Guild Wars 2

As topic stated, according to all the testing you’ve down, rate each of the new Specialization from 0 to 10, in terms of strength and your personal preference.

Here’s my score:

Spellbreaker: 7
The animation is very good and the class itself is quite unique, but I like dps spec more, so despite it’s unique role it may not be my favorite.

Soulbeast: 4
In theory it is a pretty good specialization, but in practice it just lacks alot of things, that I suspect core ranger is doing better than this one. There’s alot of tweaking needed for their main hand weapon: dagger, that has no utility, no damage, and no survivability. Many of the merged pet skills need complete rework too. Overall feel like a rushed class. The new pets are very good though.

Firebrand: 7 Many of the tomes need polish, but personally I like how they reward long cast time with big effect. Thematically is pretty great, just need abit polishing for the cone mantra.

Weaver: ?
Haven’t test this one much so can’t judge it fairly.

Holosmith: 10
Both thematically and practically works great. Heat mechenic is very interesting yet rewarding. The graphic is top noch, the synergy is very fun. Some utilities need a bug fix, but overall I really like this spec.

Scourge: 8
Very interesting new mechanic for Necro. Most of the Shades has great synergy with the core Necro traits, which is fascinating. You can cast one shade skill and does burning, boon removal, condition clear, weakness all in one bottom. Can fulfill some interesting role in WvW.

Mirage: ?
Havent’ test this one much but the theme and animation is pretty cool .

Deadeye: 7
The burst and the Deadeye mechnic is pretty cool. Kneel mechanic is slightly annoying for me though because I really like the feel and slippery of Daredevil. Also while rifle does nice damage, it feels abit boring playing it honestly. The new F1 is very interesting and I like it alot though.

Renegade: 3
This spec looks unpolished and incomplete. Energy cost of most skills are unreasonable. Bow 1 is pretty bad aside from the piercing trait. Bow 2 barely hit anything and it’s redundant. Bow 3 barely hit anything too. Bow 4 is decent and bow 5 is pretty good. Overall this weapon lacks functionality as a package compare to hammer. The utlities need alot of rework too cuz energy cost is way too high for a killable spirit. F2~F4 all need a rework too. Overall feels like a class that only has good animation and that’s about it.

What are your thought?
You don’t have to give reasoning, just a number of each class.

Hmm, based on what’s in right now?

Spellbreaker: 5
It’s got some pretty effects, but I’m just not seeing the point in the current game. It seems to have a lot of boon-stripping going on, but most enemies don’t have boons.

Soulbeast: 4
I was underwhelmed. I don’t like the leafy green aura on an “animal” based spec, and I was hoping for more “beast mode” style of play, where your character animations are more visceral and your stats buffed. At the moment it just seems like playing as a vanilla range, without a pet.

Firebrand: 2
I really hate the implementation on this one. I want to play as a Tome-mancer, constantly using the spell tomes, but instead they are very situational, long CD things. They are too much hassle to use as intended, but not available enough to use like an Engi kit. I would prefer they rebalance this entire class so that 1. each tome is viable as a “weapon set,” with at least a little damage in each and a spammable #1 move, and 2. That you can use them infinitely, although maybe with a recharging resource like Thief Initiative, 3. that they have little to no cooldown so that you can swap books as needed. Mantras I can’t bother with and the axe is kinda lame with its short range, but I didn’t like Longbow either.

Weaver: 7
10 for effort, and some of the new moves are gorgeous, but loses points for being so complicated. There is a whole lot to this class, and after a while I might enjoy it, but it just seems so confusing to swap elements in. I kind of wish that they’d limited it down to only two elements choosable at a time or something.

Holosmith: 9
Really excellent in gameplay and visuals. Lots of options, but each gated with traits so it’s not too much at once. I doubt I’ll main this, but I can’t fault the design.

Scourge: 6
I’ll have to spend some time on this one, but at the moment, I don’t like it as much as Reaper. The Shades don’t enthuse me, and like the Spellbreaker it seems to have a lot riding on boon corruption, and enemies don’t have boons.

edit (post stress): I played this a little bit today, and did not like it. Having to manage the locations of the Shades with quickly moving enemies was a huge pain. The radii on them need to be WAY bigger than they are. Once I got a solid amount of LF I could do at least a little stuff, but I felt my survivability was all over the place and I didn’t feel very effective. I will definitely not be playing this after release.

Mirage: 8
The Mesmer mains hate this one, but I played one in PvE beta and it was super fun to play with the axe. The experts say it doesn’t do enough damage, and maybe that’s true, but that’s fixable. I definitely want this spec to live up to the intention of leaving clones out permanently as a primary damage source, so if clone damage still isn’t up to spec, make that happen. I also don’t like the Mirrors, I feel like instead of causing an Evade instantly, they should instead restore Endurance, so you can dodge when you need it.

Deadeye: 5
This one will take more practice time to figure out. I like the Rifle conceptually, but I’m not sure it will do the DPS needed to be worth it. Kneel is too clunky and needs an alternate method of exiting it, either jump or double tapping a movement key or something (does anyone still double tap a direction to roll?). The problem here is that ANet nerfed core Thief mobility to make the Daredevil shine brighter, so now the Deadeye is super sluggish without it. They need to do something about that to make it “feel good,” especially if you don’t plan to use the Rifle.

edit(post stress): I played this class some in PvE, and really got to enjoy it. I went D/P as my secondary weapon, because rifle is worthless once enemies start surrounding you, but I enjoyed picking enemies off at max range. I like that when kneeling it projects a max range indicator line, but given how kneeling roots you, I wish that this line was visible ALL the time when using rifle. Range is vital to this spec. I also got into a decent rhythm of marking targets as I fought, and having it refresh automatically on kill was really handy. I’d play it again.

Renegade: 2
I enjoy firing flaming death ponies. That’s the only thing this spec has going for it. The SB is an ok weapon, but not spectacular, and the #3 ability is a neat idea, but interacts very poorly with terrain. I would make it so that the #3 skill portals spawn in a honeycomb pattern behind you, making it less likely they’ll collide with terrain. Also, make the summons more mobile, like pets, rather than stationary totems, or make it so that they can tag enemies/allies within their range and then continue to effect them over a much wider range after that, otherwise it’s just not worth standing inside their tiny circle.

