Guild Wars 2

As we all saw, the last beta had a great impact on what the revenant lacks and where it should be improved, with a consistent number of changes as naturally consequence…
Elite specializations are improving all classes in terms of dps/condi/support, frontline/backline/mid range, and adding new trait combos completing the new trait system devs has developed..
My biggest concern is about how unbalanced will be specialization, in terms of what are offering and what we should sacrifice in our characters…
The only way Anet can balance all specs, improving/reducing some stuff is a bunch of large scale testing…
Despite Anet team works costantly together, each class has his group of devs working on a single/couple of specialization, and as everyone knows you can get great feedbacks about a work only with a large pool of testers, like the stronghold/revenant betas wich gives team the input about priorities to change (healing scaling for ventari, Condi output for mace/axe, hammer dps)..
Only watching the 4 elite specs shown, the greatest questions about specs are at the moment:

- Chronomancer: How alacrity will affect the Mesmer gameplay? should it be raised/descreased in terms of %? are wells x tic/x dps/ x radius/ x cd good?

- Reaper: high/low dps? Reaper shroud, too much strong/weak? Are shouts well balanced in terms of dps/cd/effect duration/radius? has the reaper enough defensive factors (cc/break stun), being considered a melee frontline spec? Is the damaging chill correctly balanced in terms of dot output?

- Dragonhunter: Has the Longbow enough dps to be a valid scepter alternative? Are traps balanced in terms of cd/dps/effect duration/radius?

- Tempest: considered as a frontline support, is it balanced in terms of boon output in terms of stacks and duration, are cd balanced respect other core alternatives? has enough heal/condi/cc/dps output? are the skills radius too high, or too low?

And there’s also some general questions like:

How the elite spec X works in pve, in terms of dps/cc/support/condi?
How the elite spec Y works in pvp, In terms of point holder/roamer/front/back line? is the dps/condi/support effective like class X?
How the elite spec Z works in WvW, in terms of roaming/zerg/ front/back line? Is the spec respecting the exact job assigned by devs?

The only way those questions can find answer is beta testing, where you can increase/descrease numbers, get tons of feedback and work on those feedbacks, speeding the classes balance time and giving us less things to complain about when Hot will come…
Oh, this can be useful in terms of saving resources, since you need less time working on, cause community checks almost everything about this game, even you devs :P

TL:DR weekly betas and we’ll scout each single issue about each single class skill, utility,trait..
Peace and love

We will get betas for everything in the expansion.

At the end of the PoI Rubi said we’d get a chance to test the Tempest soon. Her intonation suggested this was more than the soon™ we jest about, enough so that I won’t be surprised if this coming weekend is a beta including the elites revealed thus far.

No guarantee, of course, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I was surprised Twitch chat didn’t jump on the comment, though I think it was still caught up in some other flood of chatter at the time.

The way I see it is they will do a beta before gamescom if it goes well we will get a release date and then maybe 2 more betas to test the other elite specs.

Donari.5237:

At the end of the PoI Rubi said we’d get a chance to test the Tempest soon. Her intonation suggested this was more than the soon™ we jest about, enough so that I won’t be surprised if this coming weekend is a beta including the elites revealed thus far.

No guarantee, of course, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I was surprised Twitch chat didn’t jump on the comment, though I think it was still caught up in some other flood of chatter at the time.

Nope a number of people did catch it, some suggesting in the range of about two to three weeks from now, maybe when we have at least one more of the elites covered for them to come out and say “ok, here’s over half of them, go wreck some faces”

Betting we will get beta’s to test the elite specs at some point so that they can make revisions to the numbers at the very least.

I just wish we could change their minds on what they give the elite specs.
As someone who plays allot of different specs & classes the fact that they gave dragonhunter traps just saddens me (traps are really only useful against enemies that cannot teleport, bring no stability and no condition cleanse.)

Tough I don’t want skill types changed as it would make the development time longer hence the expansion longer to come out you don’t like the skill types don’t play the elite spec some people do like the skill types.

Wwefan.4982:

The way I see it is they will do a beta before gamescom if it goes well we will get a release date and then maybe 2 more betas to test the other elite specs.

Im more thinking they will use Gamescom for the first public hands on of the announced elite specs, and we will get it the weekend after in order to try get more attention to it during the event.

Wwefan.4982:

Tough I don’t want skill types changed as it would make the development time longer hence the expansion longer to come out you don’t like the skill types don’t play the elite spec some people do like the skill types.

OR…. they can simply take the elite spec, use the elite weapon, and not use the new utilities. I know that when I spec Reaper on my necro I will still be using Wells, probably CC heal, leaving only 1 utility and an Elite at most being from the new choices.

Corran.4957:

Wwefan.4982:

The way I see it is they will do a beta before gamescom if it goes well we will get a release date and then maybe 2 more betas to test the other elite specs.

Im more thinking they will use Gamescom for the first public hands on of the announced elite specs, and we will get it the weekend after in order to try get more attention to it during the event.

Wwefan.4982:

Tough I don’t want skill types changed as it would make the development time longer hence the expansion longer to come out you don’t like the skill types don’t play the elite spec some people do like the skill types.

OR…. they can simply take the elite spec, use the elite weapon, and not use the new utilities. I know that when I spec Reaper on my necro I will still be using Wells, probably CC heal, leaving only 1 utility and an Elite at most being from the new choices.

Why if they put the elite specs in the beta before Gamescom people are still getting hands on nothing changes.

This would be nice. However, we do not need a beta to see that the Tempest elite skill and traits are horrible.

Wwefan.4982:

Why if they put the elite specs in the beta before Gamescom people are still getting hands on nothing changes.

people still get hands on, yes. But it will draw less traffic to watch their streams/announcements during that period. By delaying it, they will get people watching streams/videos etc of people playing the classes during Gamescom and be able to argue that there is a larger following than might actually normally be.

For instance, if i have beta access before I pay no attention to Gamescom and will take additional information from the forum and then find any videos that have the specific information I am after.

If I havent had beta access I will likely have any livestreams running, and watching videos of people playing the classes i got an interest in so that I can start making earlier judgements on how I wish to setup my character in the beta so I can get straight into the action (any hands on at gamescom will likely be the exact thing used in next beta test as before)

We already know that they will have hands on at Gamescom my point is get a beta out of the way a week before if it goes well give a release date.

Well seems I am basically right. Guess you could say that it is the weekend off Gamescom, but I am going to claim a victory in predicting the weekend after gamescom due to the fact it is after it started