Guild Wars 2

When I went to Pax South earlier this year when HoT was announced, the devs were describing the elite specs as horizontal progression, i.e. giving you a new/different way to play our professions. That they wouldn’t be stronger or necessary to complete/compete in the new content.

However, as more and more of the elite specs are revealed I’m beginning to question if they kept that goal clear during the steps to making these specs. I’m sure people will have their own opinions on each spec but I’d like opinions on the general premise of these specs being upgrades (and not ‘side-grades’). Do you feel it’s true that they aren’t upgrades? And what makes you come to your conclusion.

For me, I see the Reaper as a neat ‘side-grade’ that just happens to have a coat of paint that miiiiight make it look more enticing than the standard Necromancer. But I have a feeling the spec is different enough from the core specs that Reaper doesn’t cross it into upgrade territory. Will everyone be playing a Reaper? Likely, a lot will but I don’t see it as an outright replacement and Necro will still have features unique to it.

Unsure about Dragonhunter (sorry, I don’t play Guardian and haven’t been keeping up with it lately) but from what I hear of Chronomancer, I’m curious to know if people will really keep with the core specs because they offer something the Chronomancer completely cannot achieve. To me, it sounds like a choice of upgraded profession mechanics or not. So it seems an upgrade to me.

Tempest, I feel also seems to fall into the upgrade territory BUT where it currently sits number-wise puts it behind standard Ele. The thing that makes it an upgrade is purely the fact that that is exactly what it does, it upgrades your profession mechanic to do more. But to take advantage of the upgrade hits a numbers speedbump. Whatever you can accomplish as an Elementalist, you can do the same as a Tempest.

Berserker, plain and simple, is an upgrade. I see no alternative. Even if your Berserker can’t provide as much support as you could with a set of core specs, you can still do it and you lose nothing, only gain more and better burst mechanics. Sure, there might be niche builds aimed a super-high max PvE dungeon speedrun DPS that requires pure burst and Berserker sounds more hybrid at best, but a level of DPS hardly seems a different playstyle (so long as the gap isn’t huge).

So what are your thoughts? And is it even a bad thing that the elite specs are or aren’t upgrades to you?

The only elite spec that seems like an upgrade to me is the Chronomancer. The rest seems either about equal to core specs or less useful than core specs.

Tempest, I feel also seems to fall into the upgrade territory BUT where it currently sits number-wise puts it behind standard Ele. The thing that makes it an upgrade is purely the fact that that is exactly what it does, it upgrades your profession mechanic to do more. But to take advantage of the upgrade hits a numbers speedbump. Whatever you can accomplish as an Elementalist, you can do the same as a Tempest.

That’s simply the wrong way of looking at it. As many elementalist players will tell you, the weakness of the Tempest is not just in the numbers. Everything from the warhorn skills to the shouts to the traits to the overload mechanic is not better than what an elementalist can already do. But you still have to give up one of your precious core specs to get access to all of that.

Berserker, plain and simple, is an upgrade. I see no alternative. Even if your Berserker can’t provide as much support as you could with a set of core specs, you can still do it and you lose nothing, only gain more and better burst mechanics. Sure, there might be niche builds aimed a super-high max PvE dungeon speedrun DPS that requires pure burst and Berserker sounds more hybrid at best, but a level of DPS hardly seems a different playstyle (so long as the gap isn’t huge).

Again, you are looking at it wrong by only focusing on the profession mechanic. Yes, the Berserker gets more profession mechanics than a normal Warrior (i.e. it has normal burst skills plus primal burst skills plus berserk). However, again, the core specs are so good and so essential to the Warrior’s playstyle that most players who want to run the ‘best’ builds (either in PvE or in PvP) will likely stick with the core specs. The Rage skills and the torch skills are not good enough either to give up those core specs.

That all said, even if the Reaper and the Berserker are suboptimal, they look like a lot of fun and I will be playing them (I might even play an aura-share Tempest).

I feel like they need to be more powerful, at least at launch. People are going to get frustrated if switching to a new, novel spec makes the game harder because it’s no more powerful and requires them to learn a whole new playstyle to the one they’re already skilled at.

I imagine they’ll be brought back into line with the other specs in later patches after release.

I think all of them atm are basically upgrades aside from dragonhunter and tempest which feels like another added traitline.

But to be fair the base of both of those professions are really good so it’d have to be pretty op to be an upgrade.

Diovid.9506:

That’s simply the wrong way of looking at it. As many elementalist players will tell you, the weakness of the Tempest is not just in the numbers. Everything from the warhorn skills to the shouts to the traits to the overload mechanic is not better than what an elementalist can already do. But you still have to give up one of your precious core specs to get access to all of that.

But you can still accomplish the exact same thing as a tempest. Again, the lines Eles seem to be married to are mainly Water and Arcane and you can take both as a Tempest and still ride the celestial D/D build train with all the same utilities.

I suppose you can say it’s the wrong way to look at it but it’s all just opinion (which is what I’m interested in discussing) and those really can’t be wrong if you’ve got even some means of explaining why you have such an opinion.

I think the reason people like the specs like the Chronomancer so much is because it plays exactly the same as a Mesmer + it has a slew of extra stuff. Sure there will be specific trait specials that will be missing from build to build but just how different will they play.

As for Warrior, yeah you’ll probably end up missing out on some % damage boost somewhere to pick up the Berserker line, but is a numerical change in how much damage you do that big a difference in playstyle?