The main problem here is that it’s just nowhere near as good as Glint, and never can be. Would I swap this in over Ventari or Mallyx? Sure. Would I swap it out for Glint? No way. Figure out a way to let players use Glint AND Kalla, and you’re good, but otherwise, this will be a never-used spec, no matter what else you do with it.

Holosmith: 7
+ Photon Forge/Heat Mechanic is very interesting
+ Damage in Photon Forge
+ Exceed Skills
+ Exceed Skill Visuals
+ Mobility
~ Damages you when you overheat….no real benefit for being overheated.
~ Photon Forge model could look better
~ Disables kits for a few seconds
~ Passing the Heat Threshold doesn’t really boost Exceed skills much
~ Prime Light Beam has a long channel time
- Cauterize is not a full condi clear and still burns you
- Sword really makes no sense, not even Dual Swords
- No Heat Mechanic with Rifle, Pistol, Shield or at least with the supporting off-hand (Pistol, Shield)
- Replaces Elite Toolbelt Skill

Side Note: Missed cool opportunity for Heat Mechanic with Flamethrower, Firebomb, Blowtorch, Flame Turret/Napalm, Rocket Boots/Kick.

soul beast : overall score 4
animation : 0
build diversty : 8 can make an opportunity for power build – prbolomes – power build lean on sic em and as we know arenet history it is going to be nerf so i expect that withn one month only condi build ill be meta ..
profesion wepon: 1 dagger is nice idea but dmg very bad and the animation is a shame for 2017 e spec .
stance : 4 they are nice only if traited .. and so far it is seems that elite skill ill stay either strengh of the pack or entragle so this is the second elite spec that have bad elite skill arenet need to think about it alot sorry..

Purely on the scale of me being excited about them:

Deadeye: 5. I theorycrafted a rifle build that was almost perfect in my head. Come stress test day, I just couldn’t make it work against lots of mobs which is essential for overland PvE. I’m not giving up on it yet, but I’ll have to adjust my playstyle a lot.

Holosmith: 3. My main is engi, but I don’t have any interest in this one. None whatsoever.

Scourge: 6. Another toon I made during stress test. It’s fun, but I’m bad at AoE targeting (especially since I mainly use the mouse to click on the skill bar, which makes ALL AoE into PBAoE, and that’s not exactly what Scourge is about).

Spellbreaker: 7. Third toon I tried out, and it’s the one I liked the most. It sorely needs a damage boost and cleave on at least one of dagger 2-3-4, but I found it fun leaping around on an asura and full-countering things.

Soulbeast: 4. I don’t really play Ranger much. I’m currently leveling one (albeit lazily) but I don’t feel like giving up any of my trait lines for the elite at this point.

Weaver: 1. This spec is basically more piano-playing for the most piano-playing class in the game already. I wouldn’t play it if you paid me… eh, actually I probably would if you paid me. Accepting offers!

Mirage: 5. I don’t play my mesmer alt much, but I kinda vaguely want to try this one. It’ll depend on the state it’s in come launch day.

Renegade: 2. I don’t really care about Revenant in general tbh. Very unlikely to play it much.

Firebrand: 4. Eh… all the cones kinda kill it for me, if I’m honest. That doesn’t synergize with anything. Axe should have been a 400-600 range cone weapon like FT if they really wanted to make the cone thing work.

Firebrand: 7/10 – Thematically speaking, I think they really nailed this elite spec compared to Dragon Hunter. With some polish and enhancements it would easily be 9/10, but right now some of the skills are too clunky to use or underwhelming.

Deadeye: 8/10 – This is actually an elite spec I might not even play, because I just find the daredevil so fun. But with that being said, I think it is a great spec that gives thief a new way to play. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but at least it’s not just more of the same.

Mirage: 9/10 – I didn’t try this for very long, but what little time I had with it was an absolute blast! It does feel underwhelming as far as damage goes, but that can be amended with some tweaks. To me, it’s better to get the fun factor of a class right first, above all else, balance can still be fixed after that.

Renegade: 3/10 – Honestly, when I played this I was a bit confused. It felt like a much clunkier version of a Mesmer with the whole warband phantom summoning mechanic. Shortbow also felt quite underwhelming. I just don’t see what place this spec will hold next to the other specs Revenant has already. It’s a pity because I wanted it to be good, and maybe it will be good with some fixes, but right now it isn’t.

Holosmith: 9/10 – Great animations, a unique mechanic, great damage. I can’t think of anything bad to say about it, really. I might have to get into playing an engineer for once.

Soulbeast: 5/10 – I’m a bit split on this one. From what I can tell, this would offer some interesting build ideas and diversity, but it also feels a bit, how do I put it? Odd? I’m not really sure what it is about this spec, but i just couldn’t really get into it. Maybe I need to tinker more. (I really didn’t like the green aura effect).

Weaver: 5/10 – Honestly, it does look like an interesting spec, but it also felt very convoluted when I was playing it. Elementalists were already the most complicated class to play, and now they’re even more complicated, It’s gotten to the point where they’re starting to feel clunky. Maybe if they streamline the element swapping a bit more, it will feel better, but I feel like I have to relearn everything from the ground up again.

Spellbreaker: 8/10 – It looks like a fun class to use in PvP/WvW. I doubt I’d use it in PvE, but it does seem fun regardless.

Scourge: NA – I didn’t really play it yet, so I can’t give a fair opinion, but with that being said I do think it’s quite cool that Necros get a more support focused spec. I can’t speak for how well it has been implemented though.

