Guild Wars 2

Before the expansion I heard a lot of things about the new elite specializations, good and bad ofc. But one thing in particular, that is still quite a hot topic, is what they said about original classes. They said that the new specializations will be equally strong to vanilla specs and will just provide a new way of playing. After playing some pvp, this is 100% NOT true. Elite specializations are actually the only thing you see, so I wonder, if they said anything on this topic. Are they doing this to sell their expac or are the elite specialization meant to be stronger?

They are not meant to be stronger. But Anet is probably dissapointed in HoT sales, so they are trying to ‘delay’ the inevitable huge nerf inc to elite specs, to first get more peopel feel forced to buy it.

I would enjoy to see a real change to professions if you equip an elite spec. I will use Mesmer/chrono as example since this is the only class I play. If you choose to use chrono, then all specializations are balanced around that. Also one could only use domination, duelling, chaos and inspiration. Illusion would then be the Mesmer “elite-spec” and define how the other specializations play. They said that elite-specs will change the way you play entirely… with chrono i do not feel like a new class, just as a mesmer with a few new gimmicks.

Balancing would be much easier that way too: chrono to strong with a certain trait? Change it without effecting the core mesmer.

And please make a pve/pvp skill split!

also i hoped for chrono being more of a time manipulator. Change the shatter, because a chrono doesnt only manipulates your mind, but time it self. (Like stealing a skill that the enemy used in the past , redirect it to the now and dmg the enemy )

They had Chance to make something interesting with hot.

The developers at Anet gets to have a vision and they express that vision however, developers within companies have no power because they dont bring in money. The people who bring in money decided that selling more HoT copies is more important than a fair and balanced game so they forced the developers to jack up all the elite specs in order to make more $$$.

They said specializations would HELP balance, Nope. Now everyone runs cookie cutter builds, just like predicted. I stopped playing a while back, i do check the forums to see if maybe there has been a positive change. Nope!

In terms of PvP this is probably the case because elite specs “filled the niche that the classes were worst at” and hence when synergising with the rest of the trait lines made the elite better over all. But you can’t really say DH is better than Zeal or Virtues, Tempest is better than Fire or Arcane, not exactly they bring different things it is just in most cases the elite one was more useful because it had past information to pull from.

And if you consider PvE then Warriors, Guardians, Engineers and Thieves all typically use old specs over new and of the remainder Ranger, Thief and Necro never had any good specs previously.

It will come down a lot to whether they can make the choice between two elite specs really balanced, because right now we are building on top so every line of base class has to equal the elite line which is much harder.