Guild Wars 2

I think specializations sound like you have to give up something to get something. For instance, give up access to the arcana trait line and arcane skills to get a new trait line, new heal, and 4 new utility skills. This would allow them to not worry about the new traits/skills being OP in combination with the current best builds, especially those tricky arcanes with their instant-cast bursts.

They will also be able to avoid balancing issues by adding new “sets” to the core class in the future so you can’t take 1 really strong skill from “battle mage” and combine it with a really strong trait/skill from “archemage”

While only having 1 may seem like a bummer, we don’t know how it will play out in terms of limitations.

I think its a very clever way to add new skills without having to worry about a growing list of interactions. I kind of get the feeling like “specializations” will basically allow you to choose your 5th trait line.

As an example, a pure ranger will have Marksmanship, Skirmishing, Wilderness Survival, Nature Magic, and Beastmastery. A Druid will have Marksmanship, Skirmishing, Wilderness Survival, Nature Magic, and Druidism. While a Druid can use a staff and has special Druid skills/heals, it cannot use Shouts, for instance (or whatever is the special skills tied to a beastmaster ranger).

By doing this, they can prevent potentially harmful combinations from arising. For instance, when an ele drops their “Arcana” line for “SPACE MAGIC,” they can’t use the instant arcane skills that can often be a problem.

As they add future specializations they won’t have to worry about OP combinations arising from combining Druid skills with the next specialization’s skills/traits.

That would seem pretty clever to me, tbh.

A few specializations I could see:

Battle mage: Has the ability to wield sword (and maybe shield) or great-axe. Perhaps enables the usage of heavy armor? I am not sure how they would make this different than d/d. Perhaps it is condition focused, or is truly melee range?

Pyromancer: Wields off-hand torch to power elemental-infused fire spells that have a heavy condition focus. (I think this one is very likely).

Spellslinger: uses pistols to channel the elemental forces with fast single-target attacks. Fills a niche for high sustained ranged damage that isn’t slow as sin.

Arcanist: New mechanic – elemental over-drive that works similar to adrenaline. When activated, unlocks a short-term arcane attunement that allows powerful skills to be unleashed.

Perhaps specializations will also just go into more trait-line focused directions, like fire-mage, water-mage, etc. It will be interesting to see where they take this.