Guild Wars 2

Not sure if the guardian subsection is the best place to ask this question but I would like some nonbiased, objective opinions on the matter. I’ve gotten a few whispers from people from the angry QQ “so you play a DH hahaha no skill” to “play an overpowered class more plz”.

I just came back from the game after 6 monthkittenus. DH back then I remember wasn’t getting the most play in ruby/diamond/legendary ranked games. I remember them being very good at the lower levels but would slowly become slightly underpowered at the higher levels. What has changed for people to consider DH overpowered? I noticed some of the skills turned into symbols, and the knockback trait only affects deflecting shot. So IDK. Seems kind of the same as when I last left it.

How is it in wvw roaming? Are they overpowered in small group fights or 1vX? Are they really deserving of the title of cancer? Honestly, I’ve seen more cancer than DH like condi mesmers, condi/DP thieves, condi necro, condi trap ranger so what is the deal here. Why am I receiving so much hate for playing a DH?

In terms in pvp, dh has become the flavor of the season as revs, necros, wars and mes werte at one point. The reason for that is because dh currently has the widest range in terms of viable specs it can take into matches. Ranging from noob stomper full trapper, team fighter medi trapper or 1v1 champion symbolic dh. All of these actually complement eachother so,unlike thf, you can have a dh party and still be viable. You can have a full glass trapper, a more flexible medi trapper for added dps, a 1v1 dh at far with marauder symbol and a bunker/healer/rezbot with menders symbol. Which means people get super kittened when they get stomped by more than 3 dh. Plus admitedly a point being spammed by traps by a full trapper marauder and a symbol marauder dh must be absolute chaos.

Anyway, just ignore the whining. You either get hated on for being a low tier class or you get flamed for being op. Sometimes you get hated on for no discernable reason. Best not to pay it too much mind.

The trick is to have all classes. Then it doesnt matter anymore about wich class is most op atm. The meta changes rapidly, so people will always QQ This is normal.

Hoaxintelligence.4628:

The trick is to have all classes. Then it doesnt matter anymore about wich class is most op atm. The meta changes rapidly, so people will always QQ This is normal.

^this, it tends to be easier to fight classes that we play, imo DH/guardian are the most easy classes to beat, while 2 classes that i dont have are the most harder.

Thief problem? made a thief
Ele problem? made a ele
Main guardian? it needs 2 JI+trap spammers and sometimes a 3rd players to kill me.
Engie pressueres alot? made new account and play vanilla engie. (supply crate makes wonder on top of DH head, since most DH are expecting to leech kill from trap stack.)
And the list goes on..

No, they are really strong but not OP for me. You can kill them … problem is class stacking and the fact that when there are more than 1 dh in your opponent team you have to overrotate them. Dh lacks of mobility or have not a great mobility like thief, mesmer and warrior , druid ( i don’t play dh so i could get wrong ) while they are really really strong in keeping a point so you have to split on other point to make them move but it is a bit hard if team is not coordinated. if team is coordinate DH is a strong specs as many others. I think DH are more a low tier problem than high tier

Tbh that thing with whispering telling you noob low skill bla bla is getting out of control. I m on the point where if i win a match i m expecting a whisper right after.
So much hate n crying all the time for the stacking classes(clearly only stacking class problem always)
And yes. Dh is strong but not op. I found myself kill and be killed end of story.
All depend on player skills.

Seteruss.4058:

Tbh that thing with whispering telling you noob low skill bla bla is getting out of control. I m on the point where if i win a match i m expecting a whisper right after.
So much hate n crying all the time for the stacking classes(clearly only stacking class problem always)
And yes. Dh is strong but not op. I found myself kill and be killed end of story.
All depend on player skills.