I’d honestly say the way the specs are suppose to be are like the Dragonhunter (mechanic-wise) or Tempest (community acceptance-wise) as the spec is suppose to press you to play the profession differently, not fit into your ordinary rotations as all the builds you have played. Of course, that’s just an opinion…one that I’ve just started pondering so it’s not like an ideal I stand behind…just a thought.

The theory is: add a specializzation to make the class able to do something it was not able to do till now.

Actually there’s only 3 that fit that idea: dragonhunter, berserker and tempest. Expecially the Dragonhunter, that add a totally new playstile to the class (that’s why not all guardians likes it).

The Chronomancer is a general power up of every single build of th emesmer, making it very powerfull (I think that you will see a large amount of mesmers switch in chronomancer at the release of HoT)

The Reaper is a strange thing why it add very good traits to power up the old dps build but also focus the player in to a old useless build (chill build), that everyone know that actually don’t work. We hope that devs make the reaper able to spam chill like the hell why it’s the only way to make it viable. Then there’s RS, GS and Shouts that force the necro to fight crowded by enemies to be efficent. Previously you will try to not be in the middle of the fight why the lack of defensive skills, now you’re forced to fight in the frontline. It’s a good change but risky.
That cange the necromancer making a previously useless build viable(?) and making it fight in frontline without defensive skills. I’m not shure that it’s a upgrade… But it’s cool u.u

Anyway, the theory is still: vmake the class do something that it can’t do.

It’s not really a upgrade, it’s a chance to change your playstile with your favorite class.

And you’re nt forced to chose it, you can still play your class like you actually do (I wil keep my guardian a condition guardian like it actually is without use the dragonhunter traitline, that is useless for my build).

But yes, I’m one of the people that hope that the Specializzations will be better than the actual classes, at last for the release of HoT.

The elite specs do feel more special compared to core specs. Changes class name, change class mechanics, adds ability to use new weapon and skills. When there are more elite specs in the future, you can only use one in your build. The elite specs are meant to make a bigger difference than core specs. But the big differences aren’t necessarily superior.

In practical usage, they are sidegrades. Theorycrafters are already thinking along the lines of “x elite spec will be useful in y game mode but not z game mode”. Not very different from some core specs. For example, Warrior’s Defense spec is not very useful in PvE, but definitely is in PvP. If you’re playing Warrior in PvE, the other core specs will feel like upgrades over Defense, but when looking at the game as a whole, you wouldn’t say “Strength is an upgrade over Defense”. I think many if not all elite specs will not be meta in all game modes.

Tempest and Dragon Hunter sucks (there’s no reason to play DH unless you wanna get destroyed by everybody), Berserker and Reaper changes playstyle, Chronomancer makes the class even stronger (even though Mesmer’s already good everywhere…).

Amineo.8951:

Tempest and Dragon Hunter sucks (there’s no reason to play DH unless you wanna get destroyed by everybody), Berserker and Reaper changes playstyle, Chronomancer makes the class even stronger (even though Mesmer’s already good everywhere…).

Well DH trait line is kinda ok. But tempest failed in everything. From name that does not fit spec at all (even dragonhunter makes some sense because of the traps) to the general idea of melee brawler with questionable support and longest channeling times in the game.

well, most seems like. thou guardian got a crappy downgrade (maining a guard for over 2000hours here)

well the dragon hunter or witch i called the dragon despert is compltly downgrade for the gurdian. first the wrtituse nice consapt but harder to master and use
second is the traps – well no need to talke about that much..
and last the dragon hunter compart to outher spec dosent seems to be an gurdian spe it has no connaction to gurdian

Depends. I main a mesmer and I don’t view chronomancer as an out right upgrade.

Yes it has certain things that it definitely boosts, but it will also need to sacrifice a traitline.

such as…for condi mesmer, I could keep illusions and chaos so that I’m able to keep my conditions up…but then I’d need to drop dueling which has bleed on crits, blind on shatter(more condi with ineptitude) and clones on dodging.

yeah chronomancer generates clones very easily so maybe that’s not so bad but still….at least during beta weekend in pvp my Non-chronomancer still dominated against the chronomancers I faced.

although the passive movement speed increase does for once allow mesmers to not need travelers runes. yay

BadSanta.6527:

dragon hunter compart to outher spec dosent seems to be an gurdian spe it has no connaction to gurdian

It could be story related. Might be connection between Braham and Eir. The bow could be inherited. Remember Braham was quite impressed with Eir’s fighting style. If something happened to her he might be inclined to pick up her weapon and follow in the footsteps. Hunt Dragons

vanderwolf.7084:

Depends. I main a mesmer and I don’t view chronomancer as an out right upgrade.

Yes it has certain things that it definitely boosts, but it will also need to sacrifice a traitline.

such as…for condi mesmer, I could keep illusions and chaos so that I’m able to keep my conditions up…but then I’d need to drop dueling which has bleed on crits, blind on shatter(more condi with ineptitude) and clones on dodging.

yeah chronomancer generates clones very easily so maybe that’s not so bad but still….at least during beta weekend in pvp my Non-chronomancer still dominated against the chronomancers I faced.

although the passive movement speed increase does for once allow mesmers to not need travelers runes. yay

I also main a Chrono… uh, Mesmer :-) and even if you don’t want to use the term “upgrade”, it definitely will become an “essential” trait line… if only for the (as you mentioned) passive speed increase which frees up so many things (using traveler runes, having focus as second weap or utility slot for sig of inspiration) on the class it isn’t funny.

the herald seems kind of like an upgrade to the Revenant in my opinion since it has all those incredibly low energy cost utilities providing buffs.