Happy with your specialization?

[Quietas.4891]

I've been looking through the various profession forums that I have level 80 characters and it seems most people are not happy with the released versions. After seeing that, it seems the general feeling is the extensive feedback threads were ignored.

 

How many of you are happy with the new specializations and which one really works well for you?

 

I'm honestly curious because my main specs were not noticeably touched after the last beta and most players were not happy back then.

[Mortime.1359]

So far I've put around 10-15 hours into mechanist and around 10 hours into harbringer.

 

With mechanist I love the concept and the look but the mech is just super unresponsive, gets stuck everywhere and disappears in water. Also you are pretty much stuck with mace as your weapon.

 

Harbringer on the other hand I've been enjoying quite a lot. It flows really well and is just super smooth to play. Then again I don't think necromancer has ever gotten a bad elite spec so that's more of a norm than an exception.

[Sigerk.2897]

I'm not proficient with it at all, but really like Specter. After binding ally target switches it becomes really fun to play and you can really help out ppl in a pinch. 

 

Harbinger is also really fun to play with surprisingly good survivability even with full Viper. 

 

Catalyst seems okay, unlocked it fully but haven't played it much yet, but my friend is loving it. Maybe I'll like it more if I spend some more time with it. 

 

Haven't gotten around to all the others yet. Will probably find something to like in all of them if past experience is anything to go by. Might take some months though. 

[Faridah.8431]

Willbender is just a big fat no to me. Will have to try some others.

[Jski.6180]

The lack of patch notes for the specialization seems to look like Anet is not happy to share what they did to them and understand that the player base would not be happy about it to. This has got to be the worst group of specialization or at least the worst way to add them to the game.

[Tachenon.5270]

My plan was to roll with a Vindicator and a Mechanist, and stay far, far away from that colorfully metaphoric Willbender. I did get started with a Vindicator, but on a whim I converted one of my Warriors (I have three) to a Bladesworn and swung a gunsaber. Then I swung it again. Hey! I swung it again. The rest is history. Future history, that is. Because that's where we will all spend the rest of our lives...

Don't much care for the offhand pistol, though.

Also converted a Scourge to a Harbinger and played through the first EOD mission. Didn't hate it. Yet.

[HazyDaisy.4107]

I did the story with Virtuoso, only because I've done every other expansion story with that character, after it was finished, I changed her back to Mirage, so no, not so far.

[kharmin.7683]

I'm a ranger main and I've been running a non-standard untamed build with Sw/D instead of hammer and I've been doing ok with it thus far.

[Silabus.4273]

I main necromancer. I didnt play much save to read skills and tooltips  during the betas cause "rewards not saved on this toon" killed any will to play them.  So far i have enjoyed Harbinger and im moving slowly off of reaper and enjoying it. feels a little fresh again. 

[Xero the Dark.8230]

Loving Harbinger so far -- still getting used to it for the most part. I switched from Reaper - the shroud is the hardest thing to get used to. I used to use it defensively AS WELL as offensively (of course) and now...I have to remember not to use shroud as a defense lol. 

[yoni.7015]

Harbinger is really fun so far. Did the story and two strike missions and the meta events with it and it’s good. 

Edited March 3, 2022 by yoni.7015

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

The unintended function of a literal CC Breaker for Untamed kept me going with it, otherwise I'd have stayed Soulbeast. The only thing genuinely annoying me right now is the Ambush Attack being Auto Attack bound and being under a timer. That timer thing needs to go, we should be able to use it whenever we want at the most effective time we see fit. 

Edited March 3, 2022 by ChronoPinoyX.7923

[kharmin.7683]

8 minutes ago, ChronoPinoyX.7923 said:

The only thing genuinely annoying me right now is the Ambush Attack being Auto Attack bound and being under a timer. That timer thing needs to go, we should be able to use it whenever we want at the most effective time we see fit. 

While I agree mostly with that, I have found swapping in and out in order to get the ambush to be kinda fun.  Again, I'm on Sw/D and not hammer (LB on weapon swap where ambush is not too bad for me either) so maybe I'm getting something more out of it by not using the "preferred" e-spec weapon.

