Guild Wars 2

All those elite specializations that allowed you to bring an extra weapon to the table, as well as additional new skills and an elite skill?

Once the new expansion roles out, once we get those new elite specs, what was the point of even getting HoT’s? Granted, there’s no telling if the new new elite stuff will be better or worse and you still have the option to go back.

But what’s the point? You won’t be able to use both at the same time, so matter what you lose something. Necros can’t use greatswords and torches, reaper shroud and sand shroud. Mesmers can’t use shields and their newest weapon, or chrono specs. It goes on.

Unless Arenanet addresses this issue, it looks like we won’t go into the new expansion with benching one elite spec.

That’s… you just described the very idea behind elite specs. Well done?

Many good games require you to make choices that leave other choices behind. That’s something that’s been lacking from this game for a long time. Personally I can’t wait to have more options.

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

What’s your evidence that they mean less?

LezardValeth.9453:

All those elite specializations that allowed you to bring an extra weapon to the table, as well as additional new skills and an elite skill?

Once the new expansion roles out, once we get those new elite specs, what was the point of even getting HoT’s? Granted, there’s no telling if the new new elite stuff will be better or worse and you still have the option to go back.

But what’s the point? You won’t be able to use both at the same time, so matter what you lose something. Necros can’t use greatswords and torches, reaper shroud and sand shroud. Mesmers can’t use shields and their newest weapon, or chrono specs. It goes on.

Unless Arenanet addresses this issue, it looks like we won’t go into the new expansion with benching one elite spec.

elite specs masteries and new stats are Anets answer to the player progression treadmill, but since theoretically, they are not increases in power, its not a vertical treadmill.
the point is that you arent getting more powerful overall, just getting more options. So you are right, you will be leaving behind old specs, IF you like the new specs more.

LezardValeth.9453:

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

you arent getting less options, you still have the same amount of options. you have 3 specialization slots. 1 of those slots is elite.
more choices for the elite slot, not less choices.

do you get less skills every time they add a new skill?

LezardValeth.9453:

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

I think we have to wait to use the new elites in the game before you can comment on this.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

LezardValeth.9453:

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

I think we have to wait to use the new elites in the game before you can comment on this.

he means less options, not that the new elites will be worse.

…… You’re still going to have access to the HoT specializations if you want to use them…..

All options will be fully available and speccable on the fly. Elites were deliberately designed not to be all usable at the same time, since the are meant to twist how the core profession is played.

The only problem or barrier is the lack of a proper build saver which seems overdue now.

phys.7689:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

LezardValeth.9453:

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

I think we have to wait to use the new elites in the game before you can comment on this.

he means less options, not that the new elites will be worse.

X+1 > X

We will not have fewer options.

each expacs adds to the system not take from it

The pokemon argument applies here
there are like 80 pokemon you want to use, but you can only carry 6
now, then, what was the point of the other 74?

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

LezardValeth.9453:

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

I think we have to wait to use the new elites in the game before you can comment on this.

he means less options, not that the new elites will be worse.

X+1 > X

We will not have fewer options.

i never said we would, just clarifying what i think he means

Another elite spec just means you get another choice of playing styles for your class. You have to make a choice which one you want to play. This was always present even before HoT released.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Another elite spec just means you get another choice of playing styles for your class. You have to make a choice which one you want to play. This was always present even before HoT released.

i think what he wants, or means is closer to before where you could use any traitline you want.
essentially cant be daredevil/sniper/acrobatics theif.

not saying they should mind you, just saying i think thats what the OP would prefer.

phys.7689:

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

LezardValeth.9453:

i like more options, but why do we work for other options when they mean less?

I think we have to wait to use the new elites in the game before you can comment on this.

he means less options, not that the new elites will be worse.

X+1 > X

We will not have fewer options.

i never said we would, just clarifying what i think he means

My apologies. My post was meant to address his meaning, if it was as you surmised, not you personally. I should have been more clear.

hmmm….. since they are referred to as specializations I think that implies that they are meant to be separate…….. Perhaps these specializations are such intense disciplines that they can’t be maintained at the same time.