I’ve only really tested…

Soulbeast: 3/10 – It has some fun synergies like Sic ‘Em and Maul while in Beastmode, but that doesn’t make up for its current shortcomings. The dagger, in its current state, is going to be the worst weapon of the class by far and will never be touched by anyone even remotely half serious about doing decent damage. It scales horribly with both power and condi, and its longer cast times on the AA and #2, when compared to main hand daggers on other classes and elite specs, make it feel incredibly sluggish. The skills are also pretty bland, with #2 in particular just feeling a boring trash skill with no interesting functionality to make it worth using. Finally, its traits and utilities are (also) generally very boring and uninspired (when compared to other elite specs). I believe them when they say the whole pet melding mechanic took a lot of technical work to implement effectively and make core traits and skills work with Beastmode, but that doesn’t mean they should’ve slacked on the rest; because that’s what it feels like they did.

Renegade: 9/10 – Because it was fun (to me)and I have faith it will shine! Color me silly but yea…..
Spellbreaker: 8/10 – If I did pvp I see its worth. For raids waiting for the jury to be out but doubtful. But then nothing wrong with each class having specific builds for specific content.
Holosmith: 8/10 – Just crazy….see a nerf coming soon but good job showing Engi some love (might have to main it again), again, all based on raid usefulness.

I do not see how people thing that the weaver is very complicated. The firebrand seems more complex then the weaver atm. The weaver in pvp/wvw is more proactive than reactive. In pve the weaver can get away with only swapping to 2 attunement :P. Still weaver fits the high skill ceiling kind of play that an elementalist has.

Firebrand 3/10

Pro: animations, quickness,

Con: slow for melee brawler, long cd of tomes, mantra cone, casting times, underwhelming traits and tome skills compared to big cd’s,…

Ulion.5476:

I do not see how people thing that the weaver is very complicated. The firebrand seems more complex then the weaver atm. The weaver in pvp/wvw is more proactive than reactive. In pve the weaver can get away with only swapping to 2 attunement :P. Still weaver fits the high skill ceiling kind of play that an elementalist has.

Firebrand is definitely more simple than Weaver. You just pop a tome, use the skills you want and pop out again. What’s complicated about that?

The issue with Weaver is that you have to carefully plan the order in which you swap elements, in order to get the combination skills you want. Switching proactively is fine, but in the heat of battle, it feels very clunky having to do up to two element swaps with an internal cooldown in between, just to access one skill you might need. It doesn’t help that you can’t attune the two elements independently, and so might be forced to do an unnecessary cycle through them to get a desired combination.

All-in-all, it makes the skill rotations a lot more complicated and less refined, even more so than base Elementalist.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

It doesn’t help that you can’t attune the two elements independently, and so might be forced to do an unnecessary cycle through them to get a desired combination.

All-in-all, it makes the skill rotations a lot more complicated and less refined, even more so than base Elementalist.

That why I wanted dual skills to be more worthwhile than they currently were. Some of them were underwhelming for what you give up. Its mostly a balance issue. I did not have an issue with the attunement swaps but more of an issue with the dual skills themselves.

Holosmith: 7 Deadeye: 6 Worst ones: Renegade Weaver Firebrand: 2
Totally agree with lust, the same rate. All weapons must be affected by heat, have a sword and only the three first skills affected is just no-sense. More like dual swords. I see where it going to lead: Light swords and sabers? no! Instead of sword, maybe staff or scepter in order to control the light… don’t really see here…. ah! Mass surely for spec weapons, I see more my engi using a mass than a sword, like charge her with energy and then smash the ground with a big choc-wave.

Graphics are beautiful, it’s easy to play, IMO it makes my Engineer better, instead of being an hunter and use rifle or be a snail with this long charged skills of scratcher, he can finally become more powerful! Like the Elite skill “Ultralaser”.
Also I want to add one thing:

-Change the spec icon. He actually look more like an biohazard symbol/Nurgle mark from warhammer, the spec don’t have anything related to plagues, it’s light. Maybe a sun or an holographic fractured hexagon.
-Add weapon swap for engineer

Scourge: 8
Interesting mechanic, and flows well with the rest of the necromancer kit.

Weaver: 7
Mechanic is a little silly, but a lot of fun to play, and they made the effort to flush out all weapon skills.

Mirage: 7
Fun to play, but the mirror mechanic is crap, along with how ambushes are executed.

Holosmith: 8
Great fun to play, fun build synergy. Only not a 10, because they forgot to update pistol and rifle to allow them to benefit from heat. Nothing major, but something to give incentive to play something other than sword.

Dead-Eye: 6
Interesting class, but feels a little clunky to play. A few fixes to kneel would probably bring this to an 8.

Soulbeast: 6
Buildcraft is interesting, and getting some extra skills is nice, but this profession feels a little off.

Spellbreaker: 8
Fun to play, interesting mechanic. I really enjoy it, would be a 10 if I liked warrior more.

Renegade: 4
Some interesting synergy, but it’s execution is off. Not only that, but a hotfix to the elite, removed my favorite spec (menders renegade, shiro/kalla). There is just a lot of clunkiness and straight questionable decisions with the kit. No defensive skills on weapon, super high energy costs on everything… etc.

Firebrand: 5
Felt clunky, and would’ve proffered to see tomes as kits, so they can be swapped in and out, relying on the cool down of pages to govern all 3 tomes. It would’ve been my new main… But alas, it just didn’t feel very fun to me.

Look! Review scores! Assigning numerical values to subjective feelings without any sort of unifying scale or objective measure! I can get in on this:

Firebrand: 6
Holosmith: 4
Scourge: 9
Mirage: 7
Soulbeast: 7
Deadeye: 5
Renegade: 8
Spellbreaker: 2
Weaver: 5

Because that’s what I rolled on the d10.

Spellbreaker: 6

looks like a solid PVP spec , and could be usefull in some encounters , dual daggers are cool now warriors can weild nearly anything

Soulbeast: 3

Good idea , losing pet and gaining boost in dmg and new skills. But the implemention ugh ,the whole spec needs love and synergy with core ranger.

the Dagger as new weapon MH need BETTER animations and fixes all over the place , lower CD’s , AA chain needs faster attack speed maybe removing the 1 part of the chain, would be cool to have a look at dagger OH too.

