Rate the elite specs

[scerevisiae.1972]

Rate the elite specs

[Mesket.5728]

hmmm i don't think this poll will bring any kind of data other than just an impression. Most players have knowledge on one class, probably two. Just the most dedicated probably knows about many classes. For example, go to warrior forums and see how good people think Bladeswan is. Warriors, who play warrior want that class completely gone while many others who actually dislike warrior still consider bladesworn "a cool idea" which is a dangerous opinion because it might mislead the devs thinking they were on the right track.

[Bakeneko.5826]

Catalyst, as it was in beta week, was horrible. While weaver rotations flowed nicely, catalyst, on the other hand, felt like I was dragging scrotum on sand paper while trying to juggle four balls at the same time. It was clunky, slow, worse than base elementalist. And it all went back to Anet nerfing core ele weapons, skills and traits and putting all dmg on elite specs, instead of balancing specs itself. Now that we have to rely on core ele weapon set, it's sub-par mess in PvE

[Dante.1508]

Untamed is a mess.. Catalyst was terrible and bladsworn i will not play. To be honest most of the new specs are bad.. to not overly great. This whole expansion feels like its being done on the cheapest of cheap.

[Ashantara.8731]

They were - to some extent, some more, some less - all "terrible."

The elite specs, so far, are the weakest feature of the upcoming expansion. Even skiffs and fishing look more compelling to me than those "innovative" specializations (I repeat: where are my cool Asian-themed specs, ANet?).

[scerevisiae.1972]

On 11/4/2021 at 12:44 AM, Mesket.5728 said:

hmmm i don't think this poll will bring any kind of data other than just an impression. Most players have knowledge on one class, probably two. Just the most dedicated probably knows about many classes. For example, go to warrior forums and see how good people think Bladeswan is. Warriors, who play warrior want that class completely gone while many others who actually dislike warrior still consider bladesworn "a cool idea" which is a dangerous opinion because it might mislead the devs thinking they were on the right track.

hard disagree.  after 9 years i think most players have at least 1 of each class, or at least experience of several classes.

not to mention you don't have to be an expert warrior to have a valid opinion on whether the new warrior spec is good or not. 

[draxynnic.3719]

15 hours ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

hard disagree.  after 9 years i think most players have at least 1 of each class, or at least experience of several classes.

not to mention you don't have to be an expert warrior to have a valid opinion on whether the new warrior spec is good or not. 

You might be surprised. A lot of posters have been pretty up-front about not having played or not having significantly played every profession.

 

The big divide with Bladesworn, though, seems to be PvE versus competitive. The PvE Bladesworn is, essentially, a demonstration of how sufficiently large numbers can overcome deficiencies in design. If iaijutsu is a theme you like, the massive damage, and the massive healing you get through that damage via Immortal Dragon, makes up for the vulnerability when in Dragon Trigger. People who have any intention of playing warrior in competitive, though, can see that there's no way that playing the Bladesworn as designed will ever be allowed to be viable in competitive. At best, you might be able to make a strategy work of firing off Dragon Slash with minimal charge.

 

There's also an aspect of Bladesworn being another spec that pretty much only brings DPS (the interactions bladesworn has with ammo skills might enhance shouts, but apart from that). Some like the idea of warriors only dealing damage, because they 'don't play warrior to be support). For people who want to play warrior in high-end PvE, though, there's a wariness that bladesworn PvE damage will be normalised to the DPS that ArenaNet considers acceptable for raids, and after which warrior roles will go back to being a bannerslave.

 

So I think there is a divide there between people who are committed to playing warrior and people who generally don't. More committed warrior players generally see the flaws of bladesworn's design, while players whose experience with warrior is mostly just messing around in open world can have fun messing around with iaijutsu moves that post big numbers - if they play competitive and/or high-end PvE at all, they'll likely be doing so on other professions, so the flaws of bladesworn (and warriors in general) in those modes don't matter to them.