Dashingsteel.3410:

hmmm….. since they are referred to as specializations I think that implies that they are meant to be separate…….. Perhaps these specializations are such intense disciplines that they can’t be maintained at the same time.

yeah you are meant to have only one elite slot, this makes it easier to design and balance. It sucks a little bit, because the more you love one elite, the less attractive the new ones will be.
However, as people have said you can use both, just not at the same time.
but yeah, some one who loves the style/idea of greatsword necro, probably wont be too in love with torch necro.

I personally just wish that we will be able to save build presets in the futur, so we don’t always have to go through all the process of manually change every traits and skills whenever we change specializations (and just fighting style in general).

yea. as others have said, you pretty much answered your own question. it’s entirely possibly you wont like how the new elite spec/weapon plays thus using the current one, or maybe even none at all. its all about play style choices. based on what has been posted on other sites lately, some look interesting like thief and warrior, others i would prolly stick with what i have now.

Pretty sure I understand what you’re saying. That if you can only use one elite spec at a time, it trivializes having more than one. Sure, it’s more options, but saying it’s more options as a justification for having to choose one or the other doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering you have 3 slots for choosing how to put your build flavor together.

Ultimately, it limits the kind of options you could have. Granted, for Anet, it’s probably technical reasons and it eases up on the number of combinations they need to balance for. But there’s no getting around the fact that if you have to choose one or the other, it means less of an expansion on build options than it could be.

There may be 3 Specialization slots, but there is only one Elite Specialization slot.

Do remember; although there were many, many choices (skill-wise) in Guild Wars, it made for a balancing nightmare, and, truly, only a few optimal builds per Profession.

It seems the playerbase would prefer, at least according to posts on the forum and elsewhere, that balancing have less detrimental and/or time-consuming factors, rather than more.

Theres is no “issue” you “specialise” into something for certain stuff and encounters. You dont become a powerhouse. You make choices based on the situation you are about to face. So yeah not really an issue. And off the record running around on my mesmer on astralaria and fsp would be neat.

Don’t think of specializations as weapons, think of them as whole new classes. Instead of a dark knight class they added a greatsword to the dark mage instead. Not exactly the same but it’s a similar idea.

Labjax.2465:

Pretty sure I understand what you’re saying. That if you can only use one elite spec at a time, it trivializes having more than one. Sure, it’s more options, but saying it’s more options as a justification for having to choose one or the other doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering you have 3 slots for choosing how to put your build flavor together.

Ultimately, it limits the kind of options you could have. Granted, for Anet, it’s probably technical reasons and it eases up on the number of combinations they need to balance for. But there’s no getting around the fact that if you have to choose one or the other, it means less of an expansion on build options than it could be.

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

AliamRationem.5172:

Labjax.2465:

Pretty sure I understand what you’re saying. That if you can only use one elite spec at a time, it trivializes having more than one. Sure, it’s more options, but saying it’s more options as a justification for having to choose one or the other doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering you have 3 slots for choosing how to put your build flavor together.

Ultimately, it limits the kind of options you could have. Granted, for Anet, it’s probably technical reasons and it eases up on the number of combinations they need to balance for. But there’s no getting around the fact that if you have to choose one or the other, it means less of an expansion on build options than it could be.

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

your opinion assumes poor balance. elites weren’t supposed to be technically better than core.

It reduces diversity a bit and I can imagine in the future with several elite spec this might be bad when certain weapon combinations would be really interesting but you can’t use both.

phys.7689:

AliamRationem.5172:

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

your opinion assumes poor balance. elites were supposed to be technically better than core.

No. My opinion assumes good balance. It assumes that players will always (or nearly so) take as many elite specs as they are allowed in their builds. They would only do so if elite specs were clearly better, as intended. That’s why I said it’s a smart move to make them exclusive. If they are exclusive, players will have many more potential builds (18 vs. 5) available to them because they won’t be able to lock themselves into having both elite specs for every build and only 1 slot remaining for a core spec.