Like everything with soulbeast stances are good idea poor implemetation.

Firebrand: 6

as Soulbeast , good idea but the implemetation uhm… Long Cds arent fun. Axe as weapon looks solid , some mov speed would be welcome. Cone heals and buffs are a big NO-NO.

Weaver: 8

awesome animations , but has some issues with doble attunement. Sword needs a boost in dmg . The only weapon that could has some use as weaver is Staff , Tempest is still miles ahead

Holosmith: 9

the best spec so far , good animations , good skills , good synergy , heat system is cool.
All around fun and interesting.

Scourge: ?

didnt play it more than 10min

Deadeye: 7

Finally a ranged spec for thief ! good animations , fun and what a sniper should be in Gw2.

Renegade: 2

Rev need love , and Renegade is the tip of the huge iceberg that is Revenant as a whole.

Mirage : 6

love the axe #3 if only camera didnt changed , the new elite and the traits are cool , ambush system needs a boost , and the evade could last 0.5s more :/ or give mirage a 3rd evade

Warlyx.6732:

Renegade: 2

Rev need love , and Renegade is the tip of the huge iceberg that is Revenant as a whole.

Well said.

Renegade suffers in many ways from core revenant mechanics. Still, I had about a 9/10 in fun before they fixed the elite skill by adding an icd. Being able to out-sustain conditions felt really interesting until they removed my preferred playstyle… Then I couldn’t find a single fun renegade build… I hope they improve this specialization. (As well as core Revenant: underwater, skill damage outside skill 1, etc.)

I feel like all the Renegade hate. The look flipping epic. AND I feel people who say it is unfinished just went into a map and pressed 1. I feel it is one of the most finished of the classes.

How are you people giving mirage such a high score if you don’t even like its main mechanics of mirrors and ambushes? Quick comparison of mirage to other 2nd gen elite specs

Mirage doesn’t give us a new F skill. Only 2nd gen elite spec that didn’t do that other than ele, who didn’t get a new attunement, but can now use 2 at once.

Mirage turned its dodges into an offensive tool, yet didn’t get the extra 50 endurance or ridiculous endurance regen that DD got, despite our dodges being worse than DD’s dodges.

Mirage was literally built around a name, not a mechnanic or playstyle. They kittening admitted that. Its the only 2nd gen elite spec to be designed around a name, with no high level design for the class surrounding its mechanic.

Mirrors were literally added to the game because a dev saw them and thought they looked pretty, not because the devs had any clue as to how the mechanic should work. Again, in that same video they kittening admitted this.

Its a joke of an elite spec. It relies on clones, yet takes no measures to make them any stronger than paper. Its clone generation trait is very restrictive and also worse than what core mesmer got, not to mention what chrono could pump out. Mirrors are a trash mechanic right now. They need an entire overhaul really, because they need a comprehensive design as a mechanic instead of what we got, which was “OMG! That looks amazing insert artist name here, lets place that in the game for mirage!”

Add onto that the fact that it makes our class mechanic even more self-contradictory in that it focuses entirely on clones. If you are building for an ambush build (even though they are crap skills for the investment required) then we cannot use our phantasm skills because they don’t have ambush attacks. We can’t even give them mirage cloak. Shattering still destroys our clones, leaving us without ambush attack fodder.

The spec is a mess. Just because it might be flashy with the purple, and it might be fun to kitten around with it in PvE does not make it a good spec. Its riddled with core design problems, because they didn’t design it around a playstyle or a mechanic. They literally didn’t know what they wanted mirage to be when they designed it, and it shows very clearly when you look at the skills and traits.

As a mesmer main it gets a 3/10 from me, and that’s because I really love the animations.

Mirage needs to be actually designed around a mechanic or playstyle instead of the name. It needs to be redesigned by Anet before it will get any higher of a score.

Spellbreaker – 8/10
Fun mechanic, awesome addition to the Warrior for PvP and is a great example on what an elite spec SHOULD BE.

Deadeye – 3/10
Boring weapon, boring playstyle, and Sniper is an underwhelming archetype for me as a Thief Main. Will stick with the fluid fun that is Daredevil here. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Mirage – 6/10
Has some flaws, but I see potential and feel it could be high skill cap.

Scourge – No clue but going off strength 9/10

Holosmith – 7/10
Its quite fun, and thematically cool, but has shortsighted mistakes like heat mechanic lacking for other weapons+the utilities only encouraging ‘Exceeds’. I also downgraded it a bit cause I enjoyed being a special Engi snowflake and I will see this come into the mainstream due to how streamlined and simplistic Holosmith is.

Renegade – No clue, looks like 5/10 ish?

Soulbeast- 8/10
Solid elite spec for me! I enjoyed it a lot, and one of my favourite things was perma stowing the pet. Honestly? Ranger is the only class I don’t have and haven’t played for 5 years, BUT this made me want to play a ranger. NO more lousy AI to carry! Dagger was a bit meh, but great for GS/Longbow

Firebrand – 5/10
Felt boring but it has nice animations/aesthetics.

Weaver – 7/10
Cool concept and design, but seemed a bit boring for me compared to glass core fresh air ele.

So general consensus is renegade is lowest rated, clunky af, and poorly designed.

Good job devs

dchsknight.3042:

I feel like all the Renegade hate. The look flipping epic. AND I feel people who say it is unfinished just went into a map and pressed 1. I feel it is one of the most finished of the classes.

Found the revenant player.

Kahrgan.7401:

So general consensus is renegade is lowest rated, clunky af, and poorly designed.

Good job devs

Firebrand is not far away from him too

Kahrgan.7401:

dchsknight.3042:

I feel like all the Renegade hate. The look flipping epic. AND I feel people who say it is unfinished just went into a map and pressed 1. I feel it is one of the most finished of the classes.

Found the revenant player.

No you didn’t. Revenant players actually see how badly and unfinished their class is designed.

With the time I had, I only managed to try the two elites I was waiting for, Scourge and Holosmith and boy they didn’t disappoint.

