Weaponmaster Training, and how they're slowly removing Elite spec from the game.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

The fact Anet wants to stop making Elite specs? The fact that They're designing a mastery that allows you to use Elite spec Weapons? It might be a coincidence, But for me, the writing is on the wall. They're slowly and surely dismantling Elite spec from the game, and selling individual aspect of these elite spec to Players as expansion.

If this is the direction they're heading, I think it's a bad move on their part. For the sake of balance Alone. If Anet is going to give Core classes elite weapons, and Utility skills in the distant future? It will affect the Balance in a catastrophic way, in the name of giving players more option. There's so many synergy, so many ways things can go wrong. It's going to be a balancing nightmare if Anet really is considering this.

Not only that, Elite spec will be a complete and utter husk. The weaponmaster training mastery alone, will make it harder to justify using their respective elite spec. Who is going to use Hammer Untamed, When Hammer soul beast can be a lot more effective in what it does? Especially when you can customize your hammer skill to have it's unleashed variants. Anet is going to have to fix so much issues once weapon-master training goes live. Anet is going to break hell a lot more IF they're considering giving core classes their elite spec utility skills.

I thought The situation with Scourge, Druid, and herald, was bad, but now Anet is homogenizing Elite specs. This isn't about the meta, Anet is going to cause so much problems by giving core classes skills they weren't meant to have unless they met the requirement. I see no good coming from this at all.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Elite Specialization system was failure from day 1 though, so them removing it is good. To this day core classes like Elementalist, Engineer and even Mesmer to a degree will not be competetive against their own e-speces EVER because of how poorly that system was made.
The real question isn't "why they're removing e-speces?" but "why so late?".

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

1 hour ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Elite Specialization system was failure from day 1 though, so them removing it is good. To this day core classes like Elementalist, Engineer and even Mesmer to a degree will not be competetive against their own e-speces EVER because of how poorly that system was made.
The real question isn't "why they're removing e-speces?" but "why so late?".

I fail to see how Elite spec were at fault. The Core classes were simply out to date, and that's a problem with Anet's balancing team, not Elite spec. Elite Spec, minus EOD, were perfectly fine, and if things were too much, You makes tweaks here and there to make sure things don't go overboard.

Now, you can be excited that Core classes are going to get elite spec weapons and such, that's well within your rights but if you think Balance will be better for it, You're in for a very rude awakening. And if you think Core classes will get more options, you're in for even More of a rude awakening. All this will do is create a toxic environment where The balance will be so out of wack, Anet won't know how to fix the mess they created.

Is that the environment you want?

Edited July 1, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Lily.1935]

5 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

The fact Anet wants to stop making Elite specs? The fact that They're designing a mastery that allows you to use Elite spec Weapons? It might be a coincidence, But for me, the writing is on the wall. They're slowly and surely dismantling Elite spec from the game, and selling individual aspect of these elite spec to Players as expansion.

If this is the direction they're heading, I think it's a bad move on their part. For the sake of balance Alone. If Anet is going to give Core classes elite weapons, and Utility skills in the distant future? It will affect the Balance in a catastrophic way, in the name of giving players more option. There's so many synergy, so many ways things can go wrong. It's going to be a balancing nightmare if Anet really is considering this.

Not only that, Elite spec will be a complete and utter husk. The weaponmaster training mastery alone, will make it harder to justify using their respective elite spec. Who is going to use Hammer Untamed, When Hammer soul beast can be a lot more effective in what it does? Especially when you can customize your hammer skill to have it's unleashed variants. Anet is going to have to fix so much issues once weapon-master training goes live. Anet is going to break hell a lot more IF they're considering giving core classes their elite spec utility skills.

I thought The situation with Scourge, Druid, and herald, was bad, but now Anet is homogenizing Elite specs. This isn't about the meta, Anet is going to cause so much problems by giving core classes skills they weren't meant to have unless they met the requirement. I see no good coming from this at all.