 

That's not to say that people who are sufficiently experienced with all professions to identify the flaws don't exist. Warrior is probably my least played profession, but I picked up on the flaws of bladesworn right away. But many of the people who like bladesworn have been pretty upfront about it being a case of 'I haven't played warrior much but this looks cool!'

[Mesket.5728]

On 11/5/2021 at 4:37 AM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

hard disagree.  after 9 years i think most players have at least 1 of each class, or at least experience of several classes.

Just a minority knew the game 9 years ago. Again, most players have little idea outsidd their class and the contradictory answers in your poll proves my point. Dont take it from me... go and read 27 pages of bladesworn feedback and you will see the pattern clear as water. Every positive feedback on BS starts with "I dont playr warrior much" or "i never liked warrior before but...". 

Everything BS is a weeb pose on a selling poster. Other than that is just yet anoother power dps spec for warrior... so we now have 4 of that, 1 condi spec and none of the other roles the game has. BS is just a bad idea and yet 17 (up to date) thought it was one lf the best espec! Stupid poll render stupid results. Dont force people to pick 3.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Mesket.5728

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

Catalyst was a horrendous hodgepodge of busywork mechanics, with no cohesive theme, purpose or role.

I like Untamed, but it felt underpowered, and was clearly never going to be invited to instanced content in its current state. How did they release it to beta in this state???

Sadly, Anet's hammerphobia with Catalyst and Untamed was predictable: they have categorically relegated all extant hammer builds (ok, except scrapper)  to the lowest basement tier possible, and their EoD 'thinking outside the box' utterly evaporated when it came to Catalyst and Untamed, and they succumbed to their hammerphobia instead. 

Edited November 15, 2021 by TheAgedGnome.7520

[SeTect.5918]

On 11/6/2021 at 12:46 PM, Mesket.5728 said:

Every positive feedback on BS starts with "I dont playr warrior much" or "i never liked warrior before but...". 

I agree, because thats like that also with mechanist and so on. Also "I think i ll change to engi".

Especially the people saying mech is too tanky only tried it in open world. Then they give Feedback saying its tanky af while in fractals and raids it gets melted. 

Its mostly the player base that never/rarely played the profession that suddenly gives the best possible Feedback. 

Thats also why I just gave some Feedback to mechanist, catalyst, specter and harbinger bc that r the professions that i play the most. I gave also no Feedback to Vindicator because i only play condi revenant and not power.

I let others that have more experience with the specific classes/roles giving the Feedback to not write something like willbender is op while 90% of guardians find that its not even close to "op".

I am not expecting that everyone should be a specialist of the class to give Feedback but u should inform yourself and so on a bit. 

Edited November 7, 2021 by SeTect.5918

[Avatara.1042]

Catalyst is the worst experience I have had in GW2.  Multiple ridiculous timers to watch, forced attunement swaps for Hammer 3, hodgepodge of melee orb and ranged attacks, energy buildup and loss, and the usual glass base elementalist made for absolute Hell.

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, SeTect.5918 said:

I gave also no Feedback to Vindicator because i only play condi revenant and not power.

Didn't get the chance to try it since I didn't have a lot of free time during the second beta, but I can see Vindicator having a similar potential to Herald as a high-sustain celestial condi build due to having high access to chill (greatsword auto, grandmaster 2) and burning on Scavenger Burst. Might be interesting to compare and contrast with the traditional celestial condi herald at some point.

[Orack.4825]

I'm afraid to see mecha that high, he definitely is inferior to bladsworn and scepter. 
The Mecha die to easy and w/o it the class is useless.

[giblets.6401]

I wish Anet would share their take on community feedback and patch notes on the changes they're making to the elite specs. I'd be a lot more willing to invest mt time giving detailed feedback if I could see it was making a difference.

[Avatara.1042]

48 minutes ago, giblets.6401 said:

I wish Anet would share their take on community feedback and patch notes on the changes they're making to the elite specs. I'd be a lot more willing to invest mt time giving detailed feedback if I could see it was making a difference.

