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Which expansion had the best elites?

Veprovina.4876
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Which expansion had the best elites?  

85 members have voted

  1. 1. What elites do you enjoy the most, from which expansion?

    • Heart of Thorns
      30
    • Path of Fire
      47
    • End of Dragons
      8

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Randulf.7614

Randulf.7614

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Tough call.

My favs in HoT

Tempest, Herald, Daredevil, Berserker, Scrapper, Reaper. I use all but Tempest now

My favs in PoF

Weaver, Spellbreaker, Soulbeast. Spellbreaker and Weaver I used for years on my main

My favs in EoD are a bit skewed because I’ve only played bladesworn (which I hated) and Catalyst (which is now my favourite spec)

So, HoT for best range. PoF for staying power, EoD for having my single favourite.

Hope that clears that up…

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kharmin.7683

kharmin.7683

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IMO

HoT elites were designed for raid groups (as raids were released then), so for a casual OW player like myself, who mains ranger, the druid wasn't really for me.

PoF elites were designed with WvW in mind.  Soulbeast was a fun espec when it came out, but it's since been nerfed quite a bit for me to enjoy in OW.  Still, better than druid for me.

EoD elites were designed with PvP in mind.  I hate that mode.   Untamed gave me more pet control than the other ranger specs, so I started to enjoy it more than the others.  However, for me, the F-keys being different from core and the other specs makes it a bit more of a learning curve.  For me, in OW, I'll play this espec over the other especs.

Having said all of that, I will often stick with core ranger but might hop into one of the other especs for OW group content or if I'm helping out guildies.

Again, this is all my opinion, even the design intentions.  YMMV

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Harfang.1507

Harfang.1507

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No clear winner, so no vote.

HoT provides simplest elementalist ES (Tempest), solid reaper, boon lord herald.

PoF gave us super support in Scourge and Firebrand. I love Renegade

EoD brought two of the coolest ES's in Spectre and Mechanist, plus Vindicator is solid, selfish DPS.

For the record, I mostly play Vindicator, Tempest and Holosmith.

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Veprovina.4876

Veprovina.4876

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39 minutes ago, Harfang.1507 said:

No clear winner, so no vote.

HoT provides simplest elementalist ES (Tempest), solid reaper, boon lord herald.

PoF gave us super support in Scourge and Firebrand. I love Renegade

EoD brought two of the coolest ES's in Spectre and Mechanist, plus Vindicator is solid, selfish DPS.

For the record, I mostly play Vindicator, Tempest and Holosmith.

Fair enough! 🙂

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HnRkLnXqZ.1870

HnRkLnXqZ.1870

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HoT: Scrapper, Daredevil, Tempest, Reaper, Chronomancer, Dragonhunter
EoD: Mechanist, Untamed, Virtuoso, Harbinger, Vinidcator,
PoF: Deadeye,

I enjoy playing exploration and adventuring, which means I am looking for sustain and gimmicks. My selection may not be very popular, but at least it is honest.

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Doggie.3184

Doggie.3184

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Heart of Thorns. It's not Daredevil's fault it's unbuffed + overshadowed and Vindicator stole the 2.0 upgrade to Vault. It's still more fun than the other two and actually gets a weapon that can AoE~ plus it's still the fastest. Tempest was my favorite of the HoT specs, and my fav Elementalist spec. EoD massively dropped the ball hard imo on Ele and Ranger. They do damage now and all but just aren't fun or interesting to me with Catalyst being the worst idea in the whole game. Specter had a lot of potential but it was wasted on some poor choices.

HoT only had 1 spec I didn't like much which was Druid~ it doesn't feel very Druid-like compared to other games, is limited to healing and has annoying staff sound effects, but seems like it will at least do damage in PvE soon. (is invincible in WvW atm though)

Post HoT not many stood out much and many things felt too recycled. Deadeye was an absolute disaster, and it only recently got buffs but remains only situationally useful in instance content. It's still missing the 'fun and excitement' aspects regardless of it's damage. Firebrand kinda ruined the whole structure of the game by being too good and depended upon, spiraling the game into a bad direction. Mirage felt really really awful and went untouched for years for me. Holosmith is all fun and games till it kills itself for no reason. Spellbreaker copypastes Thief animation and was the most bland thing in game to me. Renegade was okay but... really random and off-topic for a legend choice with all the Elona lore out there people were excited about being picked.

The only PoF Spec I liked a ton was Soulbeast and it's "Blue Mage-like" style. Mechanist is god and the only thing I liked fully in EoD.

The only class with all 3 specs being amazing and fun to me is Necromancer and now Reaper is king.

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TheLadyOfTheRings.9148

TheLadyOfTheRings.9148

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Hmm, good question.

If I look at how many elite specs I like from each expansion, then it looks like this:

HoT: 

  • Druid, Scrapper, Berserker, Dragonhunter, Daredevil, Tempest, Chronomancer (7)

PoF:

  • Soulbeast, Spellbreaker, Deadeye, Weaver, Mirage (5)

EoD:

  • Untamed, Willbender, Specter, Catalyst (4)

Safe to say HoT has the most elite specs I like to play. 

But if I look at my favorite elite spec per profession (aka most played), then it will look like this:

  • Ranger: Soulbeast / Untamed (PoF / EoD)
  • Warrior: Spellbreaker (PoF)
  • Guardian: Willbender (EoD)
  • Thief: Deadeye (PoF)
  • Engineer: Scrapper (HoT)
  • Elementalist: Tempest / Catalyst (HoT / EoD)
  • Mesmer: Mirage (PoF)

So each expansion has:

  • HoT - 1 / 2 favorites
  • PoF - 3 / 4 favorites
  • EoD - 1 / 2 / 3 favorites

Looks like this time the winner is PoF. 