AliamRationem.5172:

Labjax.2465:

Pretty sure I understand what you’re saying. That if you can only use one elite spec at a time, it trivializes having more than one. Sure, it’s more options, but saying it’s more options as a justification for having to choose one or the other doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering you have 3 slots for choosing how to put your build flavor together.

Ultimately, it limits the kind of options you could have. Granted, for Anet, it’s probably technical reasons and it eases up on the number of combinations they need to balance for. But there’s no getting around the fact that if you have to choose one or the other, it means less of an expansion on build options than it could be.

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

In the context of elite specs intending to be better, I see the reasonability in what you’re saying, but that is a choice they made and kind of an odd one for a game with multiple specializations, to intentionally design one that is supposed to be better.

Cause doing it that way essentially means that certain builds that might have existed before no longer are relevant; builds to do with choosing 3 non-elite specs. Maybe it’s intentional to cut down on the total number of possible builds, but if so, it’s a sneaky way of making it look like options are expanded, when the number stays about the same, in terms of optimal.

Could be it has nothing to do with builds though; that making one intentionally better was to force peoples’ hand in buying the xpac. Wouldn’t be the first time games have done that sort of thing to pressure people into buying. It’s sad that it works this way, but some of the most customer-friendly MMOs on the market are also some of the sneakiest when they do choose to manipulate their customers.

AliamRationem.5172:

phys.7689:

AliamRationem.5172:

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

your opinion assumes poor balance. elites were supposed to be technically better than core.

No. My opinion assumes good balance. It assumes that players will always (or nearly so) take as many elite specs as they are allowed in their builds. They would only do so if elite specs were clearly better, as intended. That’s why I said it’s a smart move to make them exclusive. If they are exclusive, players will have many more potential builds (18 vs. 5) available to them because they won’t be able to lock themselves into having both elite specs for every build and only 1 slot remaining for a core spec.

they said when talking about elite specs (back when hot was released) that they werent supposed to be better, or invalidate core builds, just be different, and for some classes this is true.
essentially its meant to be horizontal growth, not a power creep, and while some combos may not be powerful, they dont want two elites interacting to create some large power gaps.
Also, most likely they will literally replace some skills, to which point they could not exist at the same time.
like mesmer gets a new f5, what if the new mesmer also has an f5? which one is the dominant one? and so on and so forth.

phys.7689:

your opinion assumes poor balance. elites were supposed to be technically better than core.

not quite, they weren’t meant to be technically better, they were designed to be different, to have a new or unique play-style.
it’s not about being strong or better, but being significantly different. It’s because we have access to both the core set and the new skills, that using the new skills means you can enhance the core skills.

Amaimon.7823:

phys.7689:

your opinion assumes poor balance. elites were supposed to be technically better than core.

not quite, they weren’t meant to be technically better, they were designed to be different, to have a new or unique play-style.
it’s not about being strong or better, but being significantly different. It’s because we have access to both the core set and the new skills, that using the new skills means you can enhance the core skills.

oops i meant werent

Amaimon.7823:

The pokemon argument applies here
there are like 80 pokemon you want to use, but you can only carry 6
now, then, what was the point of the other 74?

Because not everyone wants to use the same 6. Others will use different ones depending on what is needed to fight for each gym. I take stock of whats on the gym and then decide which of the 6 I want to use. Options are good and we will have more options with more elites.

Elite specializations are supposed to change the way a class functions, a different path i u will. Through these specializations some classes go full support, semi support, dps. A new specialization would get you in a different direction. If the rumors are true for example: Chrono is a support class whereas Mirage would be a dps class. Thats why u cant and u shouldn’t be able to use 2 special trees at the same.

LezardValeth.9453:

All those elite specializations that allowed you to bring an extra weapon to the table, as well as additional new skills and an elite skill?

Once the new expansion roles out, once we get those new elite specs, what was the point of even getting HoT’s? Granted, there’s no telling if the new new elite stuff will be better or worse and you still have the option to go back.

But what’s the point? You won’t be able to use both at the same time, so matter what you lose something. Necros can’t use greatswords and torches, reaper shroud and sand shroud. Mesmers can’t use shields and their newest weapon, or chrono specs. It goes on.

