Guild Wars 2

The game is out for a day. I surely enjoyed my time trying a knack against the elite specs. I haven’t paid much attention to the elite specs during the beta. but from what i see here. they seem to be upgrades or lean into that direction.

Chronomancer-mesmer with wells and blocks. almost as if a mesmer took a few pages out of the guardian and necro book

Reaper-amped up necro

DH-Medi DH and Burning DH seem to amplify each other well

Scrapper-Don’t know how to classify that. seems odd, no strong feelings one way or another.

Druid- ranger with tons of healing power.

Anyways I tried figthing the elite specs withou having use one as well. I run a very standard dps warrior, with marauder amulet, running, strength, defence and disipline+gs and hammer. And at first. I did indeed get two shotted. However lately I noticed that reaper is not that massively different then your standard necro. Either cause the necro’s held back and didn’t fully commit to the elit spec. Same for the DH. who either ran burning or medi guardians. Or druids who ran condi specs. torch sword, taunt and traps. the ususal.

And really I must say that to me there is definately had a lot difficulty figthing them as they seem to be somewhat upgraded versions of the meta’s or upgrades on certain traitlines they have good syngery with. So far i think i beat every spec except scrapper and daredevil. And I do like the increased dps. And new moveset. figthing the chronomancer was incredibly hard but interesting to do so.

So yeah I’m wondering what was your experience figthing the elite specs?

As I see it they are an invitation for the use with macro tools. At least I have seen many people playing with using them. With that they become incredibly powerfull. I was hoping that they give some thought to that problem and adjust the gameplay with the new traitlines to avoid that. But it’s easier than before.
All in all the balance feels broken. It’s not that you cannot beat them but you need to be extra careful around them. My concentration drains fast in fights with people using them. Especially Chronomancer and Scrapper are a pain. After ony a few matches I had enough facing that. I had some fun with the game but with the release of HoT it’s fading. I am not into the PvE Item-Grind and PvP is starting to lose balance tremendously. As long as this keeps up it is time to move on.

I think the new spec’s are a little better then the old specs. Players of equal skill it can be unfair and in 3vs 3 sit and 4 v 4. The newer classes just seem to be better but people can still win with the old specs. People are still learning the new skills of the new classes aswell as the new combo attacks.

I think it will take a little time (maybe alot with anet) things could balance out.

Chronomancer: Decent sustain, excellent burst but is still susceptible to burst itself.

Scrapper: I know this is going to get some hate but they’re literally D/D ele 2.0. Permanent swiftness, retal, fury and near 25 stacks of might with almost permanent protection up time. This is probably the top-tier elite spec.

Daredevil: Crazy amount of evades and significant damage but like Chrono, still susceptible to burst.

Reaper: Excellent sustain and damage, not nearly as sustainable as scrappers but relatively annoying none-the-less.

Temptest: Honestly, haven’t fought many of these to comment.

Berserker: Same as Temptest, haven’t fought many to form an opinion.

Druid: Insane amount of sustain, pets are way too strong.

Herald: Awesome sustain and a decent amount of mitigation through not only protection and a plethora of other boons but invulnerabilities as well.

Dragon Hunter: Excellent ranged damaged, traps are very niche if you can see it coming to avoid or pop an invul/stability to negate the effects.

The top 3 i’d say are Scrapper, Chrono and Druid.