Problem is class stacking and another problem is that if you go 1 vs 1 against a dh you lose the point . I win quite often against dh as mesmer and as scrapper but quite always , expecially as mesmer, i lose my point. So if i fight for 5 minutes… even if at the end i stop him … i lose a lot of points in the match. Problem is only team coordination and rotation …. dh is slow … overrotate them . the only way to kill them quite fast. ..is if i am able to make them heal a little down and then moa once or twice but it is not so easy .

at the same level of skill i find a condi warrior much more dangerous than a dh … perhaps cause of resistance , cc and condition damage … i have more problems …

They are, and they aren’t.

Engi, Rev, Ele, Ranger used to pwn DH in S2 and S3.
Now it’s
Rev, Ranger

We really only needed the QoL changes Anet gave us but they proceeded to nerf the other classes as well. It’s not that we’re OP, the balance trinity is very off.

If they were to nerf DH then they’d also would have to nerf Rev, Rangers, and Wars as well because as it stands, Rev/Ranger obliterates us while Warriors is a fairer matchup favoring Guardians just a hair.

At this point they need to buff/nerf a single class per season instead of trying to do every single class at once… it’s clear they don’t know how strong/weak a single profession is. Probably because they don’t main these professions competitively.

Rev/Ranger on medi trapper or symbolic menders or symbolic marauders?

Rev should beat all three meta guard builds. Ranger should beat all except symbol menders, probably ought to beat menders as well if they’re running a power lb build…but I find those rangers tend to get rekt by thieves before killing you once someone calls out that they’re running a damage amulet.

Kuya.6495:

In terms in pvp, dh has become the flavor of the season as revs, necros, wars and mes werte at one point. The reason for that is because dh currently has the widest range in terms of viable specs it can take into matches.

Saiyan.1704:

We really only needed the QoL changes Anet gave us but they proceeded to nerf the other classes as well. It’s not that we’re OP, the balance trinity is very off.

I think that’s most of it. Guard/DH is a versatile class with a design concept that just fundamentally works very, very well for Conquest. So it pretty much always has at least one build in S/A-tier.

Meanwhile, most other classes are drifting in and out of the meta on a whim. Some of them are pretty much never allowed to be good until they have one build that’s flat out broken, and then the nerf to that build ends up ruining all the other non-broken builds forever.

Being a main of one of those other classes frankly sucks, and it’s understandable to get salty about being subject to ANet’s inconsistent balancing when Guards aren’t. Which, you know, doesn’t justify dumping your salt on other players instead of keeping it to your own kitten self, but I get where it comes from.

DH is poorly designed (like all Elite specializations), and because of the way it’s designed, it is specifically overpowered in SPVP, no where else.

emkelly.2371:

DH is poorly designed (like all Elite specializations), and because of the way it’s designed, it is specifically overpowered in SPVP, no where else.

Not entirely correct- Its over powered in
-Low level pvp
and
-with opponents with low skill level
and/or
-when classes are stacked in low level pvp.

emkelly.2371:

DH is poorly designed (like all Elite specializations), and because of the way it’s designed, it is specifically overpowered in SPVP, no where else.

You’ve still never properly explained your opinion here. For all I know you’re just trying to dump some warrior salt over here.

Brutaly.6257:

Not entirely correct- Its over powered in
-Low level pvp
and
-with opponents with low skill level
and/or
-when classes are stacked in low level pvp.

So tl:dr, If you’re having trouble with DH you’re bad.
Sounds about right.

DH traps need a CD fix after that players can see if the the DH has traps on CD or not.
Trap enter in CD after getting triggered.

Ghotistyx.6942:

emkelly.2371:

DH is poorly designed (like all Elite specializations), and because of the way it’s designed, it is specifically overpowered in SPVP, no where else.

You’ve still never properly explained your opinion here. For all I know you’re just trying to dump some warrior salt over here.

Well, for starters, the fact that most elite specs are blatant power creep that make no real trade-offs is a pretty bad design decision. This is just generally speaking of course, as each elite spec has bad design issues that are more specific to them.

I think the only elite spec that actually trades something are reapers (Death Shroud for Reaper Shroud). I suppose it’s no surprise that reapers are one of the better designed elite specs as well.