Unless Arenanet addresses this issue, it looks like we won’t go into the new expansion with benching one elite spec.

er… is this your first mmo? What’s the point in all of WoW’s 13 year history expansions? People usually play the new stuff. Also, they still can review the old specs and rebalance it.

His thing seems to be that since you can only use one Elite Spec at a time, getting another one in the next Xpac means you either won’t use the one you unlocked in HoT or the new one. So at any given time you aren’t using either of the Xpacs Elite Spec.

This is of course very silly, as even right now there are specs and people who do not use the currently available Elite Spec. In addition the Elite spec was to offer more options, not guarentee a certain trait line to always be active.

However, to be fair, Anet overtuned the Elite specs in HoTs massively. We’ve seen a pretty significant powercreep as a result. That is certainly something i hope we can avoid a repeat off, so we do not end up in a situation where Xpac 2’s Elite specs are so overtuned it is the go-to for 95% of the builds out there.

I think this wreck of a thread could be favorably translated as, “Horizontal character progression is a bad game mechanic, because new options only serve to add work I have to put in my character to NOT become more powerful. After grinding up hero points to fully unlock the elite spec, a new expansion promises to come along and force me to do it all over again—nullifying the sense of accomplishment I got from doing it the first time—because…again…the progression is horizontal. But we all know that’s only one likely outcome and it will or won’t be true depending on how the expansion shapes up. Some classes will be better implemented than others. We can say that it adds more choices, but we all know that new expansions will mean new mechanics and a new set of assumptions about game play, and HoT has, with certain classes, shown us that ‘more options’ rarely stay that optional. Rather, the newest, shiniest thing quickly becomes mandatory, or at the least players who don’t adopt it are penalized with a sense of not feeling ‘fully’ included in the new content.”

PyrateSilly.4710:

Amaimon.7823:

The pokemon argument applies here
there are like 80 pokemon you want to use, but you can only carry 6
now, then, what was the point of the other 74?

Because not everyone wants to use the same 6. Others will use different ones depending on what is needed to fight for each gym. I take stock of whats on the gym and then decide which of the 6 I want to use. Options are good and we will have more options with more elites.

see, that’s good reasoning, one pokemon won’t invalidate all the others. well.. to some extend, some will see more daylight than others, but hey, can’t all win

The point of elite specs was never that you’d become more powerful the more you collected. The point was that you would eventually have a large breadth of build options for any class, similar to the first game, where most classes have viable builds for many different roles and playstyles.

If your complain is that “all my effort is wasted” the answer is pretty obvious. Don’t use the new spec. That’s the intention. That eventually every class has access to a broad range of elites.

Though technically core builds are supposed to remain viable, that was always an unrealistic ideal. The way Thief was handled is a perfect example. They couldn’t have acrobatics be top tier at endurance regen and evade traits because its a core spec, and thus stackable with an elite. The design isn’t about maintaining parity between core and elite specs because the whole point of using elite specs is to avoid the balance problems the first game acquired after several expansions, having to constantly rebalance old stuff around new stuff.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. Everything people don’t understand about elite specs is Anet’s fault because Anet designed the system for elite specs to be attractive options compared to one another, but in the first release of the system only offered one option. This led people to believe that they were intended to be on even footing with core specs, and created expectations of future power creep.

The entire point of the trait revamp was to attempt to “future proof” core specs and get them to a place where they don’t need to be balanced again so they can be used as the baseline around which all future elite specs are balanced.

Anet was pretty clear about this when they started revealing the system. Elite specs are built so Anet only ever has to make sure elite specs are balanced against the 5 core spec lines. They learned a hard lesson in GW1, as they were adding a ton of skills per expansion, which was fun, and not a big deal with factions, as you just balance factions skills against prophecies. Then they released nightfall and realized that now they had twice as many skills to balance against. Then eye of the north had far fewer skills because now they had to balance it against three times as many skills. Over time, that creates a situation where every time you add new skills (or in GW2’s case, specializations) it takes longer to design them because every time you add something makes adding the next thing more complex.

Elite specs get around that by being a combination of secondary class and skill expansion that doesn’t affect the balancing of the next elite spec.