I've been thinking they might go in the direction of decoupling the utility skills as well from the elite specializations as well as the weapons as well. How, if this is a good or bad thing I'm not sure, and how difficult it'll be to balance could be significant or it could be that its not as major as we think. Regardless its a valid concern and one I share but I'm not as pessimistic about it.

So I'll give you my perspective as a necromancer and engineer main. Those two professions I play more than anything else combined and from my perspective on this about the weapons and utility skills even if all of them are decoupled with their elite specs actually wouldn't stop me from using those weapons and utilities on their elite specs. It also doesn't stop me from using any given elite spec.

Now what do I mean by that. Lets go through each example starting with the most concerning people have of these two professions to the least. Mind you I'm mostly a PvE player so I can only speculate on PvP if I do at all.

• Scrapper: Scrapper without its hammer and without its utility skills is still got a fantastic set of traits with great defensive utility and great synergies with their utility skills. One thing you're losing out on when taking gyros off scrapper is the traits which are helpful. Scrapper is pretty bulky and the quickness on it means there's always going to be a build or two for it. Their unique mechanic is the least noticeable of the engineer elite specs, but its still really good. They still use hammer too on their power sets and if sword becomes good enough for scrapper in the future it'll likely be only used on the pure power build and not either of the quickness builds and only as an option. Scrapper would just get more options like signets to add barrier to their healing build or giving them a passive damage option for more laid back builds. Its not going to stop me from using the spec, just change how I approach build craft.
• Holosmith: Although Holosmith doesn't have the same issue with its mechanic as scrapper does, it does have some concerns about its sword being replaced by hammer. And I share those concerns right now. But sword still has its advantages and in the future if engineer gets a power DPS off hand weapon this could help it compete with hammer a bit better. Holosmith will continue to use some of its exceed skills but those skills somewhat need a boost right now so that's all just balancing which I suspect will occur long before the expansion after this one. Holo sword I could see getting outshines by hammer but everything else I don't see them dropping the exceeds they actually use.
• Harbinger: Once the next patch goes live Harbinger is just a more frail and inferior DPS to scourge. Currently that's not the case but I've been talking with people in the Snow crows discord and Scourge is just going to be the better damage dealer. This sorta makes you ask the question of why play harbinger? Harbinger's issue though isn't its damage because it does still have a fantastic quickness build and its power quickness with greatsword isn't too bad either. it wont stop using elixirs or pistol because torch doesn't get in the way of anything they have. Their utility skills will have more options because shouts and punishment skills do have some utility on harbinger that they'd like to have but not enough to outshine their own elixirs. The problem with harbinger is how poorly its blight mechanic is designed with the spec. Requiring the elixirs rather than letting the elixirs be good on their own puts harbinger in a bad spot where utility is concerned. Harbinger doesn't lose out on having more options but not because their utility is well designed... You don't have access to blight outside of harbinger so likely that'll not be a part of the elixirs when you take a different elite spec so only the heal and elite would see use outside of harbinger. The elite could be an issue and would likely get nerfed.
• Mechanist: Mechanist loses nothing and has only everything to gain. Hammer would be its preferred power option but in terms of utility there isn't much power would want to take. Maybe shreder gyro or prime light beam but overall they're very customizable with the utility they have available to them so I could see 3-5 builds in one category with similar DPS to each other that are all valid for end game content. For PvP stealth gyro could be an issue in combination with their teleport but I don't see it as any more egregious than what mesmer and thief already do.
• Scourge: Pistol is currently being used in tandem with Scepter. Scourge only gains here. You have the option to run either scepter or pistol if you don't want to swap which is still a decent option for a lower intensity build so that's a nice option to have. The scourge gaining access to Shouts and elixirs gets you very very little in terms of value though. The elite from reaper and harbinger I could see being used frequently in competitive play though because they're both massive boosts to the scourge. In PvE however. Open world the extra quickness is nice as well. Suffer is the big one. its the one utility I could see scourge really wanting to use. But only on DPS scourge which already has that utility slot extremely flexible right now so it doesn't harm their build.
• Reaper: Reaper gets very little from the other two specs in PvE. Sand Swell is cool on reaper but you have stronger options to run. Pistol and torch are both just significantly weaker than greatsword and scepter+dagger on their condi build and the Elixirs offer nothing. Even the elite which looks great at face value just offers less than Chill to the bone. I can however see some fun options in WvW or PvP though with Trail of anguish and Ghastly breach. But reaper has a much tighter package than the other two elite specs.