In fairness, the fact Dragonhunter’s aren’t particularly stand out is a sign of them being amongst the better designed too. Hard as it is for players to grasp “Fun gameplay — Mediocre performance” is just about the crowning achievement of class design.

Given the way people sniveled about DH virtues not being insta-cast, I’d say the exchanges Guardians make on their f1-3 are pretty close to on par with Necromancer/Reaper tradeoffs in terms of significance.

While rising in the ranks a little by buffing stuff competitive Guards/DH’s use by 5%-10% would be nice, the biggest thing holding the DH back is the whole cycles of middling to outright bad traits and utility abilities the Guardians have to endure. All the usual suspects + “come on already” when it comes to spirit weapons.

Come on already. They’ve been cripple-ware for 3 years now. And the problems are well understood: they scale appallingly badly to level so by the time you’re at endgame they pop like balloons. The AI is moronic. And because they’re split between offensive and utility functionality the traits boosting them are a basket case. They don’t need a do-over, they just need real, sincere ATTENTION for a couple days. Maybe a week or two. Then put the results of that cogitation into the testing process.

Nike.2631:

In fairness, the fact Dragonhunter’s aren’t particularly stand out is a sign of them being amongst the better designed too. Hard as it is for players to grasp “Fun gameplay — Mediocre performance” is just about the crowning achievement of class design.

Given the way people sniveled about DH virtues not being insta-cast, I’d say the exchanges Guardians make on their f1-3 are pretty close to on par with Necromancer/Reaper tradeoffs in terms of significance.

Base guardian virtues literally cannot even come close to competing with DH virtues. F1 burns, cripples, and acts as an AoE pull whereas the base just burns. F2 heals around double what the base version does, has a 15 second shorter CD, and also couples as one of the guardian’s best mobility skills AND removes immobilize. F3 is a long AoE frontal block with a single pulse of aegis whereas the base F3 is just a single pulse of aegis.
DH for me is more like “boring gameplay — excellent performance”, but unfortunately guardians simply aren’t even remotely viable without it because DH virtues are actually good and base virtues are complete garbage.

“Fun gameplay — low performance” can equate more to tomes though, which were promptly spat on by ANet and replaced with skills that were hoped to be more overpowered than RF.

DH virtues are all more condensed. SoJ focuses solely on affecting a single target and cannot be used defensively while stunned. WoR can be interrupted mid cast and only heals allies in a small radius from the landing point. It also cannot be used to remove Fear. SoC does to a good job when you can face your enemies, but doesn’t help when surrounded. It also cannot be used while stunned unless you also have Indomitable Courage traited, meaning you have both DH and Virtues, or 2/3 of your options spoken for. DH Virtues are much nicer against the 1v1, or against a boss, which was the entire point of the DH design. However, its not as if there aren’t significant tradeoffs that are made in terms of support and utility by taking them.

Reaper’s Shroud offers Necros Stability and a Leap, both of which are considered as necessary as DH virtues might be. It also offers synergy with both Power and Condition builds, which makes Death Shroud look inferior by comparison. Whether or not that’s “true” is another matter, but people quickly forget all the tradeoffs they’re making, or they just happen to be adept at planning around those tradeoffs. More options always gives room for interesting interactions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any bad design going on.

I don’t believe there is a single elite spec that doesn’t accomplish what it was designed to do, which is good design by definition. With the next elite specs, there will be tradeoffs between vanilla and our current offerings, and so the decisions multiply even more. With only one currently, people might think its the best option all the time, but even now there are plenty of builds that don’t make use of the elite spec.

There really aren’t significant trade-offs for giving up base virtues. I dare say that Shield of Courage alone is good enough to give up all three base virtues. I don’t even see why this is debatable to be perfectly honest.

Good design is something that was designed well and has an overall positive effect; not necessarily a design coming out the way it was intended. A design that intended to give a glassy DPS build infinite tankiness and infinite healing might succeed in doing so, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid as kitten.

There are situations where DH virtues perform better, but they’re not universally better like the rhetoric states.

