GW2 Hub has published a great interview with Jon Peters in regards to class balance and the overall balance of the game. There are some interesting tidbits for everyone. One point that stood out was an update on the Engineers:

Lewis B: I was enjoying the engineer over the last few phases as it’s so fun to play, but have developed a list of concerns or issues, especially around kits, the tool belt, and trait line synergy. I think out of all the professions in the game it needs some tweaks at the moment. Can we expect any changes or significant improvements over the next few patches? I noticed their traits have had a tidy up…

Jon: The engineer is the first profession we have addressed since the last BWE. Changes have been made to many skills and to the trait lines as well. The previous list of traits contained many holdovers from the old trait system that did not fit into the new tier paradigm.

Read the rest of the interview at GW2Hub.

Tales of Tyria‘s episode 36 goes over their experience with BWE2 including sPVP and other class issues.

The regular co-hosts have the night off this week, as Bridger invites 4 members of the Team Legacy Structured PvP team on the show to discuss the status of SPvP as of Beta Weekend Event #2. We talk overall impressions, responsivness, balance, builds, and much more.

Continue reading to watch the episode.

With that said it is quite apparent that the racial skills need to be balanced. Charzooka is by far not only one of the best idea’s for a racial. Fire rocket barrage, slot 5 skill, has to be the most OP ability shown. It would seem to be one of the best area effect skills in the game. Capable of obliterating complete groups of mobs at a time. Now that may make pve a little easier. In pvp however, it may become game changer. Expect guilds and servers to stack char for WvW and dominate.

Norns have access to what appears to be the longest duration of stealth in the game, using Prowl, skill 5 when in Snow Leopard form. If you’ve watched any thieves using a heavy stealth build in pvp, you may have noticed that stealth is fairly short duration for them. Yet in this video you may notice they have gone longer than a tief yet the stealth buff icon shows no sign of fading.

The Human elites did not have a skill that stands out as OP, at least not to the extent of the other two races. In fact I’d consider them to be the most balanced and the other skills needing to be reigned in some. Then again it could be the opposite and ArenaNet wants racial skills to be potentially powerful for certain builds. I’ve always consider’d racial skills to be more flavor but not be a major deciding factor. Usually unique skills like these are hard to keep balanced due to the their nature and diversity.

Still, this is only beta and ArenaNet has shown their desire to deliver the highest quality of game they can. Other than my speculations on whether or not they have actually done away with the trinity aside. Not once, so far have I felt they have over hyped or failed deliver what they have promised. That gives me the faith that they will tune all skills to be in line with each other. Within reason and probably with a few mistakes here and there. They are after all still semi-human…