Now with all of this said, from my perspective, from a mostly PvE perspective its not game ending. Not even close. From the perspective of someone whose been around since Guild Wars 1 however it is something they struggled with. The ever increasing number of skills become too much for the balance team and this is a concern I have. I don't have a concern about the elite specs losing their usefulness but I do see the potential for ever increasing work on the game that could result in arena net wanting to move off the project or eventually going for a hard reset some years down the line. Which wouldn't be the first time they've done it to GW2. There is something that Arena net has as an advantage with Guild Wars 2 when compared to guild wars 1 though in this regard. We don't have secondary professions which is Big. They don't have to consider how 1,000 skills interact with 10 different professions the scope is much smaller per skill. So although its difficult its not as big of a problem as it was then.

Another thing to note is that The Elite specialization itself(Or trait line as some people like to call it) Will likely never be decoupled with the mechanic of that elite specialization itself. That's probably going to stay for the next 5 years at least. So when you take Reaper you'll always have the reaper traits regardless of if you took scourge skills. What does this mean for the expansion 2 years from now? My suspicion is that IF this is the direction we're going in it means that Arena net will focus more on the mechanical identity of the elite specialization and their traits independent of trying to create a cohesive theme with a weapon and utility skills which is a lot less work for them to do. So on the contrary, I think that these changes hypothetically are their attempt to give new life to elite specializations and offer more unique build experiences for the player with more elite specs down the line without the design limitations of the previous.

Even with this position I'm taking which is mostly positive I'm not sure this is were they're going. And I'm cautiously optimistic about the future. I love more options and even from my cynical point of view I can only think of how much fun I could have with all the builds I could make. I'd love to make more gimmick builds and have more low intensity builds to really push roleplay and more ways to play. I think it would be the wild west of Guild Wars 2, with all the good and bad that brings the build crafter in me can't help but get excited from the prospect.

[Drag You Down.2615]

21 minutes ago, Lily.1935 said:

My suspicion is that IF this is the direction we're going in it means that Arena net will focus more on the mechanical identity of the elite specialization and their traits independent of trying to create a cohesive theme with a weapon and utility skills which is a lot less work for them to do. So on the contrary, I think that these changes hypothetically are their attempt to give new life to elite specializations and offer more unique build experiences for the player with more elite specs down the line without the design limitations of the previous.

YESSSSSSSS!!!

That is also what I was thinking. Because the weapons will not be increased likely, if they do, must for all the specs. Once the weapons received the limitation, what can they do? Like Warrior, which already has less options than others.

I don't think the weapon should define a spec, but their true theme and mechanics. Weapons are being obstacles. Like time magic, I don't think talking about time magic, people will think shield as their weapon. I also don't see how sand magic is tied to torch. They should be freer, but more specific.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

10 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

I fail to see how Elite spec were at fault. The Core classes were simply out to date, and that's a problem with Anet's balancing team, not Elite spec. Elite Spec, minus EOD, were perfectly fine, and if things were too much, You makes tweaks here and there to make sure things don't go overboard.

Now, you can be excited that Core classes are going to get elite spec weapons and such, that's well within your rights but if you think Balance will be better for it, You're in for a very rude awakening. And if you think Core classes will get more options, you're in for even More of a rude awakening. All this will do is create a toxic environment where The balance will be so out of wack, Anet won't know how to fix the mess they created.

Is that the environment you want?

