Hello everyone. I've been thinking about something since the launch of the latest expansion and now after the first balance patch those thoughts feel like they are correct (at leats in my opinion). So i am curious what others think. i am aware this will probably be a minority opinion :).
I get it, weapon mastery is liked by many and considered to be fun for many. It opens up some playstyles afterall. But i also think it harms the balance and class identity of the game. Most of the elite spec weapons were designed to work well with the corresponding talent trees. That also meant, the weapons were designed around them. We saw the impact of breaking that limitation immediatly by the insane dps jump of some classes that out of a sudden could use weapons they weren't designed to use. That was somewhat inevitable, because in order to break the weapon limitations, arena net should have also done a talent tree rework. Now they didn't and the most obvious path to "fix" the issue this caused is, to nerf the weapons. This however will also immediatly have a negative impact on the specs that were intended to use them. One such example right now is the vindicator. Arena net had to stop the great sword herald, but in doing so also hit the vindicator, which they compensated by trying to buff some talents. But by doing so, what they actually achieve is, that the great sword might not be the most appealing weapon to the vindicator anymore. Other weapons might turn out to be stronger then, which will again force arena net to "fix" something. This potentially will turn out to be an endless and unwinnable cycle of "fixes" to problems that were caused by a change that didn't need to happen.
Why do i think it didn't need to happen? This ties into why i think the expansion was a missed oportunity. Not bringing a new elite spec would finally have opened up the ressources to rework core builds. Yeah yeah i am one of those people who still think it is sad that core builds are not that viable compared to elite specs. I think, core builds in many cases offer class identies that have been lost with the elite specs. Take core engi, the actual master of inventions, tool belts and kits. None of the elite specs offer the same "feel". Take elementalist. Core ele is the closest to an actual mage. All it's elite specs for some weird reason feel forced into a melee/close range battlewizard. Yes of course you can still play core builds, but let's be honest, it doesnt feel great when they are outclassed at every turn by the elite specs. I think with Secrets of the obscure arena net could have finally taken a look at the core builds. I don't know, maybe take the statistically least used core talent tree and make it core exclusive and design the core identity around it. I am not a class designer, but i hope i can give an example of what i mean. Let's stick with engi. Firearms, Explosives and Alchemy are too universally usefull to block them for elite specs. But to my knowledge not many elite builds use the inventions tree. So why not make the inventions tree a core exclusive and balance the core class around it. I mean, afterall inventions is the core identity anyway, being designed aroung the use of the tool belt already. But sadly....missed chance. At least in my opinion.
So yeah, in conclusion, i think weapon mastery has the potential to hurt class balance and class design/uniqueness in the long run. But maybe it doesn't. It's just some thoughts. I still wish core builds would get some love.
That of course is also true. Not every class benefittet equally :). I still would have preferred a core class rework :D.
