Guild Wars 2

Watching these elite specs in PvP, one question keeps ringing in the back of my mind. How will “normal” specs compete?

Will you have to own HoT to play PvP? Will non elite specs be viable at all? The Elite specs are already pretty kitten normal builds. What will happen when it becomes a bigger thing and more of the population is running elites?

Have you actually gone through the ‘normal’ specs and compared them?

Ele – obviously going without tempest is still viable.

Warrior – str/def/dis is probably still more viable than zerker.

Mes – Despite people saying that chrono is OP, what are you meant to drop for it? Chaos line is too powerful to drop, so is duelling, only thing that can be dropped is dom but I wouldn’t say duel/chaos/chrono blows the current meta out of the water.

Thief – What’s d/p thief meant to drop for daredevil? Panic strike too strong, trickery is impossible to drop, SA gives too much team support. Sure s/d thief with daredevil is strong in soloq, but d/p thief with SA is always going to be more useful in team play.

Guardian – Another obvious one.

Can’t really say much about the others because I don’t know enough about them.

People Ate just getting hyped and scared of new stuff. This always happens when something new is introduced. Most of the classes are actually better at base (Guardian, Warrior, Ele, and partially Necro, as its niche roles are stronger with spite/curses/SR).

They’re just flashy and a lot of new animations to take in at once.

Chrinomancer however is questionable. Double elite casting is a major utility tool, and will probably see more play than base. Daredevil depends on if they can fix the dodge abilities. They’re pretty strong, and give the hoed much needed condi removal, but they’re still just different from say DA/SA/Trickery.

As said, the only prof that can easily drop a spec for the new elite spec and get rewarded is mesmer. I really think chrono will be mandatory in meta builds. The new thief spec is the improvement of the old S/D thief, but D/P is still there, so at least thieves can choose between some different builds. Reaper also has to drop vital trait lines, so you have to totally rework your builds, and go on with other professions. I dont think specs are better than core professions, but they just add some variety to the current prof (as intended, good job Anet).

You don’t even need an Elite Spec if you play spvp exclusively, but hey options.