Ghotistyx.6942:

emkelly.2371:

DH is poorly designed (like all Elite specializations), and because of the way it’s designed, it is specifically overpowered in SPVP, no where else.

You’ve still never properly explained your opinion here. For all I know you’re just trying to dump some warrior salt over here.

Brutaly.6257:

Not entirely correct- Its over powered in
-Low level pvp
and
-with opponents with low skill level
and/or
-when classes are stacked in low level pvp.

So tl:dr, If you’re having trouble with DH you’re bad.
Sounds about right.

I’ve actually explained this in great detail. do a forum search for my posts before you decide to say something like that. but here, for the hundred-thousandths time here is what is wrong with first Elite Specializations, then DH.

Elite Specializations.

• Mechanics Stack on top of vanilla mechanics, like a tumor.
• Over powered trait lines that often negate entire trait lines form the core mechanics
• Anything done to improve vanilla mechanics will only make elite specs more powerful.
• gate utility skills behind the trait line, for no good reason.
• gate the weapon behind the trait line, for no good reason.
• Were created solely to force players to pay for heart of thorns, instead of giving the players actually good content.

Dragon Hunter

• Pro league from your every day gamer. first of all Pro Leagues have different rules. so i’ll only be talking about standard play both ranked and unranked spvp
• Just traps in general, They take up most of a point, They deal damage, are instant cast in some cases, one can be dropped automatically, one of them forces you to stand in side it or take damage, another does not let you out, another punishes you for standing in side it, another heals you. (not that everyone will have all of the traps at the same time, we’ll get to that)
• dodging traps. first of all, Shut the hell up about how you don’t take damage if you dodge them. That’s BS and you know it. ToF does give a frag if you dodged it. if you cross the threshold after you activate it your taking 3 k damage. Your blades traps doesn’t care either. it will gleefully keep dishing out damage if you are standing inside it.
• Second, when you say “well don’t stand in the traps!” you are actually saying. “Juts let me have the point and let me hit you from range!” because that’s all you have to do. if we don’t pressure you on point you win by capping a point.
• third, just the whole design of traps. They were obviously meant to dominate points, which is rather stupid for a design, because this a point capture and objective capture game. Even if they were super weak in damage, i’d still say the were stupidly designed. If you make them any weaker the become useless, but if you don’t make them weaker they are over powered. That’s no way to design a class.
• I can’t believe i’m still on traps. Jesus, okay so next, what the hell is with the instant cats. so lets say i do avoid your traps. i dodge them to “break” the trap, then stay out of the secondary effect…aaaaand then a DH teleports to me and drops a test of faith on my face. It’s instant, there’s no way to avoid it besides luck. your teleport does’t have a tell (not one that matters anyway with latency which every player has even if you don’t notice it.)
• So in short, Traps are easy to predict, hard to avoid, (regardless of what you say) and poorly designed specifically for SPVP.)
• now lest talk about your virtues. Like WTF. Nothing about your virtues is equivalent to the Vanilla versions. everything about them is supersized like Frilock. Just the virtues alone are reason enough to spec into DH. they are extremely overpowered compared to their vanilla versions, regardless of how they arfe compared to other classes.
• Your shield is perhaps the best block in the game. (And I’m almost convinced it blocks 360 even though it’s not supposed too)
• Your spear is unblockable and has nearly no wind up. so incase we manage to avoid your traps completely you can still pull us in. It also does pretty nice damage (not great, but nice)
• Your heal is more powerful than some dedicated healing skills
• you can refresh them while being invulverable.
• you have blocks out the wazoo (which in vanilla guardians was are, but is over done in DH)
• you are basically one specific specialization that fairly effectively shuts out an entire class.
• you can do all of this while still contesting a point.
• you are great in a team fight, great 1v1, and great at holding and capturing points. the only thing you lack in is speed.
• Sure, there are classes with more sustain, or more damage, but none of them meld all of that into a package so adept at dealing with so many situations.

emkelly.2371:

Ghotistyx.6942:

emkelly.2371:

DH is poorly designed (like all Elite specializations), and because of the way it’s designed, it is specifically overpowered in SPVP, no where else.

