Guild Wars 2

So, after testing most of the professions that interest me in two beta weekends, I found lots of interesting ideas and new mechanics, but overall, I was mostly disappointed – and I think I’m not alone on this – with the Elite Specializations.

So, let’s start with the name. The word “Elite” means it’s better than the regular, and what makes the Elite specs “Elite”? All of them give access to a new weapon, a new set of skills and changes/enhances your profession mechanic somehow, with the exception of Thief.

The expectation of something “Elite” is to see something greater than what we’re used to, and when we have these trait lines… it’s pretty clear we’ll be disappointed as players.
So I suggest a bunch of things:

Remove the word “Elite” from the new specializations
This way, no one will care if there’s a subpar trait line or not, because there’s 6 of them to choose.

Give access to the new weapons and skills to all professions regardless of specialization
This will stop the thinking “oh I want to use Longbows with Guardians but I feel I have to sacrifice a trait line for it…”
Also, same for skills, no one will care much if you have a set of skills that are useless since they have 20+ already to choose 3.

Make the trait line change/enhance the profession mechanic so it’s just like other trait lines
This will give players a choice, actually, we already have a choice, you’re just increasing our options – and thus the fun of making new builds. Also, give Thieves some love, getting nothing new is really… meh.

With this, if a player doesn’t like the new spec, it’s okay, he doesn’t need to get it, but he still gets the new weapon and skill if he likes it – and doesn’t feel like he has to trade off for that.

Also, since we’re at it… another suggestion: Please buff the Birthday Blaster’s buff time to 30 minutes. A simple improvement for our quality of life.
You’re already made the buff and gave to players, a food effect free of charge, so it’s not supposed to be broken or unbalanced – but you made sure it was only 10 min long so players to benefit of this must keep attention and open their bags every 10 min, look for their blasters, find a place to shoot the cakes and step on it.
The buff isn’t balanced that a player is going to waste 5 seconds every 10 minutes to keep it right? Then it should be a small improvement to reduce the annoyance that it is to refresh it every 10 min. For the few of us who actually use it, that is. Please.

While I agree that it is a very hard decision to sacrifice a trait line that you really like in favor of another that enables you to use an exclusive weapon or feature (I’m looking at you, Berserker! I can’t have fast weapon swap AND faster adrenaline gain without sacrificing some might and damage!), that is what makes it elite. It is supposed to be a hard decision to make. If they simply gave the players the new weapons without them being tied to the trait line, people would just use the weapon w/out the traits that go with them. It is supposed to feel like a whole new profession. Dragonhunter, for example, feels like a very different class from the default guardian, for me at least. That longbow with those traps made me feel like a ranger of sorts without a pet (which is what I always wanted from a ranger). The bottom line is that it is more options for the class, just another way to play.

To be honest.
I thought the elite specialization would work more like a fork, instead of an semi upgrade to the class.

Like it gives and takes at the same time to suit a certain role.
Gives a weapon, takes a weapon.
Gives traits and utilities, takes them as well.

The way it is right now, you just have to sacrifice “one” of your traitlines to get a big upgrade to the class, without any other downsides.

Sure, a traitline can affect a gamestyle, but the elite so far are a great stand in for it.

You guys have to remember that elite specializations will, for the most part, never be finished. We will get more in the future. When you have to start choosing between lets say Reaper, Defiler, Wraith or some crap like that then it starts to seem a lot more balanced.

They’re harder to get, that makes them elite :p It’s not like you have to use them, I might end up not using the Reaper spec, I almost certainly won’t be using the Dragon Hunter, but they’re still something you have to work at rather than something you can just pick like any other and advance like any other.