have always stuck to one class/toon (occasionally using a second one for specific purposes if needed in a group context). As such I try and learn the ins and outs to the best of my abilties. If I get pwnd I look to my set up and work out why class X pwnd me (a lot of the time the other player was simply better then me).

I do therefore think that the sheer ease of switching all the time might be somewhat counter productive as some might not really get into the nitty gritty of a class and instead just keep on switching to whatever they feel it "teh kick ass class". Although I am not suggesting there should be any punishment for switching or that the system should be altered in anyway. The game is about freedom to pick and choose afterall.

To counter the above (or add on to it), given the game is only a month or so old, people/teams are still working out what works best for them. So some migration is natural at this point.

Don't know about FOTM  but the reason why Mesmer was my main from day one was because very few players were playing it. Engineer is my second 80 and it is still very under rated class.

However, now i see mesmers everywhere. Earlier people used to ask me why mesmer..it is slow..it is boring and bla bla. Now way too many mesmers on my server in W vW.

Playing my Elementalist and still loving her...

And i love all the people on /y chat that say that Elementalist is under-powered. Pretty funny :)

A bit hard to play, but definatelly not under-powered.

Definitely, though I noticed slightly different FOTM than you did.

On launch I ended up going Necro, because I didn't expect many people to play them, and I had a ton of fun w/ them in BWE3. That was my first 80 and I noticed TONs of initial necros (and elementalists) within the first week of launch.

However, both classes kinda fell off & Warriors became the #1 played class by quite a large margin.

Now, you're right, there are a TON of mesmers and thieves. And I think it is because both those classes tend to dominate in PvP. In WvW I keep running into really good thieves 1v1 and it's such a pain in the arse. Not only do they manage to evade most of my attacks, but they still manage to dish out an annoying amount of dmg inspite of their high survivability. Mesmers tend to be a bit easier to deal w/ (as a necro), but they are still annoying.

Originally posted by dzoni87

Playing my Elementalist and still loving her...

And i love all the people on /y chat that say that Elementalist is under-powered. Pretty funny :)

A bit hard to play, but definatelly not under-powered.

The problem I've found w/ the Elementalist (and I know I'm not alone in this), is that they tend to underperform other classes in almost all areas. The tradeoff is they tend to get more versatility via attunement swapping. However, with the exception of bleed stacking, the ele just doesn't hit as hard as other classes, without sacrificing a lot of other things in order to be on par. In terms of survivability they have the opposite problem where they have to sacrifice most of their damage to really be durable.

So far I've really only seen 2 areas in which the ele is actually genuinely good. 1) Boon spamming (though the guardian is also just as good at this), and 2) Providing combo fields. Combo fields are incredibly useful, but they don't really make a class feel especially strong as they are very support oriented.

Ele's can be a ton of fun, but they do take a while to get up to speed (because you need a good amount of talent points to get your attunement recharges to a manageable lvl); and the top PvPers in this game are also having a lot of trouble justifying playing with eles over the other available classes for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by dzoni87
 

The problem I've found w/ the Elementalist (and I know I'm not alone in this), is that they tend to underperform other classes in almost all areas. The tradeoff is they tend to get more versatility via attunement swapping. However, with the exception of bleed stacking, the ele just doesn't hit as hard as other classes, without sacrificing a lot of other things in order to be on par. In terms of survivability they have the opposite problem where they have to sacrifice most of their damage to really be durable.

So far I've really only seen 2 areas in which the ele is actually genuinely good. 1) Boon spamming (though the guardian is also just as good at this), and 2) Providing combo fields. Combo fields are incredibly useful, but they don't really make a class feel especially strong as they are very support oriented.

Ele's can be a ton of fun, but they do take a while to get up to speed (because you need a good amount of talent points to get your attunement recharges to a manageable lvl); and the top PvPers in this game are also having a lot of trouble justifying playing with eles over the other available classes for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

The problem (if it can be called one) in my opinion with Elementalist is that it can be amazing, when running as a group spec within a group that actually knows what you are trying to do. It is of little use throwing down heals and combos if you are running about in a PUG.

The same can be said for Venom Share thieves, but the Thief can spec more roam/dps than the Ele can (in most cases) in order to be better suited to PUGs.

I play classes I enjoy rather than what is the " best "

For PvP bad players will always pick the perceived OP/Best class :p

Originally posted by Meridion

 

Fast forward to now. After one month, newly 80s are MOSTLY mesmers and thiefs. The number of Elementalists I see has drastically decreased both in low level areas and at 80 and in PvP...

Alts and rerolls in low level areas the majority will never see level 80. Also what you see in game first hand accounts for some minuscule % of overall playerbase, hardly enough to make any conclusions. 

If Anet releases class breakdown globally - I bet you mesmers are still the least played class by far.

also keep in mind that a large percentage of playerbase only plays PvE.

Posted sept 14, I don't see that many mesmer and thieves, however thieves were rolled mostly for pvp, but they're terrible in WvW.

Im still playing my engi as my main.. hoping they fix some of the bugs/issues.

Sadly the couple viable end game builds are not the ones I enjoy.

But, thats what alts are for.

I don't play a class because it is the flavor of the week, I play a class that I enjoy.

In most MMOs I play the ranger type or the warrior, always have.  When I played the BWEs I rolled each class and guess what, my main at game release was neither warrior or ranger, I chose a Elementalist simply for the fact that I liked what they can do.

I don't know what my next character will be, but I will have fun playing it.