Scourge is a solid 9, the spec feels great to play, Sand Shades give the complexity it deserves while vastly broadening the overall utility and control with barriers and good positioning. My only less positive remark would be the lack of synergy with some of the necro weapons, namely the MH dagger which would have been a great pick if it had some sort of condition damage attached to it, this would also address some of the issues with Life Force generation which is more than ever indispensable. Will definitely main it from day one.

Holosmith is currently a 7, damage is quite up there, great visuals and animations, it feels fluid to play aswell, gotta love that combo potential on holo form, also the interaction with the heat gauge and the rest of the skills is very interesting and gives the spec a nice depth.

However there’s some work to do before it feels “complete”. Sword is definitely the underwhelming aspect of this spec, the close range projectiles are very gimmicky to land and the leap needs some work on the distance it covers aswell the animation finish feeling way too dragged and sluggish. Some of the new utility toolbelt skills feel visually underwhelming (can’t remember which) and their effects also.

Overall very happy!

Kahrgan.7401:

dchsknight.3042:

I feel like all the Renegade hate. The look flipping epic. AND I feel people who say it is unfinished just went into a map and pressed 1. I feel it is one of the most finished of the classes.

Found the revenant player.

The overwhelming majority of rev players I spoke to called it trash as well. If you think Renegade is ‘one of the most finished’ then have to call BS.

Spellbreaker 2/10. The only bonus of spellbreaker is it’s great at stacking might and removing boons. Other warrior specs/traits can already stack might fine and boon removal is mostly pointless in PVE (Some niche in higher fractals).

The spec removes synergy with adrenal health, berserker power, and cleansing ire, the damage on counter is DISTURBINGLY low. 4k crit counters at 3000 power and 230% crit damage? My axe already does that kind of damage on just auto crits.

For SB to work adrenal/BP/Cleansing need a rework and daggers need a massive damage buff.

Since the devs made such little effort with these elite specs I will also show little effort in my scoring of them all and simply just rate them as a complete package with a score of 4 out of 10. Everything seems so far from finished and the lack of imaginiation that went into traits and utilitys is pretty shocking.

Ragnarox.9601:

Kahrgan.7401:

So general consensus is renegade is lowest rated, clunky af, and poorly designed.

Good job devs

Firebrand is not far away from him too

Except Firebrand can enjoy their new crazy burning in PVE :P
(Tested, can reach 40+ stacks of burning with Tome F1 + scepter torch if traited correctly)

Spellbreaker : 7/10 : interesting mechanics

Holosmith 10/10 : High risk of being pure DPS and getting 3 shotted. Also it steps away from kit and you get to use your weapons/more utilities.

Deadeye : 7/10 : It goes well with the thief theme being Snipers.

Weaver, Firebrand, Scourge, Renegade, Mirage and Soulbeast : They all suddenly dropped to 3/10 when i realized that they were condi-oriented.

Also Weaver : Is that a 100 pounds sword ?

Weaver 10!!!- perfect spec for me!

Spellbreaker- 6- boring as warrior usually is

Scourge- 10!- so much fun!

Deadeye- 3- only good effect of skills, skills and mechanics are boring as hell.

Soulbeast- 8- I think it is great, but the stances effects are too short/ should have passive effects.

Mirage- 2- the greatest disappointment for me.. one plus for skills effects and some effort.

Renegade- 5- Herald is way better.

Firebrand- 5- Dragonhunter is so great, Firebrand is so complicated… Too much everything.

Holosmith- 8- well designed. At last something good for Engi.

Weaver and Scourge are great to me and I’m looking forward to see them in action.

As an Engi main who likes kits and survivability, Holosmith is a 3 for me. I don’t like the suicidal gameplay and stepping away from kits. Some of the skills are fun, though.

As an ex Necro main who likes Shroud, Scourge is a big fat zero because it has no Shroud. The new “barrier” thing feels uncomfortable to use and I’m not a support type of player.

Soulbeast is an 8. This is my favorite so far, I love the idea of using pets’ skills as my own, it has lots of potential and build possibilities but it needs tuning!

Firebrand is a 6. I never liked Guardian but this looks like fun, the cooldowns are way too long for my liking, though.

Weaver was OK but I didn’t spend much time on it, Renegade felt awkward, I don’t care about Deadeye, Mirage and Spellbreaker.

Aomine.5012:

Scourge: 8
Very interesting new mechanic for Necro. Most of the Shades has great synergy with the core Necro traits, which is fascinating. You can cast one shade skill and does burning, boon removal, condition clear, weakness all in one bottom. Can fulfill some interesting role in WvW.

Synergy? Core Necro traits, doesn’t even have synergy with the other core necro traits. Anet had to remove (and nerf) some of those traits to even make sense with the new spec. Bet your ass those traits will get more nerfs in the form of ICD’s.

FB: 3
Design and concept is easy 10/10. It has huge potential.

Implementation just has to get 2/10. Clunky tomes locked behind cast time, cool downs on tomes, ammo system and cd on skills in the tomes. 4 gate keeper to balance the skills. Why not make it more simple? Instant tomes, no cd on tomes or skills and use the initiative system in thief to balance it.

When using tomes 2/3 of them removes all means of damage. What?

Mantras are really cool and action based but unfortunately they have very little impact as support tools since the 300 cone is just awful. For personal use they are fun though!

The elite cant match renewed focus since RF is just plain better since it recharges the tomes.

Guardian healthpool demands active defenses like shields and stuff since it also lacks mobility. In fb that has worse tools for survival there are no means of mobility in the tomes or in the mantras. I didntthink they could make guardian any slower but they coul.

The nerf to passive justice renders all other weapons but axe useless since FB is a condition specialization and the guardian depends on the passive justice in order to do damage. this means that sword/scepter and torch skill 5 lost about 50% of the damage.

I can make a longer list but i think you get the point.

I give 3/10 in overall grades, to bad on such a great idea and concept.

Btw did i mention that the guardians most supportive weapon got nerfed so there in practice isnt a working auto attack.

FB will run a round with axe/torch for damage and mace/shield to compensate for the lack of heals in Tome of Resolve.