They weren't even close to "fine" though, that system is a failure. Elite specializations were supposed to bring new playstyle aka "side-grade" not a straight upgrade to the core, that's why it's bad for the game. Take Elementalist as an example, in which case if any it'll be available when you have Tempest, Weaver or Catalyst? None. Same goes for few other classes...
I don't care if they bring more weapons to the core since they won't change a thing in long run and the balance will become 10x worse on top of adding Weaponmastery thingie.
Elite specialization system need a full rework, they have tools and are able to do so, but they refuse.
P.S. Balance is garbo since condi rework in like what? 2014?, almost 10 years...

[Raarsi.6798]

I think the issue is this mindset of people wanting to play base professions when they should be more like stepping stones to elite specs, or at least that's what I feel like that was the devs' intention looking at some specs being designed as basically "core plus", working similarly to standard core profession builds but with something more enhanced added to them.

As for weaponmaster, I don't think weaponmaster is removing elite specs from the game as much as devs are executing a response to their understanding that weapon restrictions are arbitrary as well as testing if a measure that is smaller and cheaper than adding another elite spec (like just adding access to another weapon) could bring just as much of an impact.  The benefit is that if they were to make more elite specs in the distant future, then the weapon component would be one less thing hamstringing that design at only a minor cost to spec identity, as weapon access could be released independently of elite specs.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

13 minutes ago, Raarsi.6798 said:

I think the issue is this mindset of people wanting to play base professions when they should be more like stepping stones to elite specs, or at least that's what I feel like that was the devs' intention looking at some specs being designed as basically "core plus", working similarly to standard core profession builds but with something more enhanced added to them.

If you treat Elite Specs as upgrades, then everyone just plays the elite spec, and not anything else. Tieng the weapon to them and making the weapon an upgrade over core too, means people will only play the weapon. Only rolling the elite, only rolling the weapon...those are clear design flaws.

[ArthurDent.9538]

What I would do is nerf all espec weapons hard and then make the first minor trait for each elite spec boost the power of that weapon up to current levels.  There would still be a connection between the two in that you can mix and match weapons and especs if you really want to but they'll generally be most effective when traditionally paired together.

[Lighter.5631]

yes, elite spec is a failed concept. it's not sustainable in anyway and a nightmare to balance also requires big investment.

instead of improving upon existing classes, like other MMO does,

adding core new utilities/weapons, so people can actually master existing classes.

Elite spec was supposed to expand core classes play style, so "every class can do everything"

but instead now you get like reaper main, who doesn't play necro, renegade main who doesn't play revenant,

and instead of having necro able to do everything with the help of elite specs, now reaper mains just want reaper to do everything, support, power, condition(same with every other elite spec mains)

this phenomenon is specially noticeable in the firebrand community

and people demanding power tempest.

it's so funny.

like how can you even balance this? it's not every class can do everything, but every elite spec can do everything. hahahaha i get a headache from simply thinking about it.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Lighter.5631

[Leo G.4501]

2 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

If you treat Elite Specs as upgrades, then everyone just plays the elite spec, and not anything else. Tieng the weapon to them and making the weapon an upgrade over core too, means people will only play the weapon. Only rolling the elite, only rolling the weapon...those are clear design flaws.

Treating the especs as upgrades is something we can all imagine because it's the current reality.

No one thinks of the weapons as an upgrade over core, merely a bonus that is unique to a specific espec. Heck, some espec weapons are kind of bad or at best niche use.

The problem here, IMO, is that no one is keeping things relative to the current situation. No one is concerned that core specs get access to espec weapons. It's that especs get access to other espec weapons. They basically get the bonus they had + the bonus that were locked out of. This is called power creep.

Need I remind you, the "trade offs" that especs had to make to get some of their bonuses has been removed as well. The trajectory will be a culling of a lot of things (utilities, weapons, traits, gear) to make room for all this reshuffling and any fun builds you have been holding onto are in the line of fire. Not everyone likes coming back to the game to find their build is gone (not nerfed, just gone) and has to rebuild from something else.

Sometimes, creativity grows from dealing with limitations rather than having unlimited opportunities.