You’ve still never properly explained your opinion here. For all I know you’re just trying to dump some warrior salt over here.

Brutaly.6257:

Not entirely correct- Its over powered in
-Low level pvp
and
-with opponents with low skill level
and/or
-when classes are stacked in low level pvp.

So tl:dr, If you’re having trouble with DH you’re bad.
Sounds about right.

(And I’m almost convinced it blocks 360 even though it’s not supposed too)

Nope

Kuya.6495:

emkelly.2371:

Ghotistyx.6942:

emkelly.2371:

DH is poorly designed (like all Elite specializations), and because of the way it’s designed, it is specifically overpowered in SPVP, no where else.

You’ve still never properly explained your opinion here. For all I know you’re just trying to dump some warrior salt over here.

Brutaly.6257:

Not entirely correct- Its over powered in
-Low level pvp
and
-with opponents with low skill level
and/or
-when classes are stacked in low level pvp.

So tl:dr, If you’re having trouble with DH you’re bad.
Sounds about right.

(And I’m almost convinced it blocks 360 even though it’s not supposed too)

Nope

lol yeah i know, it just seems that way sometimes. that was more of a joke than anything

emkelly.2371:

Elite Specializations.

• Mechanics Stack on top of vanilla mechanics, like a tumor.
• Over powered trait lines that often negate entire trait lines form the core mechanics
• Anything done to improve vanilla mechanics will only make elite specs more powerful.
• gate utility skills behind the trait line, for no good reason.
• gate the weapon behind the trait line, for no good reason.
• Were created solely to force players to pay for heart of thorns, instead of giving the players actually good content.

What do you think they were supposed to do? I can’t believe this whining is still a thing. This is always what happens with expansions, you should’ve seen it from the get-go. And GW2 was always going to have expansions even if the devs didn’t see it at the start. Expansions are PR first and foremost to keep the game in the public eye. Continued updates can’t do that.

Expansions are also supposed to bring progression. Since the devs hold on to the idea that we won’t have vertical progression via levels, we have to have some horizontal progression via “widening” the classes we already have. The flexibility alone that it brings is powercreep by itself. It’s just not blatantly obvious by pointing out that the other guy has a bigger number than you do.

Edit: Just corrected vertical and horizontal the other way around. Got mixed, english isn’t my native language.

emkelly.2371:

I’ve actually explained this in great detail. do a forum search for my posts before you decide to say something like that. but here, for the hundred-thousandths time here is what is wrong with first Elite Specializations, then DH.

The Explanation

You should know better than to suggest a forum search. The guy in charge of it was probably sacked? years ago. But thank you for indulging me.

So it sounds like there’s a lot of conjecture, and a blinded view to the future of the game. I hear a lot of complaints about DH traps but nothing about Ranger or Thief traps specifically. They’re both equally effective at fulfilling their design. I also hear a bit about not being able to fight off point. Every class has methods to deal with off-point fighting. Neither Anet nor I are responsible for players refusing to use the tools they’ve been given. Its not like DH is universally dominating all forms of pvp interaction. This game is all about bringing the tools you need. Some are, and some don’t.

There are exactly 2 traps that are instant. Fragments of Faith and Test of Faith. Test of Faith’s initial cast damage is almost unavoidable, that’s true, but the threshold crossing damage is absolutely avoidable. If you get pushed or pulled into it, then you are outplayed. Being outplayed once doesn’t mean the fight is over.

Best case scenario, SoC grants you 19.4% block uptime. Add that to best case scenario 10 blocks per 36s from Fragments of Faith (which are mutually exclusive) and you don’t really gain a lot more block uptime than you had before, especially not with the large holes in your skill uses.