Firebrand: 5

Theme is fantastic and the way it is setup gives it massive potential. However, it is too slow, it is too clunky and the massive reliance on short range, coned, high cooldown skills makes it very frustrating to play.

Excelsior.

Well, I can’t rate it totally yet since the stress test is very simulated gameplay, but after initially not really being interested in Deadeye, I had a showerthought about it again and immediately felt a burning interest. You must understand, I like to hide and lie in wait of someone. As kid, I usually hid in bushes to ambush my friends on whatever dumb games we played and such, nowadays I enjoy Splinter Cell, Dishonored, heck even my last Teemo game in League of Legends consisted of trapping enemy Buffs and easily waiting 2 minutes for their Xin Zhao to get killed by me. Since I am alone in GW2 and enjoying the whole Thief class, I eventually figured out, Deadeye might be THE elite specialization.

I think I’d give it a 7+10, because right now it feels a bit too clunky and odd, but I might get used to it.

Things I like:

• The two layers of the rifle: The “regular” use of the GW2 rifle. Lower damage, lower precision, but still fine for fighting off some annoying foes before able to change weapons (e.g. cooldowns). The kneeling roots me of course, but now I trade in what this profession is good for.

• Thanks to previous updates and expansions – mostly gliding – the levels might be designed with many elevated spots for me to sit on and snipe down from.

• Thief is still a totally awesome profession. Unlike other games, that turn everything into cheesy Naruto ninjas or generic “rogues”, the Thief profession has – surprisingly – many facets.

The sitting and sniping was a part that interested me the most. A game like GW2 with a stationary character shooting enemies from a safe distance with a rifle? Would ArenaNet allow that? As Engineer, I tried to kill a Dolyak 5 meter below me with the mortar. No dice, I was out of range for it, so it gained out-of-combat health regeneration. That was what I was afraid of.

During the stress test, I could shoot the spiders from a far distance without them getting their health reset. Actually, I shot one of them, it survived but wandered out of range. When it came back, I fired 3 rounds at it and finished it off. That made me smile and giggle out of excitement. ^^ Not sure if the malice stacks are kept when they leave my range. Weird thing is that the foe I shot did not bother to come after me, probably I was out of “care” range? That’d be some mad stuff and pretty nasty. But probably just luck or whatever, need more testing.

What I hope would be scenarios, where I could stand in safe distance and slow but steady thin out enemies from above. It worked in the stresstests, but mostly on more or less even places. I guess the range is calculated in an a sphere, so when I am at the center, Z and X/Y axis might be important, not sure. But if it keep working like it did in my brief tests, that’ be super awesome to me. I imagine situations like this:

After the night ends in Verdant Brink, there are those 40 wolves and other guys spawning in the pact camp, and usually people drop like flies there because they get overwhelmed. I usually watched the show from above by gliding one level down until I also could join the fight. Maybe in situations like these, I could snipe down from above and not only participate, but also help downed mates without risking my own death. Or the ledges you can glide on near pact camps. What I expect however is: Out of range, enemy health regeneration or something else like this. Even though I’d like the imagination of killing those Mordem healers and wolves with sniper bullets before joining the fights with cold steel in melee…. Drools

But being alone and getting rid of certain enemies first from a safe distance would be nice, but as said, I wonder if aNet would allow that.

If yes, then Deadeye would probably rate as 9 or 10, since it’s a great addition to my previous melee gameplay.

Things I dislike so far:

• Kneeling feels odd and not responsive (e.g. double-tapping move buttons should get me up)
• That weird and useless kneel stealth. What is that for?
• The sound effects!!
• The new steal mechanic is super dull. Previously, I actually stole something, now it is like I had psy powers or something: “Hgggnnnn…. I just stole… these boons from you!”
• More of this lame “Shadow” excuse. Everything’s shadow: Shadow this, Shadow that. The shadow apparently solves everything for thieves, but isn’t there other motivation, sometimes even just sheer bloodlust when stabbing or shooting with dual-wield pistols/daggers? Nope, “da shadowz”.. Yikes.

GRANTED: I have no actually looked into builds. I simply forgot about it^^
Also, the German game says “Scharfschütze”, “Sharpshooter/Sniper”, so that’s what I take it for.

How are you people giving mirage such a high score if you don’t even like its main mechanics of mirrors and ambushes? Quick comparison of mirage to other 2nd gen elite specs

I really love the axe skills and the teleporting around. The ambushes I like in principle, but don’t know enough to judge whether they’re strong enough. Might need tweaking. The mirrors are a bit of a dud to me, but I’m fine with that, not every element has to be a winner.

dchsknight.3042:

I feel like all the Renegade hate. The look flipping epic. AND I feel people who say it is unfinished just went into a map and pressed 1. I feel it is one of the most finished of the classes.

Not true, I spent the whole first week-end on the Renegade. I also tried the dead-eye and holosmith. And I’ll agree with you that the theme seems pretty cool and interesting. I had a lot of fun playing a power Renegade in pvp, and it felt very powerful. But that same week-end, they hotfixed the elite skill to have an icd, and the only functional build in pvp died right there…

For now, the numbers (including energy cost) are not balanced, and it give a very clunky feeling when you need to wait for so long before you can unleash some of the amazing combos. (Like popping all utility spirits, and the elite with a condition build, you trigger a ton of bleed solo) But these combos are simply too expensive.

Secondly, the whole spec doesn’t work underwater… AGAIN. Second elite spec like this, and with so few skills functioning underwater (only shiro and mallyx), it is really upsetting to someone who wants to main Rev.

There is also the issue of the weapon, which while it gives the impression it should multi-hit and trigger lots of bleeds and lifesteal with the two spirits, the icd limits this heavily. (also energy, but that was already mentioned) It also lacks ANY defensive skills, which is a big mistake not to include a single evade or movement skill… The skill 2 doesn’t hit moving targets… The skill 3 is clunky to use and upset by terrain changes. Skill 4 is just a waste, and I learned to stop using it eventually. So you are left with a skill 1 that is okay, and a skill 5 that I love.