[Jski.6180]

Its an trait line and an class skill still. The elite spec that where made for there weapon will not lose there idently as that given weapon is far weaker out side of that elite spec and the elite spec not made for there weapon well this update dose not changes there class use at all.

This update adds more "fun" and less practically use. There will be a few outliers and they will need to be fixed but over all the good weapons are elite spec aimed use and don't do that much out side of that elite spec.

What i am hoping next we see underwater weapons become usable on land (i was kind of hopping that would happen first.)

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 7/1/2023 at 1:22 AM, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

The fact Anet wants to stop making Elite specs? The fact that They're designing a mastery that allows you to use Elite spec Weapons? It might be a coincidence, But for me, the writing is on the wall. They're slowly and surely dismantling Elite spec from the game, and selling individual aspect of these elite spec to Players as expansion.

If this is the direction they're heading, I think it's a bad move on their part. For the sake of balance Alone. If Anet is going to give Core classes elite weapons, and Utility skills in the distant future? It will affect the Balance in a catastrophic way, in the name of giving players more option. There's so many synergy, so many ways things can go wrong. It's going to be a balancing nightmare if Anet really is considering this.

Not only that, Elite spec will be a complete and utter husk. The weaponmaster training mastery alone, will make it harder to justify using their respective elite spec. Who is going to use Hammer Untamed, When Hammer soul beast can be a lot more effective in what it does? Especially when you can customize your hammer skill to have it's unleashed variants. Anet is going to have to fix so much issues once weapon-master training goes live. Anet is going to break hell a lot more IF they're considering giving core classes their elite spec utility skills.

I thought The situation with Scourge, Druid, and herald, was bad, but now Anet is homogenizing Elite specs. This isn't about the meta, Anet is going to cause so much problems by giving core classes skills they weren't meant to have unless they met the requirement. I see no good coming from this at all.

First off, no. They're NOT removing elite specs. What they're doing is simply removing the weapon restriction. Elite specs will still exist since you're only allowed one.

Let's get our info straight, folks.

[Batalix.2873]

11 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

If you treat Elite Specs as upgrades, then everyone just plays the elite spec, and not anything else. Tieng the weapon to them and making the weapon an upgrade over core too, means people will only play the weapon. Only rolling the elite, only rolling the weapon...those are clear design flaws.

That's only a design flaw if the game would otherwise have better sustained a lot of real player choice without that, versus the tradeoff benefit of especs which creating smaller, more focused job fantasies to engage with. It was GW2's equivalent to FFXIV removing subclassing/weapon choice and just giving each profession a single weapon (granted, a decision that FFXIV took further and further into ridiculous levels of non-interactivity and non-choice).

I...don't think GW2 has much real player choice to function without the focusing of elite specs at this point. It might have, if HoT and on they had made a habit of introducing the GW1 equivalent of "common skills" and, as others have said, made sure to take careful care that core didn't fall behind. But they didn't, and now we are looking at an attempt to return to something like that system when GW2 hasn't been that game for years and hasn't been building itself out to sustain it. All this weaponsmastery thing does is breakdown what design philosophies GW2 has been settling into for years, while replacing them with nothing of substance. We won't really get *any* sort of experience from this change: not fully modular free-form builcrafting, and not fairly focused espec niches/roles.

It's a fundamentally bad decision because it is breaking down *what design the game has had since 2014* without any real lasting/constructive benefits or vision. Whether or not we think HoT especs were a good move then, the game has had eight years to flesh it all out, balance everything, and it was reaching a mature state. And now the devs are just throwing all of that down the toilet for some cheap marketing thrills.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Kendahna.9542]

Never liked elite specs concepts, to have professions change roles and gameplay, which I never thought is a smart move from the start, 2 of my friends quit the game because they felt forced to choose an elite specialization at a time they are satisfied with the profession, adapted to it's gameplay. Getting used to your class, and how to play, is crucial to master it, glad of the change. I really hope elite specialization is gone for good, adding an option to use even more weapons with new skills just makes a lot of sense.