Their balance team is very closed and slow.

[Caid.4932]

Poll results kind of line up with my view mostly.

I didn't play Bladesworn, Specter or Mechanist much. Kind of surprised to see Mechanist so well rated. I guess being familiar with how pets already worked did a good job of setting expectations and it looks like it could be good with some fairly basic pet controls and a bit of thought in terms of how much aoe damage it takes. Cant see it faring well in wvw at all but i guess most elites are better in some areas than others.

[scerevisiae.1972]

yeah i'm also surprised to see mechanist rate so high. pet classes don't appeal to me at all.

[Xanadrine.4352]

I rated mech and specter high because I had fun on them and didnt die to all the pof mobs i was pulling. They seem to flow really nice the golem needs a few tweaks and the engi needs a little more involvement with abilities, but they are pretty solid. I also like harb because its fun too, but also pretty mobile, the one thing is the elixirs need some work, im just not that into them lol.

 

I rated cata untamed and willender worst because cata is a mess its like they threw everything in there cobbled together with a hammer and called it a day. Cata should have been so very different, we have weaver and cata will never out frontline weaver. All the eye catching effects cant hide the dismal spec cata is. hammer again is tied to a bad elite, at least make the spheres follow us!

 

Untamed is also a mess, should have never been hammer that was a meme to gw1 and really should not have been given to ranger in gw2. Its a lousy damage spec even if you unleash yourself hammer is a joke, unless they can make it so all weapons are unleashed this spec is no Bueno for me. The pet AI needs work also we have no control over recall send ect, and ofc the pet is slow to react as usual. Its a disappointing spec when rifle would have been much better, or even a cool down ability that unleashes the entire spec pet ranger and all weapons for xx time on a 30 second cd.

 

Willender is boring ,sad in damage and trying to be a ninja in heavy armor. It can be salvaged but it needs damage coefficients raised , some interesting attacks that are not bland and boring. 

Edited November 13, 2021 by Zuldari.3940

[Dawdler.8521]

On 11/9/2021 at 12:36 AM, Caid.4932 said:

Kind of surprised to see Mechanist so well rated.

Why wouldnt it be now, lol? It was totally bugged, broken and probably twice as strong as it'll be on actual realease.

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

Harbinger: 3/10 

Mechanic that is boring and completely passive (and if you pick a certain trait path actually has 0 positives), boring utilities and traits, a support line that is bugged and a power line that should not exist. Back to the drawing board for me.

 

Catalyst: 4/10 

Random ideas smacked together does not make for a good elite spec. Combined with a weapon that does not work with its own spec focus and boring utility skills means it has a problem.

 

Untamed: 4/10 

Badly designed traits and mechanic, on top of no damage to speak off.

 

Willbender: 5/10 

Meh traits, off-hand sword is inferior to off-hand focus in power or off-hand torch in condi, utilities are meh, elite is unuseable, spec breaks half the core traits, and suffers from a shitload of jank.

 

Virtuoso: 6/10 

Bland traits, including a condi line that should not exist.

 

Vindicator: 6/10 

Creative idea, but no damage, flip-over mechanic is a disaster, Saint Victor's Urn is the worst elite ever created, and 2 out of 3 grandmasters will never see use.

 

Bladesworn: 7/10 

Interesting, but it is hard to get a real feel for its power with the Dragon Slash + Lush Forest combo overshadowing everything else. Gunsaber could use some help.

 

Mechanist: 7.5/10 

That AI needs an update, especially in such an AI centered spec. traits should help the Mechanist as well and not just the Mech.

 

Specter: 8/10 

Best and most creative spec of the bunch by far for me. Rot wallow and Consume Shadows will need fixes/nerfs, as will Endless Night probably. Biggest problem is the UI, which currently isn't made for targeting specific allies. Could use some more AoE/cone/splash/multi target for a lot of its non-well effects imo.