This brings us to the profession mechanic, kalla’s fervor, which seems to have been designed for sharing. The spirits buff eachother, which is really nice, but kalla’s fervor won’t require any special thought at present… It’s missing something to make it stand out. (This is my opinion though, I’m not going to push for changes here, with everything else that needs work)

The 3 bonus skills all kind of suck… I’m getting tired of going into details, but so much has been said on this.

To assume those giving feedback on Renegade didn’t test it is silly. I spent many hours trying different builds, menders, vipers, rapid, maurauders, sage, etc.

Obviously my feedback is leaning towards pvp. I never got a chance to test the Renegade in pve. Was going to do that today, but didn’t realize the testing time was changed.

I played a bit with the Holosmith today, and I kinda like it. I might make a different engi just for power Holo… but if I do, I’m gonna make it super gimmicky and non-meta as well.

Ohoni.6057:

How are you people giving mirage such a high score if you don’t even like its main mechanics of mirrors and ambushes? Quick comparison of mirage to other 2nd gen elite specs

I really love the axe skills and the teleporting around. The ambushes I like in principle, but don’t know enough to judge whether they’re strong enough. Might need tweaking. The mirrors are a bit of a dud to me, but I’m fine with that, not every element has to be a winner.

The axe skills looks impressive for sure, but still have their problems. Namely they are really weak in general, and mesmers didn’t need another weak weapon. Axe 2 doesn’t reliably summon a clone either, due to the summon being tied not to the skill itself, but to the enemy being “close to” (whatever the kitten that means) a mirage that is left at your starting position when you cast it, when the mirage expires. The clone summon should be tied to casting the skill itself and simply hitting an enemy with it. Since it isn’t, Axe is pretty kitten poor at clone generation in PvP environments since they can walk away from it.

Ambush skills are full of problems. Take too long to cast (seriously, some of them outlast the duration of mirage cloak, and since scepter roots us, it leaves us wipe open for attack if we want to finish it). Don’t deal nearly enough damage. Should be given to clones baseline, even if they don’t deal any damage without taking IH (this is to tie into the whole “confuse your enemies” “mechanic” the spec is supposed to work around). Ambush attacks don’t work with phantasms, so we can’t use phantasms at all if we want to take full advantage of IH (seriously, no trait should make 1/5 of your weapon skills worse ). Clones are still paper thin…….

The spec was designed around a name, not a mechanic or role. And its quite evident. Mesmer players deserve better. GW2 players deserve better honestly. Even if you don’t main mesmer you shouldn’t be ok with content being implemented like that. It should be designed well, cohesively, and it should definitely not be thrown in at the last minute because a dev sees it and thinks it looks cool.

after playing this stess test with soul beast iwant to change the rate from 4 to 0
it is so bad . basiclly nothing new accept mechanic, stance aint worth taking nor the dagger .
and the most painfull thing is to see all those new toys that every other proffesion got well iguess after 4.5 years of maining ranger it is time to re roll

The axe skills looks impressive for sure, but still have their problems. Namely they are really weak in general, and mesmers didn’t need another weak weapon.

Again though, “is it good enough?” maybe not. I certainly wouldn’t kick a buff out of bed, yeah, it’s fun to play, so if it’s not strong enough, they should fix that, but it’s not hard to fix that, you just change a few numbers in a table and you’re done. That’s a way smaller problem than something like the Firebrand or Renegade which are non-functional at a fundamental level.

Also I should make clear that I don’t care about PvP, so additional tweaks might be necessary there.

Ohoni.6057:

The axe skills looks impressive for sure, but still have their problems. Namely they are really weak in general, and mesmers didn’t need another weak weapon.

Again though, “is it good enough?” maybe not. I certainly wouldn’t kick a buff out of bed, yeah, it’s fun to play, so if it’s not strong enough, they should fix that, but it’s not hard to fix that, you just change a few numbers in a table and you’re done. That’s a way smaller problem than something like the Firebrand or Renegade which are non-functional at a fundamental level.

Also I should make clear that I don’t care about PvP, so additional tweaks might be necessary there.

You just ignored the next sentence about the weapon not reliably summoning clones. Additionally, how are you suppose to permanently leave clones out as a damage source when they get killed in one whack? Those don’t look like simple number fixes to me.

Ohoni.6057:

The axe skills looks impressive for sure, but still have their problems. Namely they are really weak in general, and mesmers didn’t need another weak weapon.

Again though, “is it good enough?” maybe not. I certainly wouldn’t kick a buff out of bed, yeah, it’s fun to play, so if it’s not strong enough, they should fix that, but it’s not hard to fix that, you just change a few numbers in a table and you’re done. That’s a way smaller problem than something like the Firebrand or Renegade which are non-functional at a fundamental level.

Also I should make clear that I don’t care about PvP, so additional tweaks might be necessary there.

I mean if your idea of fun involves a mechanic that works against itself then sure, mirage is fun to play.

Look I say this is as someone who genuinely loves mesmer, and I really, really want to love mirage. The axe skills ARE fun. They really are fun skills. And if axe 2’s clone generation was fixed to be tied to the skill itself, then you are right, the weapon would only need number tweaks and some bug fixes on axe 3 to be a good weapon. But that is not all of the problems that mirage faces.

Our elite is fun to use, hopping in and out. But its a 400 range leap on a 20 second CD per charge. A single blink, with just 24 sec CD traited, has the same range as blowing through every charge on jaunt, yet blowing through all those charges would require a 60 second CD to get them back. Blink is also a stunbreak while Jaunt is not.

The deceptions skills sound fun, but ultimately are not. 1 of them is a worse version of blink. Crystal sands is a neat concept but falls ridiculously flat in its implementation. Mirage advance could actually be really good with some number tweaks, and illusionary ambush could be amazing with bug fixed, but those are really the only 2 skills that don’t need more than number tweaks.