[Kendahna.9542]

20 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

First off, no. They're NOT removing elite specs. What they're doing is simply removing the weapon restriction. Elite specs will still exist since you're only allowed one.

Let's get our info straight, folks.

I so very much hope you are wrong, and the update surely makes it possible to get rid of elite specs in the future, not right away but bit by bit.

[Obtena.7952]

9 hours ago, Kendahna.9542 said:

I so very much hope you are wrong, and the update surely makes it possible to get rid of elite specs in the future, not right away but bit by bit.

Elite specs aren't ever going to be gotten rid of because that would actually require Anet to remove their traitlines. The whole idea that something is 'being removed' in this thread doesn't make sense because the elite specs are still preserved as they are today. If anything, the weaponmaster thing is an overall addition of options to buildcrafting.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Not even close, no. Breaking down the barriers and opening up the elite spec weapons to the core profession does dissolve a bit of the especs' theme and mechanics, but for most of the especs, the weapons were probably the least impactful feature. The core of the especs were the unique profession mechanics and a new playstyle. The weapons and the traits were largely designed to support that mechanic and playstyle. 

They are not getting rid of especs. They are opening build and character concept options to players, while also deciding not to spend dev resources on new profession mechanics. This gives them design space and budget to buff core professions and make them relevant again. Elite specs and their unique, flavorful mechanics are still here for you to enjoy. Go nuts and stop whining about what everyone else is doing with their new options on other specs.

Personally, I'd be happy if players on this forum stopped thinking their not special just because they can't do a bunch of things no one else can. Just because that scrapper over there wants to pick up and swing a mace, doesn't mean swinging that mace will be any less fun and feel different for your mechanist. It just means now you get to choose whether you want to swing a mace while playing with gyros and barriers or while summoning a giant robot. Pick your fantasy and customize it the way you want, not the way an arbitrary restriction tells you to do it. I'll take more of that please.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Gaiawolf.8261

[DeceiverX.8361]

15 hours ago, Kendahna.9542 said:

I so very much hope you are wrong, and the update surely makes it possible to get rid of elite specs in the future, not right away but bit by bit.

Honestly if not for Reaper I'd agree, but Robert Gee went way above and beyond and totally uplifted the necro gameplay loop with this spec to the point it'd be a devastating loss to the class and its options if it were removed.

They're likely here to stay.  What really matters is getting the traits changed to suit a new style of play when integrated with the core game, rather than overt power allowing the elite to override any other existing trait line without any real build sacrifices like they currently do.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

On 7/2/2023 at 2:41 PM, Batalix.2873 said:

That's only a design flaw if the game would otherwise have better sustained a lot of real player choice without that, versus the tradeoff benefit of especs which creating smaller, more focused job fantasies to engage with. It was GW2's equivalent to FFXIV removing subclassing/weapon choice and just giving each profession a single weapon (granted, a decision that FFXIV took further and further into ridiculous levels of non-interactivity and non-choice).

I...don't think GW2 has much real player choice to function without the focusing of elite specs at this point. It might have, if HoT and on they had made a habit of introducing the GW1 equivalent of "common skills" and, as others have said, made sure to take careful care that core didn't fall behind. But they didn't, and now we are looking at an attempt to return to something like that system when GW2 hasn't been that game for years and hasn't been building itself out to sustain it. All this weaponsmastery thing does is breakdown what design philosophies GW2 has been settling into for years, while replacing them with nothing of substance. We won't really get *any* sort of experience from this change: not fully modular free-form builcrafting, and not fairly focused espec niches/roles.

It's a fundamentally bad decision because it is breaking down *what design the game has had since 2014* without any real lasting/constructive benefits or vision. Whether or not we think HoT especs were a good move then, the game has had eight years to flesh it all out, balance everything, and it was reaching a mature state. And now the devs are just throwing all of that down the toilet for some cheap marketing thrills.

