Guild Wars 2

When HoT and specializations come out, will the old classes still be able to compete versus the new ones (in WvW, PvP, and hard PvE content)?

Will there be any reason (for example) a party would rather want a guardian rather than a dragonhunter?

Because if specialized classes are just going to be way stronger there is no point in keeping the older ones.

I have 2 characters for each class right now in preparation for this.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what elite specializations are. Elite specs (like the dragonhunter you mentioned) is just another trait line for each class. Its not a system like in SWTOR, where a Knight can become either a Sentinel or a Guardian, but cannot switch. You will be able to change the elite spec line at anytime just like the current 5 trait lines for each class.

Why would you need two characters for each class, when the difference between a Guardian and a Dragonhunter is assigning points into one specific trait line, and you can change back from a Dragonhunter into a Guardian simply by reassigning those traits?

Some of them might be stronger, but the theory is that down the road, more elite specializations will be added, and they’ll all be mutually exclusive. You might enjoy the Dragonhunter with its Longbow and traps now, but a year from now they might also introduce the Inquisitor with an Axe and mantras. You wouldn’t be able to use the two trait lines together, because only the elite trait slot will hold them. That’s where the choice will come in.

In the meantime, if you have and currently enjoy your build and don’t feel that your first elite specialization offers enough to make up for the trait line you’d have to give up, that’s your reason for not wanting to use the first elite specialization.

Yes but I was just concerned that the “extra” trait line that specializations get may be overpowered.

i was also thinking that making separate characters for each class would be better because the meta may result in them using different equipment/runes/stats etc.

“down the road” may mean anything between 1 and 3 years with the way Arenanet is going these days. I am also worried that Arenanet may deliberately make specialized classes more powerful to encourage people to buy the expansion.

At launch it’s likely they’ll be a big strong, but soon (and likely very soon since we’ll have had 3 betas) they’ll find balance of new and the old.

Elite specs aren’t supposed to be better than classic, they’re just supposed to offer an alternate play style / utility.

Some of them might be OP at first, some won’t be. Just like some professions are considered OP now. From looking at them, I see a lot of parallel development rather than vertical. This doesn’t surprise me, as horizontal rather than vertical progression was the intent.

This will all shakeout according to the numbers (like the skill damage coefficients), which can change at any time — and likely will after release.

“Elite” was a poor word choice: these specs are not intended to be better than non-elite, just different. However, “Horizontal Progression Placeholder Name for Alternative Specializations” took too long to type and didn’t have a good acronym, so they went with “elite” instead.

For the first iteration, of course ANet (and many of us) want the elites to be good enough that we’ll want to choose them over the others. Over time, however, the meta builds (for all game modes) should end up with a mix. It’s hard to say what things will look like six months after launch, even if ANet doesn’t change anything between now and then.

And given that games evolve more slowly than the community does, often the meta will seem stale and static, while ANet figures out how to balance — that part won’t be different from how things are now.

imbalancedhero.3968:

Will there be any reason (for example) a party would rather want a guardian rather than a dragonhunter?.

Well… the dps boosts you receive from running zeal/radiance/virtues are higher burst and higher uptime than those you’ll get from dropping one of them in favour of dragonhunting if you’re fighting in melee.

So, if you want the highest theoretical dps, you would want a guardian over a dragonhunter.

A tempest loses DPS if they drop one of fire/air/arcana in favour of tempest.

Reaper could very well be a dps loss in encounters that can fully exploit the piercing attack of life blast.

Chronomancers end up losing either a 15% illusion and up to 12.5% personal damage boost by dropping domination, a maintainable 12% boost, bleed on illusion crits, fury for illusions, fury for themselves and a third mantra charge by dropping domination, or an up to 9% increase in direct damage and condition damage, faster phantasm cooldowns, and 20% faster phantasm attacks by dropping illusions.

All three thief grandmaster dodges are actually clunkier than the basic one.

I haven’t seen berserker, but I imagine that dropping strength, arms or tactics must be a difficult decision for them too.

Every elite spec has reasons not to take it, whether those reasons are a mechanic change that hurts them, or the opportunity cost of taking them over something else.

Let’s take Reaper as an example: Pretty kitten good in PvE, good in sPvP, not useful at all in WvW Zergs.

vs.

Necro : mediocre in PvE, decent in sPvP, meta in WvW Zergs.

See? Trade-off. If you want to PvE, go Reaper. If you want to sPvP, go Necro or Reaper depending on what you want to accomplish and how much you need ranged Death Shroud for that. If you want to zerg in WvW, take your usual Necro well bomber, being a melee frontliner without blocks or invulns is suicide.

they’ll all have their strengths and weaknesses.
i can see how every engi in their right mind will want Scrapper tree in their build (for the double stability finisher every 30 secs), but that doesn’t mean they’ll all be using hammers.

i don’t think berzerker will replace current warrior for much of anything, the primal skills just seem too random (fire on greatsword, wtf?)

i do think we’ll be seeing a lot of reaper though

imbalancedhero.3968:

Yes but I was just concerned that the “extra” trait line that specializations get may be overpowered.

i was also thinking that making separate characters for each class would be better because the meta may result in them using different equipment/runes/stats etc.

“down the road” may mean anything between 1 and 3 years with the way Arenanet is going these days. I am also worried that Arenanet may deliberately make specialized classes more powerful to encourage people to buy the expansion.

If you’re concerned about that, just check out almost every profession’s forum. Elite specs simply offer a different way to play, not additional OP’ed options.