Weaver – Complicated and I don’t think I’ll ever be good at it in pvp, but really fun and visually appealing. Could probably use a power buff though. It seems like it wants to be a condi spec, but it doesn’t seem to put out nearly the condition damage that tempest can. At least from what I’ve seen. Power damage seems to be a little bit more depending on how you trait, but could still use a little bit of a boost for the new skills.
Firebrand – The new virtues are kind of confusing and clunky but very pretty to look at. I guess it’s mostly just a support spec? I found myself putting more burns out consistently with dragonhunter burn builds which is kind of disappointing. Wouldn’t have mind more sources of bleed but I haven’t fully tested this or even knew where to start to get the max I could out of it. It’s a lot to take in at once. Mantra charging is extremely slow, so definitely hope you don’t have to recharge them in the middle of a fight!
Soulbeast – good animations, and the condi damage seemed pretty good. I imagine there could be a decent power build with it as well with the right traits but it wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world. A lot of people were complaining that it was useless but I think this is really one of those specs that will take a lot of time of theorycrafting until we start seeing what the best combinations are.
Spellbreaker – crazy damage with full counter and decent damage with the right traits. An enjoyable addition to warrior, even if it’s a huge pain to fight and probably does a bit too much cleave damage to some other classes. Does the attack speed increase work on this? The one that increases if you have a mainhand weapon equipped in off-hand or whatever?
Scourge – insane condi damage and fun to play. Will most likely be my new wvw and possibly pvp main. Imagine some of the condi damage will get toned down at some point, but for right now it’s definitely fun. Seems like it has a lot of potential to be versatile, probably more so than Reaper.
Holosmith – not sure if the damage of it is intended but this will be amazing in pvp and raids I can imagine. It’s a nice departure from the tanky clunky scrapper spec that I could never really get used to. Definitely will encourage me to play my engineer more. Would be nice to have a little more options for some of the traits though. It doesn’t seem to have too much synergy with a lot of the different trait lines.
Renegade – played it once and realized that it seems like kind of a lost cause. I’m not a huge fan of condi rev and don’t have a whole lot of experience with it, so perhaps it could work with the right build? But with it not having any chill it doesn’t really work well with corruption. The energy costs are insanely high to the point that you’re locked out of abilities frequently. The spirits don’t seem very beneficial from what I experienced. And the portal skill looks cool but doesn’t last extremely long and requires someone to be standing still in a specific spot almost. Might be fun in wvw. Would also like to see this get a power buff. (Especially if there won’t be any chill added to it to benefit from corruption.) Needs a major energy cost overhaul at the least. I guess this is meant to be an offensive support spec, but does it do the job better than some of the other classes to warrant it having minimal direct damage and no synergy with condi trait lines?
Deadeye – Fun. Will definitely be interesting to try out when it goes live. I don’t think it will be the wvw killer that many proclaimed due to the stealth and position limitations, but I can see it being an excellent roamer if you know how to play it.
Mirage – huge disappointment for someone who was looking forward to maining Mesmer. It has potential and looks flashy, but so many of the traits and mechanics just don’t work well. Would really like axe to have a big power buff as an option to replace sword as the one and only power weapon outside of greatsword and pistol phantasm. Ambush attacks are barely noticeable. Greatsword ambush might as well not even exist. Staff and scepter are alright, but staff could probably even use some tweaking. I honestly didn’t mess around with sword ambush due to the cast time and the fact that as with every other ambush you have to stop whatever it is you’re doing and make sure you auto attack during the dismal window of opportunity you have. Clones get cleaved down by a spellbreaker for example before they’ve even had their first breath. The spec when advertised seemed like clones gaining mirage cloak was going to just be a part of the spec, not a grandmaster trait. Disappointing when you have to give up condi cleanse and run your average inspiration shatter build just for sustain. It seems like they made the spec out to be this deceiving new clone mechanic where your main source of defense is tricking your enemy into thinking you’re a clone. But instead we get clones that instantly die half the time, and awkward buggy random teleporting all over the place, which admittedly can be fun on occasion but doesn’t seem like what they intended. It’s condi output isn’t all that great, unless you take bleeds from mirage cloak, but that’s again giving up ambush attacks from clones so it seems like a loss either way.
Mirage mirrors don’t bother me too bad as they do other people, except the fact that they’re generally going to spawn somewhere I don’t want to be i.e. some giant aoe.
I highly suggest devs take a look at the Mesmer forums and see some of the things people have suggested, because this spec needs some serious revision before it goes live or else it’s just going to be shatter condi spam mes with a different dodge and not the clone-centric thief-like ambushing Mesmer it seemed they wanted it to be or advertised it to be.