It doesn't help that The Novelty of it all got people so hooked, that they're blind to the implication that's right in front of them. To the point where folks are taking what I've said in a literal sense to disprove the problematic nature of the situation.

Even if the weapon training mastery was the "Least impactful" It's still impactful. Take Hammer Ranger for instance. Soulbeast with a hammer is undoubtly going to be powerful. It's going to be a huge dps increase, especially considering certain hammer skills can do extra damage to enemies who are either cced, or has a defiance bar, A change Anet made recently to make Untamed less garbage. Add to the fact that Anet made a compromise to allow rangers to change their hammer skills variant by right clicking. No other class in this game is able to do that, at all.

So what we're left with, is a Power weapon, being absolutely superior in every way, due to soul beast getting a weapon that was never designed for them. Meanwhile, Anet made untamed more unappealing as a result. Yeah, you can use weapons like greatsword, but why would you want too? When Hammer function so much better on a class like soul beast?

This is my issue. When you make radical changes like this, This is how you create bugs and unintended features. That is how Vindicator's survivability kept getting gutted patch after patch. Because Anet don't think these things though until it's too late, and we're left with a elite spec who is only overpowered due to the fact it has an extra dodge in it's kit.

And I want to point out that I don't think Elite spec are being outright removed. But it is being deconstructed as a way to give players more "Option." Even though Anet is not, though. If anything, you're only guaranteeing the fact that certain weapons are going to be much more of a staple in the years to come. That's not to say that giving elite skills to core classes isn't in the list of possibilities. When that happens, That's GGs. That's where the Balance is going to fall apart.

It reminds me very much of Elder scroll online, that made the same mistake, and everyone was defending the dev's decision for dear life. Up until update 35, where the novelty outstayed it welcome, and people eventually realized the balance came out much worst by homogenizing stuff. Sadly, that's might be what it takes to get people to wake up, and smell the coffee.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Bunny.9834]

They're slowly killing class fantasy and uniqueness when it comes to the professions for the sake of "options".

Part of the appeal of the E-Specs is the exclusivity of the weapons to THAT e-spec. And now that will go away with SOTO. 

I feel like this is a resource issue and this is a cheap way to create "more" content. Like slapping a new skin on an old character model. 

I tried the Beta for this weapon proficiency training and it was so messy. 

 

If they wanted to add more weapons what they could have done is add a NEW CORE WEAPON THAT WILL CHANGE SKILLS DEPENDING ON THE E-SPECS. 

This way you add new playstyles to not only core but to all the existing expansion specs.  

 

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

1 minute ago, Bunny.9834 said:

I tried the Beta for this weapon proficiency training and it was so messy. 

Because the core classes were never meant to have these weapon in first place. That's why it was so messy. That's one of the few things people conveniently forget when they tell you this is a good thing.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

7 hours ago, Bunny.9834 said:

Part of the appeal of the E-Specs is the exclusivity of the weapons to THAT e-spec. And now that will go away with SOTO. 

 

Good riddance. Now my scrapper can finally use the mace and shield he was designed for, instead of that cheap wrench substitute that shackled him to the otherwise undesired tool kit.

[Dawdler.8521]

11 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

 Breaking down the barriers and opening up the elite spec weapons to the core profession

Hahaha thats not what they are doing.

The last patch made elite specs opressive as all kitten vs core, what the weapon master patch will do is give those elites more access to other elites weapons.

They're doing it for the elites. They dont want you to play core.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Leo G.4501]

The more and more I start to gauge this addition the more unbalanced it's looking. And what I mean by unbalanced, I'm talking about how it will disproportionally affect different profession. It's no question that certain professions gaining access to all weapons on any elite spec will give them a greater boost than others. Has a mastery ever disproportionally benefited some professions over others? 

Couple that with needing to hope and pray the new weapons will somehow bring everything into perspective and I'm skeptical.  If they limited the espec weapons to only core but still block them from non-applicable especs, maybe down the line they could further unlock the weapons. I just think it's cheap and broken to just open the floodgates until more new weapons are on display to better make logical changes.