Guild Wars 2

People are assuming that the specialization will only unlock one weapon. and a set of skills for said weapon.

I don’t remember hearing or seeing confirmation this is the case

now chances are this is the case but I like to think that specialization changes skills across all their weapons. perhaps even removing a weapon.
Do you think this might be the case considering some specs, such as mez. only get 2 skills due to having the shield as their new weapon. where as druid gets 5

Spec= weapons skills, heal, utilities, and elite. It’s possible the other skills/prof mechanics may make up for specs getting an offhand, etc.

I’m pretty sure that I read Specialisations will give:

• New weapon with skills
• New Heal, Utilities and Elite
• New Traits
• New Profession mechanics

They used the phrase “New set of utilities”.

So, you know how professions have utilities with certain tags… like meditations for guardians or wells for necromancers? The specialization will probably get a new set of those, so probably 4 to 5 new utilities, as par for most sets like that in the game.

It might be reasonable to believe that professions that have specializations that get 1-handed or off-hand weapons might get another one for the sake of equality. So perhaps Elementalists get to use a sword in off and main hand. Mesmer might get main hand pistol in addition to shield.

I still think the wording on the “confirmation” that each specialization will get “one” weapon is loose enough so that they can still do that. “Each specialization will get one new weapon” doesn’t scream “only one” to me for some reason. Might be optimistic, but we’ll see.

We know each specialization is getting a heal skill and an elite skill… most likely just 1, but who knows.

Profession mechanic is the really interesting bit; how much does the mechanic change? The ranger in the trailer was using a wolf pet still, but we’ve seen that the trailer doesn’t represent the full state of the game (Rytlock using a spear like weapon doesn’t mean Revenants get a spear on land). Changing the profession mechanic could make a profession feel like an entirely new one if it’s different enough. Imagine an Elementalist without the ability to switch attunements in combat… that’ll be nuts.

I think the traits will be more like an entirely new trait line replacing the line that is no longer relevant based on how the mechanic changed; for most professions this will probably be the 5th trait line. That’s a lot of new traits if that’s the case, but we don’t know how extensive this is either.

I wish we had more information given to us during the reveal; these are table scraps of information.

I remember hearing that playing the specialization will be like playing a new character so I doubt it will be only 1 weapon that gets changed.

i think it’s reasonable if a specialization adds a single weapon (two if it’s mainhand and offhand, maybe), a single heal, 4-5 utilities of the same “set”, a single elite, and a handful of traits to go with the new skills/mechanics.

We need more skills.
Especially heals and elites.
Some classes (elementalist, for example) are pretty much narrowed to a single Elite which even then is questionably useful.

PS.
Don’t forget about underwater limitations.