Guild Wars 2

A lot of people seem unhappy with this feature so let me explain the true purpose of this process and why it’s actually a good idea.

The Elonian weapons and Sunspear weapons which we can get from the Piece of Unidentified Gear are in PoF what Plated weapons and Machined weapons are in HoT.
In HoT we need the Machined weapons to get the Specialization weapons.
And as you know it’s a whole process with them:

First we had to salvage Reclaimed weapons for Reclaimed Metal Plate (later added to map rewards) which only have small chance to drop except from rare versions which are guaranteed to drop them. Then we have to use 2 or 3 plus all 3 map currencies from HoT to buy Plated weapons which unlock the Machined weapons collections and only after finishing that we get the Machined weapons so we can complete the Specialization weapons collections.

So yes the PoF Specialization weapons will require the Sunspear weapons for their collections.
However in this case the process becomes different as there are multiple paths:

While we cannot choose the Elonian/Sunspear weapons as we can with Plated/Machined weapons we have the option to skip many steps in getting the Specialization weapons. We can go all the way starting from Piece of Unidentified Gear and hoping we get the right Elonian weapon from them. Then once we do we can upgrade it through crafting into the Sunspear weapon we need. But we can also get the right Sunspear weapon from the Piece of Unidentified Gear if we are lucky enough.
But because these weapons can be traded then people who do not want to waste time on the whole thing can simply buy the right Elonian weapon and upgrade it or skip even that and just buy the right Sunspear weapon if money is not an issue.

So as you can see the “Identify Gear” thing is the equivalent of the Reclaimed Metal Plates. However unlike in HoT we don’t have to do everything step by step to get the Specialization weapons as we will have the ability to get the required weapon instantly if we want to.
So while you may find the process annoying at first it does save a lot of time once you decide to get the Specialization weapons.

As a side note I will mention that the new Specialization weapons will likely require the correct Mystic weapons too. Which means that Necromancers have a slight head start at this as the Torch is the only Specialization weapon from both HoT and PoF. So those who got the Wild Abandon will have an easy start to get the Guide for the Lost. Of course those who have all Mystic weapons unlocked in the wardrobe will have that head start for all the new Specialization weapons.