Anyway! Overall I really like all 3 expansions and am pretty happy with the elite specs we got.

 

Edited by TheLadyOfTheRings.9148
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Dawnbreaker.4901

Dawnbreaker.4901

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Two of the six characters I play the most are Mirage and Deadeye. I also have a Tempest. My Necromancer, Guardian, and Engineer all run Core builds because I don't find those Elite specs particularly fun.

If I ever get around to leveling a Revenant, I might like Vindicator. I have little desire to play Ranger or Warrior.

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Dayra.7405

Dayra.7405

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All had some I like:

  • I like my Vituoso from EoD, first time I liked to play mesmer 🙂
  • I like my Soulbeast from PoF, was rather disappointed about Druid
  • I like my thief since I can easily switch Daredevil (Staff & SB) and Deadeys (Rifle & SB) via build/equip templates.
  • Reaper is fine, however I liked Necro most before the expansions made core-Necro to weak to play.

Generally I think at least PvP and WvW would be better (balanced) without any elite.

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Stx.4857

Stx.4857

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I definitely like some of the HoT specs, but Path of Fire wins this easily for me.  
 

My two favorite specs in the game are Holosmith and Deadeye.  And on the alts that I play, I mostly enjoy Soulbeast, Weaver, Berserker, and Reaper.  So about mixed.  
 

I think the only EOD specs I actually like are Harbinger and Vindicator, but I don’t play those much.  
 

And for the alts that I rarely play:

Favorite guardian spec is easily Firebrand.  Favorite Mesmer spec is easily mirage.  

 

Edited by Stx.4857
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Sylvari.2953

Sylvari.2953

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HoT by far. I used to enjoy condi Firebrand before the changes but I recently rerolled as a power Dragonhunter thanks to the buffs and I'm having a blast! 😄 I mained Reaper for a long time, though. It has a special place in my heart. I also have a thing for condi Berserker. Daredevil and Scrapper are fun too!

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Valfar.3761

Valfar.3761

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I only play Ranger, so I voted EoD.

  • Druid is useless for open world and story, only good in raids which I don't do, and in WvW zergs which I only occasional do but you don't get rewards as a healer so I would rather play core ranger than play Druid.
  • I don't like Soulbeast as it removes my pet, when I picked ranger to have a pet. I would rather player core ranger than Soulbeast.
  • I like Untamed. I get to keep my pet, get a damage boost, and I can use a hammer. Some of the new abilities are cool too.
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Batalix.2873

Batalix.2873

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While I do really like a lot of the PoF elites, especially conceptually, they also started down the path of "DPS support everything" and also heavily feature a lot of similar "burning/sand" themes that makes them blur together a bit. As much as I like Mirage, Soulbeast, Renegade, and Scourge, they feel like they could have been focused and heightened more, and as much as I like Holosmith, it kind of just repeated Berserker. FB should never have been a DPS class. So really the only solid and unique PoF classes in my mind are Spellbreaker, Deadeye, and Weaver.

HoT had a much better spread of role specialization and overall variety.

* Revenant and Herald are peak design, such a well-considered addition. Renegade kind of managed to align with the idea to middling success, Vindicator generally failed.

* Berserker and Reaper mirror each other well as fire/ice DPS. Kind of quintessential fantasies too.

* Druid remains perhaps the most unique espec period, as well as the only one to feature any sort of water magic outside of Ele.

* Dragonhunter is the only Guardian espec to realize the profession is more about light/holy magic and warding than burning everything. Given that FB has always done way too much and WB is just a confused mess, DH wins by default.

* Tempest is the only Ele espec that remotely tried to underplay the frantic attunement swapping encouraged by the profession with the most domineering/limiting traitlines. Even if it is kind of boring it deserves props for that because Cata didn't even try.

* I don't really play Chrono but I really like the idea of "time magic tank" and I think of the three especs it is the most fleshed out. Mirage underutilizes shatter design space completely and Virtuoso is a one-note "psyblade" concept that really could have used other dimensions like mind manipulation or music or something.

* Scrapper was the original Mechanist (and original Catalyst). The lightning theme is fairly unique to especs, the hammer is bigger than Mech's dinky mace, and the gyros were already robot pets that worked better. Mech, as designed, has constantly been stepping on Scrapper's toes with only a fraction of the creativity, and Mech can just delete itself.

* Daredevil is fine. Better than Willbender, anyway. Could maybe use a dice gambling gimmick now that it seems we may never get that, but it's solid. It's not Deadeye, but at least it's not Specter.

 

EoD especs are janky cheese. There isn't a single design I don't have some beef with.

Edited by Batalix.2873
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Wolfshade.9251

Wolfshade.9251

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HoT specs feel a little basic at times (it's a thief but it has a bonk stick), PoF both have a decent theme and unique take on profession mechanic (what if guardian had kits? what if thief was a sniper? what if necro lost its second healthbar?) and then EoD feels like they ran out of ideas (I guess ele gets a flying jade kitten kind of like a scrapper gyro), tried to put together too many things (why have a potion-wielding necromancer when you can also make him a kungfu master and a gunslinger) or lobotomised the engineer class so that people with a single braincell could play it.

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