Sounds like you’re just upset at the skills Guardians were offered, many of which aren’t even related to DH. Not every class is going to have the same skills. That’s why Guardians have Renewed Focus and Warriors have all their stances. Guardians have Altruistic Healing, and Warriors have Adrenal Health. They might serve similar purposes, but they’re going to be different, and that’s how games are supposed to run. None of it is indicative of bad design. For curiosity’s sake, I’d love to hear your explanation of how poorly Berserker is designed.

Yannir.4132:

emkelly.2371:

Elite Specializations.

• Mechanics Stack on top of vanilla mechanics, like a tumor.
• Over powered trait lines that often negate entire trait lines form the core mechanics
• Anything done to improve vanilla mechanics will only make elite specs more powerful.
• gate utility skills behind the trait line, for no good reason.
• gate the weapon behind the trait line, for no good reason.
• Were created solely to force players to pay for heart of thorns, instead of giving the players actually good content.

What do you think they were supposed to do? I can’t believe this whining is still a thing. This is always what happens with expansions, you should’ve seen it from the get-go. And GW2 was always going to have expansions even if the devs didn’t see it at the start. Expansions are PR first and foremost to keep the game in the public eye. Continued updates can’t do that.

Expansions are also supposed to bring progression. Since the devs hold on to the idea that we won’t have horizontal progression via levels, we have to have some vertical progression via “widening” the classes we already have. The flexibility alone that it brings is powercreep by itself. It’s just not blatantly obvious by pointing out that the other guy has a bigger number than you do.

hmm, how best to respond to this. Criticism is not whining, first off. Secondly, what were they supposed to do? sure why not.

Checklist of Elite Specializations

• give each class a new weapon.
• weapons should add new vatriety to the class granting them new options for character building.
• Don’t gate the weapons behind the new specialization. They already bought the expansion, Ted!
• Give the players new Utility skills
• No Ted, we’ve been over this. They already bought the expansion. wait, do you just not know what to make their first keystone trait under the specialization line? is that why you keeps suggesting this crap? Seriously ted, leave the development to people who understand game design.
• Grant a player a new profession mechanic which drastically changes the class in a meaningful way.
• What was that Ted? No. What? No! why would we just stack the elite mechanic on top of the core mechanics? Oh, of course, money. Seriously, have you ever played a game? that will just kitten players off. yeah they will buy the expansion, but will they buy the next expansion if you mishandle this one? sit back down and shut up Ted.
• Elite mechanics should replace core mechanics, not stack on top of them. For example, Discipline should handle adrenaline and bursts, while Berserker handles berserk mode, and you have to choose between Discipline or Berserk.
• Oh Christ, Ted! Of course it’s more effort than just making Berserke mode do everything! Oh my god, I swear if you put as much effort into the new Legendary Skins as you do trying turn the game into a marketing scheme we’d have Exotic and legendary Cultural skins by now!
• Elite specializations should definitely not create a situation where on trait line, in this case Elite trait lines, completely invalidates other trait lines.
• No, Berserker does not need Sustain, damage, and condition damage on one trait line, Ted. Jesus, who hired you?! Why is there a Corporate stooge in our development room? Where the hell is our concept designer?!"

Okay, all joking aside. What would i have done with DH? Easy.

Dragon Hunter Redone Lite

• Weapon: Long bow (Keep as is, except not gated behind Dragon hunter)
• Virtues: They are not virtues, Virtues should be handled by the Virtues Trait Line, Dragon hunter “virtues” should be handled by the dragon hunter trait line.
• DH virtues (no longer called virtues) do not have passive effects. they are active skills which are more powerful than virtues active effects, they sacrifice the passive effect for this.
• Traps: (assuming i have to keep traps) Should never be instant cast, should never drop automatically. (that’s it)

Traits: Not enough room for this.

(Ted is my imaginary corporate representative who does not understand game design. pretty much the little voice in my head i imagine when I wonder what Anet Corporate bigwigs are thinking)

emkelly.2371:

• gate utility skills behind the trait line, for no good reason.
• gate the weapon behind the trait line, for no good reason.