If Anet has spent all the resources used to shoehorn the completely unnecessary Revnant class in to the game and released HoT with 2 specs for each class (and the Rev’s legends, with very few changes, could have easily been those specs) we wouldn’t be having this conversation, or the conversation about how core builds should be “brought up” to compete with elites. I think a lot of people still really misunderstand the system because Anet released it half finished for its intended design. With the next xpack you’ll start seeing the real point of elites, that they’re meant to be build options, not straight upgrades, and that anet’s design is that players are generally expected to be using an elite spec, with “core” builds being just part of the new player learning experience that gets replaced with a more complex system once they’re familiar with the game, the same way leveling gets replaced with mastries.

You still keep your masteries.
Masteries is a great and better alternative than adding a new tier list to whatever we got. I like the idea of getting new abilities that permits you to interact with the environment in a different way. It adds another kind of gameplay without rendering previous progression obsolete.

Elite specialization was designed in the scope of having to choose between different alternative. It’s like class evolutions in other mmo, except this time you’re free to revert back to whatever build you feel like playing the most at the moment. The problem is, they couldn’t, for obvious reason, implement multiple specializations at once for each class. I’d say, the release of the next expansion will be the moment we’ll truely be able to say that the specialization system is settled, because we’ll finally get to choose our path.

However though (and I don’t know how badly it would break the class balancing), I definitely wouldn’t be against being able to keep weapons from previously unlocked specializations.

Tabootrinket.2631:

However though (and I don’t know how badly it would break the class balancing), I definitely wouldn’t be against being able to keep weapons from previously unlocked specializations.

I’d guess this won’t happen because at some point you’re going to run out of weapon types. It seems unrealistic to expect that once they get to the point every class has a spec for every weapon that they’ll churn out weapons with enough skin variation to keep seeding new ones (not to mention it would really be an economic disaster to release an expansion where, say, every class’s new spec all used the same new weapon type.)

I’m guessing the weapon options are locked in to specs so that once they reach that point they have the option of granting you the same weapon as another spec, but with a different skill bar. Functionally its the same amount of combat design, but it would allow them to leverage all the existing art and ensure that adding weapon skins in future expansions are still attractive and usable for people still playing the older specs.

However I wouldn’t be suprised to see specializations at some point that gave/forced armor classes rather than weapons. You could get some good balance mileage out of that and it would be a pretty cool feature if it was packed in with a suitably interesting change to the class’s base mechanics.

I’m still waiting for the day my thief can dual wield shields.

PopeUrban.2578:

The point of elite specs was never that you’d become more powerful the more you collected. The point was that you would eventually have a large breadth of build options for any class, similar to the first game, where most classes have viable builds for many different roles and playstyles.

If your complain is that “all my effort is wasted” the answer is pretty obvious. Don’t use the new spec. That’s the intention. That eventually every class has access to a broad range of elites.

Though technically core builds are supposed to remain viable, that was always an unrealistic ideal. The way Thief was handled is a perfect example. They couldn’t have acrobatics be top tier at endurance regen and evade traits because its a core spec, and thus stackable with an elite. The design isn’t about maintaining parity between core and elite specs because the whole point of using elite specs is to avoid the balance problems the first game acquired after several expansions, having to constantly rebalance old stuff around new stuff.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. Everything people don’t understand about elite specs is Anet’s fault because Anet designed the system for elite specs to be attractive options compared to one another, but in the first release of the system only offered one option. This led people to believe that they were intended to be on even footing with core specs, and created expectations of future power creep.

The entire point of the trait revamp was to attempt to “future proof” core specs and get them to a place where they don’t need to be balanced again so they can be used as the baseline around which all future elite specs are balanced.

Anet was pretty clear about this when they started revealing the system. Elite specs are built so Anet only ever has to make sure elite specs are balanced against the 5 core spec lines. They learned a hard lesson in GW1, as they were adding a ton of skills per expansion, which was fun, and not a big deal with factions, as you just balance factions skills against prophecies. Then they released nightfall and realized that now they had twice as many skills to balance against. Then eye of the north had far fewer skills because now they had to balance it against three times as many skills. Over time, that creates a situation where every time you add new skills (or in GW2’s case, specializations) it takes longer to design them because every time you add something makes adding the next thing more complex.