Not to mention, you have yet to defend the actual mechanics of mirage. More specifically, how poorly planned and implemented they are. Our ambush attacks need to be rethought. Mirrors need to be redesigned (number tweaks will make them useable, but it won’t make them a good mechanic by any means). We need way more endurance regeneration considering we now use our dodges defensively and offensively (again, DD does this to some degree and it got an extra 50 endurance on top of literal kitten tons of endurance regeneration. Mirage got vigor on shatter and that’s it, yet shatters also destroy our ambush attack fodder. Go figure…..).

The spec was not designed cohesively. I don’t know how I can put it any more clearly. You might enjoy it, but that doesn’t change that it was just designed poorly. And it shows.

You just ignored the next sentence about the weapon not reliably summoning clones.

Yeah, because I didn’t agree. It summoned them plenty reliably for me. Would it be even better if they didn’t have to be near the enemy to spawn? Sure. Do I need that? Not really. Could they do that? Yeah, so why the freakout?

Additionally, how are you suppose to permanently leave clones out as a damage source when they get killed in one whack?

Because you can make more.

Ohoni.6057:

You just ignored the next sentence about the weapon not reliably summoning clones.

Yeah, because I didn’t agree. It summoned them plenty reliably for me. Would it be even better if they didn’t have to be near the enemy to spawn? Sure. Do I need that? Not really. Could they do that? Yeah, so why the freakout?

Additionally, how are you suppose to permanently leave clones out as a damage source when they get killed in one whack?

Because you can make more.

Same argument could be said for phantasms and shattering in PvE before HoT.

Mirage: 8
At first, I was unsure about this elite, but after spending most of my time on it during the past 2 stress tests, I think it is actually in pretty good shape. The one thing I would say is that one of the new core mechanics , the ambush skills, were not very intuitive. They don’t seem to last long enough before timing out so it took a bit of practice to see what they were going for. Once I figured them out and saw the condi stacking potential of something like the scepter ambush ability paired with the right traits, it was a lot more fun.

Holosmith: 9
By far, the most polished and interesting elite, imo. Not sure it will bring the power the engi desperately needs in PVE right now, but it does look promising.

Scourge: 7
Fun and interesting idea, but will have to wait and see how it stacks up to condition necros/reapers in terms of damage. The static nature of shades may end up being an issue outside of stationary fights.

Firebrand: 3
As many others have said, the design just feels extremely clunky right now. I hate to say it, but it just doesn’t feel ready for release. Tomes are not intuitive at all and the cooldowns make the elite very awkward to play.

I did play all of the others during the pvp/wvw test weekend, but not enough to give even early feedback. Weaver seems complex but fun, Deadeye feels OP (but probably isn’t), Spellbreaker seems like it will extremely situational in PVE (moreso than any other elite to date), Soulbeast is something I wanted to keep playing, but knew I didn’t have time and Renegade wasn’t at all interesting or fun for me. Keep in mind that, again, I didn’t play them enough to really be a good judge, however.

Our elite is fun to use, hopping in and out. But its a 400 range leap on a 20 second CD per charge.

Yeah, and if that were it, then ugh, what a terrible skill, but the ammo system makes it tollerable, because while it is 20s per charge, you can also spam three in five seconds if you need to, and wait a minute for them to all come back. There’s plenty of downtime even in PvP, much less in PvE, so this is fine.

I see your point with Blink, but you only get ONE blink out of Blink, and then have NO options until it refreshes, whereas you can Jaunt once, then 5-10 seconds can go by, and you can do it again, then forty seconds go by, then again, and so on. It’s much less of a cost to spend it, since you have reserves. If you’re only using it to run as far as possible, then it’s not the best ability, but if you’re using it for a quick movement as often as needed, it’s much better. Also, you can use both.

The range is a bit short, yeah, and I’d love to see 600 range on it, but I don’t need it to be happy with it. It’s better than a lot of Elites.

The deceptions skills sound fun, but ultimately are not. 1 of them is a worse version of blink.

Yeah, most of those are kind of lame, but you never have to slot them. That’s the nice thing about Utilities, you have plenty to choose from. Most of my HoT builds ran with only 1-3 of the five possible slots filled with HoT-only skills. Again, they could change or buff these, but I don’t consider that a priority considering how ignorable they are.

Not to mention, you have yet to defend the actual mechanics of mirage. More specifically, how poorly planned and implemented they are. Our ambush attacks need to be rethought. Mirrors need to be redesigned (number tweaks will make them useable, but it won’t make them a good mechanic by any means). We need way more endurance regeneration considering we now use our dodges defensively and offensively (again, DD does this to some degree and it got an extra 50 endurance on top of literal kitten tons of endurance regeneration. Mirage got vigor on shatter and that’s it, yet shatters also destroy our ambush attack fodder. Go figure…..).

Personally, the change I’d like to see is that Mirrors regenerate Endurance rather than proc Evadeframes, but ultimately I don’t care that much. More Endurance would certainly help the build, but I wasn’t feeling too tapped out.

The spec was not designed cohesively. I don’t know how I can put it any more clearly. You might enjoy it, but that doesn’t change that it was just designed poorly. And it shows.

Check out the Revenant boards.

I don’t argue that no change is wanted, and if the Mesmer elites get their way on this and they buff everything up, great, that’s just awesome. I just don’t see it as absolutely necessary, I think the class is pretty fun in its current form, and again, the issues are all just “this number should be bigger, this number should be smaller,” and maybe “this attack should proc slightly differently,” which are all tiny things that they definitely can fix, when compared to things like “Firebrand Tomes are a complete fiasco and need to be redesigned from the ground up to function in an entirely different manner.”

Same argument could be said for phantasms and shattering in PvE before HoT.

Sort of, but Phantasm generation is way slower than clone generation. If you get three good Phantasms out and then lose them, that’s a much bigger deal than losing three clones.

scourge 9/10
holosmith 10/10
firebrand 5/10
soulbeast 3/10
renegade 0.5/10 (for actually making any elite and not forgetting revenant class)
spellbreaker 7/10
deadeye 6/10
weawer 8/10
mirage 3/10 actually big dissapointment for me I expected way better elite with this cool mechanics