No, there’s a very good reason: so you can’t use them while using a different elite spec.

@emkelly

Anet stated a long time ago two important things about the guardian:

1. They are supposed to be the best profession at area control, at least anet “gave” this ability, when they described the different professions, solely to the guardian.
2. Virtues were ment to be powerful when used and active use would mean that you lose the passive. The guardian should be encouraged to actively use the virtues.

Until DH was released none of the above was true.
We were terrible at area control due to lack of utility and weapons skills that actually gave area control. I played necro when i wanted area control.
The virtues were weak and in some cases not even worth using. In some builds the passive was much more powerful compared to the active.

DH gave the guardian the ability to actually being played as the profession was ment to be played according to anets vision for the profession.

The thing is that those things should be in the vanilla guardian and not in DH. The problem isnt DH, its actually the guardian. Imo they should move the virtues upgrades and make them available for the entire profession and instead use the stances that was available in closed beta as the virtues upgrade in DH. So in some sense i do agree with you but the problem isnt that DH is to powerful, its that the base guardian is to weak.

We can agree on that if the profession is played to its max and with the best effect for team success no one uses more than two traps, so why even bring up a trapper build that has zero impact in team play but gets away with some cheesy kills in point.

Personally i just think traps are boring in their design and i must say when i see a bunch of guardians in the opposing team i just swap profession and deal with it. My condi/shout warrior eats guardians for breakfast no matter what spec they are using and i do it on the point filled with traps. I just have to wait a couple of seconds before i place my massive kitten on the point.

No. But they’re a pain in the butt when 2 or more stack in the same place. 1v1 they’re only OP against thieves, every other class has the mechanics to kills them pretty easy.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

emkelly.2371:

• gate utility skills behind the trait line, for no good reason.
• gate the weapon behind the trait line, for no good reason.

No, there’s a very good reason: so you can’t use them while using a different elite spec.

This, pretty much.

The power creep between Elite Specs and No Elite Specs was pretty much inevitable. But the power creep between One Elite Spec and Two Elite Specs should be negligible, while still giving players something to work toward every expansion.

It’s true, dh is op. So long as you stand in traps, besides test of faith, you need to walk in and out of this one more, thanks.

tobascodagama.2961:

This, pretty much.

The power creep between Elite Specs and No Elite Specs was pretty much inevitable. But the power creep between One Elite Spec and Two Elite Specs should be negligible, while still giving players something to work toward every expansion.

It wasn’t inevitable when I designed them, but the original proposal had the new trait line fully replace the core-profession’s class mechanic line. In the Guardian’s case that means the Dragon Hunter would NOT have had access to the Virtues line AT ALL. Which would have done a lot better job of limiting the “everything the base profession has and more” power creep we ended up seeing. Each base profession would have its own strong essential identity and tools the offshoot lines lack. I also later advocated for the elite specs to lose one of the core profession’s weapons while gaining one of their own. In the absence of either of those restrictions (and there are good arguments for not doing those things) then yeah, the ‘new hotness’ could have been much more carefully corralled. And I think it was for many of the professions. but the ones that slipped the leash have gone on to make a MOCKERY of the game’s internal trade-offs and balance. That you could predict which ones would over perform just by knowing which designers they’d been assigned to made the impending train wreck all the worse.

((shrug)) The core of the idea – the nigh infinitely extensible ‘pick one among many’ survived the final in-house adaptation, so ultimate I got what I wanted, but yeah, I’d have liked for the to be less blatant creep along the way, and it WAS DOABLE at one point earlier in the design process.

Nike,

I’d love to hear your assessment of all the elite specialization and which are incredibly off the rails, which are in a good spot, and which, if any, are below what they should be doing. I have a fairly good idea of which are which (chrono being completely insane, while daredevil is meh), but would love to see what someone who plays more than 2 classes thinks.

Azoqu.8917:

Nike,

[I’d] love to see what someone who plays more than 2 classes thinks.

You almost insult me, but Nike is a good option.