Elite specs get around that by being a combination of secondary class and skill expansion that doesn’t affect the balancing of the next elite spec.

If Anet has spent all the resources used to shoehorn the completely unnecessary Revnant class in to the game and released HoT with 2 specs for each class (and the Rev’s legends, with very few changes, could have easily been those specs) we wouldn’t be having this conversation, or the conversation about how core builds should be “brought up” to compete with elites. I think a lot of people still really misunderstand the system because Anet released it half finished for its intended design. With the next xpack you’ll start seeing the real point of elites, that they’re meant to be build options, not straight upgrades, and that anet’s design is that players are generally expected to be using an elite spec, with “core” builds being just part of the new player learning experience that gets replaced with a more complex system once they’re familiar with the game, the same way leveling gets replaced with mastries.

+1 to that. However, whatever their intented design was, it is sad to see that some skills tied to elite skills were just just so much OP and that it lacked some time to properly flesh out everything that they had created imo. But I am personally being optimistic, because this time, they won’t have to create a new profession with its skills, traits and elite spec from scratch while all the other professions already had this treatment of having being tuned since the release of the game.

Ah, there shouldn’t be any discussion: You can swap specs on the fly (anet give us kitten templates already…) out of combat. So no issue here.

I don’t understand people that complain about kitten like this. “All my time is now wasted”.

Like, uhhh… Looks at WOW expansion packs

HoT introduced a system to GW2. That system is not fully implemented until there are more Specializations added.

You can’t think of Reaper for example as a vertical progression of the Necromancer, but rather as a focusing on a particular play style.

Classes like the reaper will be most likely patched to be closer to the original design as time goes on. The Reaper was supposed to be a close quarters direct damage build. But because the current state of the game doesn’t have other choices, people play condi reapers instead. In a few years as the HoT introduced system is fleshed out we will have more and more specializations and Reaper can be patched to its designed build style. If soothsayers are to be believed then a Condi/Debuff specialization is next that will thrive in Condi build arena. This allows Anet to move the Reaper back to its roots as a power direct damage heavy hitter.

This only works when there are more and more specializations. As we get more, the system will make more sense. It just a game of time.

Work in HoT isn’t useless and never will be as it feeds the system they designed for the future.

When you play you choose a build, that includes gear with stats, sigils, runes and weapons. You can’t use everything at the same time so you have to choose, the same thing is with traits. You can only have 3 lines, now the only difference is that elite specs add additional skills and a weapon, it is simply an extra choice compared to what we had pre-HoT.

Only because the first elite specs are in most cases so good people felt they were mandatory so much of the decision making had been obsolete in that case. When the new expansion hits we will finally have actual specializations because not every single necro will be a reaper (hopefully anyway..). That’s why I think the elite spec system is interesting, it gives players a meaningful choice, so long as the new specs are ofcourse somewhat balanced compared to the current elite specs. It’s likely that some of them will be role-specs such as the druid but only time can tell.

LezardValeth.9453:

All those elite specializations that allowed you to bring an extra weapon to the table, as well as additional new skills and an elite skill?

Once the new expansion roles out, once we get those new elite specs, what was the point of even getting HoT’s? Granted, there’s no telling if the new new elite stuff will be better or worse and you still have the option to go back.

But what’s the point? You won’t be able to use both at the same time, so matter what you lose something. Necros can’t use greatswords and torches, reaper shroud and sand shroud. Mesmers can’t use shields and their newest weapon, or chrono specs. It goes on.

Unless Arenanet addresses this issue, it looks like we won’t go into the new expansion with benching one elite spec.

I don’t get how this is a problem, how it’s a surprise to anyone or how there is an issue to address. I’m pretty certain at some point, Anet was clear about how elite specs would work, including future ones and I think a reasonable, sensible approach also makes it go without saying that you shouldn’t be able to spec into two elite specs at the same time.

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