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

Just now, kharmin.7683 said:

While I agree mostly with that, I have found swapping in and out in order to get the ambush to be kinda fun.  Again, I'm on Sw/D and not hammer (LB on weapon swap where ambush is not too bad for me either) so maybe I'm getting something more out of it by not using the "preferred" e-spec weapon.

I use Axe/Axe in most cases (RIP Mainhand dagger, you were good to me) and it feels bad when you Unleash and the Ambush skill just autos and you hit nothing 😂

[Nex.1453]

This is just a PvE perspective on the builds, from open world to fractals/raids/strike.

 

Mechanist feels really clunky with the micromanagement of the F1-F3 bot skills. At times you feel like you're playing half a class compared to holo. It does provide decent boon support and barrier but it just feels bad to play vs alacren. The movespeed signet is really enjoyable tho. 3/5

 

Willbender is just a worse dragonhunter. You get more mobility, but at the cost of less AoE from traps. I haven't played with willbender too much in open world, but I'd imagine dragonhunter is better in most scenarios. 2/5

 

Bladesworn is actually really cool depending on the encounter. You can just remain charged up while the others are cleaving down souls between Gorseval phases, and slash the boss for 200k damage. In open world or solo content though, it's not as good because you don't have access to buffs and you're just standing there being pummeled. It's also susceptible to blinds unless you take the middle final trait, and it's especially bad against non-telegraphed evades. 3/5

 

Harbinger is an absolute menace with full condi, but because of the blight mechanic you die really easily with full vipers. I've been running full ritualist and it's been working much better in most content. 4/5

 

Edit* After the catalyst nerf, ele is once again unplayable in PvE. People quit the game over changes like these, where they spend all the time and effort to master their rotations and deck out their fashion game, only for their build to be thanos snapped. In fact, that's one of the biggest reasons I quit the game after the staff weaver nerf post PoF. I quit league for this exact reason, when they reworked Ryze back to back, rendering all my mechanical knowledge useless. What a load of kitty kat kitten. 1/5 

 

Virtuoso just feels like a worse chrono or mirage. It looks by far the flashiest out of the classes, but there's very little substance behind the build. You just spam your shatter and skills off cooldown and hope the enemy dies. Maybe it's because every other mesmer elite spec has been game breaking and they decided to play it real safe. Still, for how flashy the animations are (particularly the F4 shatter), I give it 2/5

 

Untamed. It sucks. The pet's ugly. You couldn't pay me to play it. 0/5

 

Vindicator just feels bad to play, like it doesn't know what it wants to be. The alliance skills have very little synergy with the kit, none of the other legends really complement it, there's very little boon support or utility vs. ventari herald or alacren. It barely even has self-generating vigor for a class that's heavily realiant on its dodge. The greatsword skills and dodge is great for cleaving down mobs in open world and short encounters, but overall I would rather just play alacren or herald. 1/5

 

Spectre is actually really interesting. I think it has the potential to be one of the meta builds through boon support with ritualist and wells. It does break the game's one rule of not targeting your allies, which I find to be a breath of fresh air compared to all the aoe heals in the game. The scepter skills are a bit underwhelming, but I love to see more support options in the game. 4/5

 

Overall, most of the specs feel underwhelming. Maybe it's because I've played my current build for years and know it inside and out, and maybe it's also because renegade / scourge / firebrands are op. Either way, I'm pretty happy with new additions to classes to spice things up.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Nex.1453
Catalyst changes

[Bast.7253]

I think most are a miss but that's partially because many of them are just not my playstyle. 

Of the ones I have enjoyed I would say Harbinger by far feels like the most cohesive and fleshed out of all the specs, but that's on par for the golden child Necro. 

I haven't played Machinist or whatever Untamed is supposed to be but I have tried the others. 

