So after playing the beta weekend I had a bit of fun running around verdant brink on the new specializations (even though most the events were bugged for me so couldn’t be completed). I then turned my attention to competitive gameplay which is what i spend most my time on in this game and was quite disappointed in how much of the new specs you could viably use in wvw and pvp. I Know it is early days in terms of numbers and stuff but i find the majority of skill usage is not conducive to these game modes.
My main gripe is that the new specs are not better or even a viable alternative to the current meta and found myself using maybe one of either the new weaps/skills/trait lines and in no instance all three. For example on chronomancer, in a wvw zerg situation the wells are no comparison for the utility of the glamour skills, the sheild has nothing on focus pull or torch survivability and the trait line offers little in the way of group support. For roaming I ended up using the same shatter build s/t and gs and just the chrono trait line for the movement speed (so i didn’t have to run traveler runes) and the quickness on shatter so i could quickly switch to s#2 in quickness and burst people down. Usual utilities again as wells are nowhere near good enough to replace blink and decoy on your bar. The continuum split was not particularly useful in wvw though i could see it having a place in pvp.
Tempest i found added nothing over existing ele specs in any game mode. (though ele’s are already in a good place in all game modes so that’s balance i guess.)
Much has already been said about how reaper gs is not as good as dagger MH in terms of dps or LF gain and i would echo that and add that dagger would allow you to trait for more movement speed and have say a focus OH for more chill if you were specing for that. The reaper shroud is really fun but wells are still a must for wvw and the shouts are quite underwhelming in general.
Dragon hunter is probably the most viable in competitive play at this time,traps were actually useful in pvp but i found the best way was to start arming the trap then judges intervention onto the enemy and do a gs burst. again using more of a hybrid build rather than the full elite spec. i think it will be interesting to see stealth guardians in wvw on trapper runes though.
Obviously i didn’t have time to fully explore all aspects of all the new elite specs in all game modes but these were my findings from what i played. My fear is that i want the elite specs to actually have a strong use in competitive play and not be just for show so i am slightly worried for the upcoming elite specs. It seems that the elite specs are most underwhelming in wvw but i guess i should be used to anet not caring about that game mode by now.