Guild Wars 2

When making these considerations, I mostly focus on game systems that make sense to me. Or in some cases don’t make sense as might be the case with the train of thought that comes with giving Necromancers a Greatsword and Rangers a Staff.

Obviously “Specializations” don’t make sense if there aren’t more than one of them to choose from and there are a lot of things to consider when looking at what each class is capable of currently, or in some cases incapable of.

A lot of people seem concerned with what comes of these classes based on what they were used to in Guild Wars 1. (Which I didn’t play) But I would offer that I expect that if there are a lot of relative things to the current class options that you could very well see a return of those classes in the form of specializations if they make the most sense.

(Also obviously some of these are not serious. ;P)

Even if my speculations get drowned out or ignored I would be interested in hearing what other people think of the broad possibilities. :D

Guardian
(1) (Some holy name?, Firestarter)
-Access to Main Hand Torch.
-Condition focus capabilities on the Guardian in the form of a main hand torch for consistent burn application.
-Maybe some kind of purge skill that cleanses burn on a target, but deals damage based on the duration of burn they have stacked up. :3

(2) (Some other holy name?, Priest, Bishop?)
-Access Off-hand Scepter
-Focus on long range control capabilities, I figure if Hodgins is useless and he can dual wield scepters we may as well end up with a class that can make an art form of it.
-Crazy-cool upgrades to Virtues or something.

(3) (Crusader?)
-Access Off-hand Sword/Mace?
-Heavier focus on offensive and damage capabilities where as a lot of the Guardian is utility/support.

Thief
(1) (Sniper)
-Access to Rifle?
-Heavy focus on ranged capabilities of the Thief, hopefully including improvements to pistol skills.

(2) (Assassin/Swashbuckler)
-Access to off-hand Sword?
-Heavy focus on melee/stealth damage capabilities.

(3) (Trickster)
-Access to…???? (Glaive if it exists?)
-Heavy focus on utility aspects of the thief, traps, stealth,

Necromancer
(1) (Some Threatening Name, Deathlord, Ravager)
-So we know that the Necromancer is getting the greatsword and a lot of speculation is on the skills that are available, but my best estimation is that it will be a power oriented weapon. That is not to say that like any other Necromancer weapon that it wont have conditions, but the Staff itself is a better condition oriented long range weapon. Running a power build means you get mostly Dagger and some flavor of off-hand, (You could use axe… I guess. Pretty sure the min-maxers consider it a DPS Loss)
-Not saying it couldn’t be a Condi weapon, but if you consider that the Staff is already a long range weapon with a focus on AoE application of conditions, I don’t hold much hope of it being a copy-paste capability condi weapon.
-Possibly some focus of usage with Lifestealing capabilities that are usually more tame on other weapons.

(2) (Some other threatening name, Tyrant)
-Off hand Axe, maybe tied in with minion summoning. Since I would honestly consider the main hand Axe to be a best case scenario Minion summoner weapon for its mid-range and vulnerability applications….

(3) ?
-The Necromancer already has such a focus for conditions I’m not sure what you might do to add another level of focus or variety to their capabilities with them.
-It might be cool if there was a second form of Deathshroud that you could only charge up while in the first Deathshroud.

Warrior

(1) (Gunzerker?)
-Access to Dual Pistols
-Uhh…. Mobility and Control skills that pair well with high damage focus?

(2) (Bardzerker)
-Access to Main hand Warhorn.
-Uhhh… Focus on Metal capabilities, bleeds, mid range, more conditions for the Warrior to work with. (As Brutal as possible.)

(3) (Weapon-master)
-No new weapon? (although that art had a warrior with a Battle-axe… O.o)
-Third weapon slot for mad-switching skills, possibly a system for combo-ing adrenaline skills.

(I broke the text in half because it wouldnt let me fit it all in one post 3:)

Elementalist
(Broad Speculation)
-I have no idea what they might do with the Elementalist given the generalist nature of the class from the mass skill variety available on each weapon, but if we are following the logic of “specialization” then my first assumption is Elemental Focus. That idea being roughly that your class only uses one element, but they might gain access to a second weapon slot (for switching) as well as new skills and maybe a weapon with skill specifically tailored to that element.

ex.
(Fireheart)
-Access to a second weapon slot.
-Restricts use to fire attunement skills.
-Access to Greatsword (More tame or different capabilities from Conjure Fiery Greatsword)

Ranger
(1) (Drood)
-Staff (we already know this)
-Possibly a focus on pet capabilities/ranged naturalistic skills.

(2) (I have no idea what to call this.)
-Access to main hand Dagger.
-Grants mid-range dagger throwing skills on main hand. Essentially a Knife thrower. Assuming it compliments the off-hand dagger it would have some kind of condition focus with bleeds.

(3) (uh lol idk Aragorn)
-Access to Off-hand Shield or Sword.

Mesmer

(1) (The Bus Station)
-The Mesmer has become so adept at moving temporal energies that they have been forced by expectations and peer pressure into acting as a sort of mass transit for other players to get around.

(2) (The Timelord)
-The Mesmer has gained control over time and is abducted by a blue box to be led around and troll Europe for a hundred or so years.

(3) Something that changes out those god awful purple particle effects to some other relevant color. (I’m sorry, I dont love purple. xD)

I dont play this class, I have no idea. :3

Engineer
(Gearhead)
-Access to Hammer.
-Focus on close range, saw some floating eye-bot things that could effectively replace turrets from the point of mobility to compliment an active moving close range Engineer.

The Engineer has so much of everything already that I can’t think of anything else to go with it.

Hope someone enjoys my speculations. :3

~Thanks for reading.

Based on the video, it seems mesmer gets a shield. The most popular term to refer to the as of yet unnamed specialization is “Chronomancer”. As for your request to change the color of the particle effects on the mesmer, you clearly just don’t understand the beauty that is a mesmer. Mesmers are clearly the most beautiful class, that’s why when we fight there are 4 of us, and the most popular builds involve making our clones hug people.

The one mesmer ability we saw was an aoe with a clock hand that slowed then stunned (stasis’ed?) the enemies. Some have speculated that this will be an aoe focused spec. The use of the shield implies access to stronger defensive abilities. The whole time magey theme (assuming that is what the clock face aoe means) thematically implies strong control/support abilities, possibly at the loss of direct damage or some of the deception/trolliness capabilities of the mesmer.

I imagine access to stuff like quickness, slows, and stuns will be the staple of the spec.

We’re not likely to see main hand torch. Torches are priced at all the vendors as an off hand weapon → they’re cheaper than main-hand weapons because they provide fewer skills.

We’re also not likely to see a class jump from not being able to use a weapon at all to dual-wielding them. There’s just too many choices that fit the more limited paradigm to be jumping in the deep end like that.

Nike.2631:

We’re not likely to see main hand torch. Torches are priced at all the vendors as an off hand weapon -> they’re cheaper than main-hand weapons because they provide fewer skills.

We’re also not likely to see a class jump from not being able to use a weapon at all to dual-wielding them. There’s just too many choices that fit the more limited paradigm to be jumping in the deep end like that.

Aside from the Warrior Dual Wielding Pistols I dont think I listed anything dual wield oriented that wasn’t already on the class in some manner.

The pricing is solid logic for the main hand torch thing, but my heart still says torch/torch would be hella fun for the Guardian.

I dont think its entirely unrealistic to expect something wacky/bonkers with off-hand stuff and there are a good number of classes that don’t have a matched pair for dual wielding.

The Guardian especially doesn’t have anything dual wielded but has a ton of weapons that could be, which is why I expect to see or eventually see a specialization that introduces that as a characteristic among the other stuff.