Virtuoso - not thrilling and does fit my playstyle but it just feels like a fresh air scepter weaver to me. Only the damage takes longer to ramp up. I'm sure someone will find a fun and interesting build with it and it will have a place eventually. Just loses far too much of the identity of mesmer for me without the clones and I think the utilities should have been more survival/defense oriented. The two aoe skills feel pretty similar and the graphics are nice but this spec is all about "psionic" abilities and I feel like having stuns or even some new mechanic like "mind control" that's essentially the same as fear might have been better. Perhaps one of the aoe skills that causes a stationary fear in an area so they aren't walking out of your projectiles?

Bladesworn - I mean the damage is fun when you're able to land it but the charge up time of dragon slash, while better than it was on beta, is still just.. not viable for those "big damage" numbers outside of raid bosses or events where someone is pulsing you stability. Another option would be to not have this be a stationary wind-up. Sure it makes it harder to avoid in a competitive mode and there has to be a trade off for dishing 70k damage in one hit but it's a very situational ability. I also feel like gunblade suffers from Catalyst hammer syndrome where it just doesn't really know what it's trying to be. It feels awkward to me. Main hand weapons with pistol off-hands abilties also feel out of place to me. I think for this spec, even more than spellbreaker, having dual pistols probably would have been the better way to go. But I think a lot of the specs this time around suffer from that problem as it's difficult to rework an entire profession's core mechanic and still have existing weapons feel good. 

Vindicator - definitely see this being a threat in pvp and wvw. Pve? Good burst on occasion and high single hits, but the sustain without jalis hammer swirl feels like this isn't really intended for a damage dps spec in pve. I'll wait for people to build craft to make that call though as rev isn't something I normally play. 

Specter - I tried a condi build because I wanted to use scepter but it feels like it's pretty locked into being a plaguedoctor/support type role, and I'm not sure it really matches up to similar scourge builds. I'm sure it will have its place and I haven't done extensive build crafting but running viper's I felt like I wasn't really applying that many conditions or able to do anykind of sustain damage to warrant taking it over some other previous elite variation for condi or power. 

Harbinger - already covered. 

Untamed - haven't tried. Not much interest. 

Guardian - what's this spec called again? Uh, feels smoother now but I don't see this having much of a role in end-game pve. Perhaps it feels better as condi or hybrid? I think it will be pretty nasty in pvp once people get the hang of it though.  

Catalyst - feels smoother and has decent sustain when running celestial but it still feels like a redundant, uninspired mess made at the last minute. I'm being particularly harsh on this one because they have so much potential to do interesting things with elementalist, whether it's adding a fifth arcane attunement or doing something inspiried by void magic or dragon energies or whatever. I won't go into detail because I think it speaks for itself. I'm sure having the combo field from the jade sphere be manually triggered has its uses but I would personally prefer it to be instant cast and last as long as you have energy and stick to your character. Especially given that hammer's design is a mix ranged ability. But this really just feels like an amalgamation of scrapper, weaver, and tempest only without half the sustain that any of those have without playing a piano and being very attentive to your cooldowns and attunements. I also think that if the jade sphere field remains ground-targeted, increasing the radius of the field and the range to 1200 wouldn't really be much of a gamechanger. 

I think the majority of these specs are highly situational compared to previous specs and 

[anduriell.6280]

Untamed in my main in PvE and WvW. Not happy.

I did not ask or want another dueler OP in 1v1. 

I did ask for a zerg elite spec, don't mind frontliner (although preferred) or backliner. I did not get that. I gave plenty of constructive feedback about how to improve it. Other players gave also amazing feedback (something about the ranger mains: we see the potential of the class Anet ignore us, this will be proven with the spirits rework ) 

 I do not want moar damage for unplayed or actually for any spec. WE need more synergy in the class <swearing> 

[Zero.3871]

just tested harbinger in wvw, feels great, a lot of fun to play. cool, fresh design. changes since beta were perfect.

played willbender in pve, still not 100%  used to the mobile playstyle, but its fun as well rushing in fights from one enemy to the other, hitting hard moving forward.

imo a lot of interesting designs in all new especs. and i am excited to test them the next weeks one by one.

[Strixxe.2019]

Not really.  I have fully kited holosmith with all legendary weapons so im sticking with it. Honestly none of new specs tickles my choya so im guessing im just gonna wait another 6 years for the new ones 😄

Edited March 4, 2022 by KrivukasLT.3507

[oscuro.9720]

I’m a war main. Theres a few ways to answer/interpret this question. As someone with an atypical view of bladesworn compared to other war mains on this forum, here’s my opinion;

Do I enjoy bladesworn? Yes. I played it a bit over 40 hours in the beta and enjoyed it.

Is it good? For warrior, it’s not bad actually. That’s not saying much considering warrior’s state in competitive modes though (I don’t play pve). 

Does it have the same critical flaws it had in the beta? Yes. For blade this is exceptionally irritating since it’s mostly numbers that need to change (blooming fire is useless and needs 2x the damage it presently has). 

Is it frustrating that a lot of the problems with blade do not require intensive changes (numbers, changing what condition is on a skill is about it) and still we’re not done despite 40+ forum pages of fairly homogenous feedback from the profession forum (not to mention probably well over 100 posts)? Yes. 

So I enjoy blade, yes. But it would’ve been nice if they had:

increased blooming fire damage and range (to be like Maul, which has 240 range and nearly twice the damage for the same cast time and a shorter CD and more utility effect), changed artillery slash from cripple to weakness, and increased the range of breaks the from 450 to 600. 

Edited March 4, 2022 by oscuro.9720

[Puck.3697]

I was not happy with Catalyst at all.

so i made a warrior ^.^ Bladesworn is alot of fun.

[Borked.6824]

I like my Willbender.  I even went in with low expectations and found myself pleased.  My concern is whether my liking it is just from a sunk cost 😞 It has some nuance, it's pretty, it's snappy.  It suffers from mobility bloat...yeah I just said a class has too much mobility, because of the cost in other utility.  It's not wet noodle dps, but it definitely feels inferior to DH in performance and survivability.  And any spec that suggests I use that dogkitten mainhand sword immediately is going to get a smack in the face for the existence of sword 3.  Through and through, I will get tired of the nuance and reality will remind me that there's no real purpose in playing WB over DH.

[scerevisiae.1972]

Virtuoso - great, a new way to play the class. I think dagger is not up to other mesmer weapons because the #3 is waaaay too slow but the traits are decent, the utilities are good and I feel like a wide variety of specs are possible. I like it a lot, overall good.

 

Catalyst - horrible, just horrible. Hammer is kittening terrible unless you're hitting a raid boss or golem, the spec mechanic is dull asf, the traits are similarly uninspired, the utilities are also terrible with the elite being just barely decent. Overall terrible.

 

Harbinger - great, I like everything after the elixir change, overall great.

 

Untamed - I can see a lot of potential but it's very very clunky to play. I don't think the direct pet controls work at all - some skills you want auto-casted, others you want to control. Ambushes were a significant improvement but there's no way to see ambush CDs, which sucks HARD as it's the best thing in the spec. I think leash/unleash should just be 5sec CD and ambush always available after unleash (ie: effective 10sec CD). Hammer is OK but I think flip skills should have their own CDs. Utilities and traits are good. Overall bad but lots of room for improvement. 

 

Edited March 4, 2022 by scerevisiae.1972

[Flori.2194]

Catalyst is just a gut punch. They didn't listen to any of the feedback, this spec is so kitten my two cats could design a better one while they are high on catnip...

[Shiyo.3578]

Not really, the same problems due to stupid design philosophies still exist. 

Catalyst makes no sense because this is an action game not a stacking on top of someone simulator except in instanced PvE. This type of design(small boon radius) also constricts encounter design, so I don't understand why Anet refuses to move on from this stacking simulator design.

Jade Sphere's shouldn't be such an annoying headache to keep up on people in anything not instanced PvE, and should simply follow you around and last forever but drain energy(that's restored by doing damage/swapping attunements/etc).

Harbringer losing access to utils/healing skills in shroud makes zero sense. You don't have an extra HP bar, you should have your utils while inside shroud. However, outside of that, Harbringer is solid and I have no complaints.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Shiyo.3578