Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons Discussion Thread: Gameplay and Elite Specializations [MERGED]

[Naxos.2503]

Personally I'm not too shocked at the Gunsaber, probably because it's skills very "Yellow" in it's color tones which fits okay with Warriors usual yellow hue skills. The mechanist's golem though... is green. Very green. And while engineer never quite had the same color hue prevalence as the others, Holosmith technically did keep the color to a light orange fitting the class too. That green thing is due to Jade tech I get it but... It's So green ! Too green ?

[Gibson.4036]

5 minutes ago, Naxos.2503 said:

Personally I'm not too shocked at the Gunsaber, probably because it's skills very "Yellow" in it's color tones which fits okay with Warriors usual yellow hue skills. The mechanist's golem though... is green. Very green. And while engineer never quite had the same color hue prevalence as the others, Holosmith technically did keep the color to a light orange fitting the class too. That green thing is due to Jade tech I get it but... It's So green ! Too green ?

They definitely seem to be lazer focused on the green for EoD.

It's really the speicificity of both I find troublesome. The gunsaber is going to look odd on a warrior designed around some of the more tradiitonal looking heavy armor, or on someone designed more like a rough pit-fighter.

The engineer has a whole range of gear desinged to look like they are grease monkeys, but that golem looks like a blend of Asuran golemancy, Forgotten golden magi-tech, and a bunch of jade. Nothing about it looks like the engie has to take a wrench to it.

It's kind of like lengendary weapons that way. So specific, you either design your character to match, reskin, or learn to ignore it.

t'd be really nice if we could some day customize these elements that have a huge visual impact on our characters.

[Naxos.2503]

The only thing I could think of is to tie the golem's color to a part of the armor's dye tracks. Though doing so would most likely be quite heavy on development, not to mention any other class that have pets will want the same treatment.

Also there is a guaranteed outcome of giant pink golems in lion's arch running amok if that were to pass. Not exactly a win-win

[Danikat.8537]

11 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

They definitely seem to be lazer focused on the green for EoD.

It's really the speicificity of both I find troublesome. The gunsaber is going to look odd on a warrior designed around some of the more tradiitonal looking heavy armor, or on someone designed more like a rough pit-fighter.

The engineer has a whole range of gear desinged to look like they are grease monkeys, but that golem looks like a blend of Asuran golemancy, Forgotten golden magi-tech, and a bunch of jade. Nothing about it looks like the engie has to take a wrench to it.

It's kind of like lengendary weapons that way. So specific, you either design your character to match, reskin, or learn to ignore it.

t'd be really nice if we could some day customize these elements that have a huge visual impact on our characters.

Maybe I'm unusual in this respect but I tend to either design the character around the elite spec, or choose an elite spec to fit the character. For example my first engineer is a norn who learned engineering from the charr so her whole aesthetic is very practical - she likes solid, functional machines with a minimum of unnecessary effects. It fit with how I wanted to play a core engi (turrets and grenade kit) and fit with the scrapper. It didn't fit at all with the holosmith so when PoF was released and I realised I wanted to play holosmith as well I made a second engineer who fit the theme. He's an asura and a re-working of an idea that was originally a necromancer (combining concepts from golemancy and necromancy, aiming to follow in Oola's footsteps) so the mechanist would be ideal for him and if I want to play one I'll be using him and keeping my original engineer as a scrapper (which I still really enjoy and won't be giving up on any time soon).

(Fortunately my warrior has never really gotten much of a theme or identity, because I've never been able to find a warrior build I like, so other than keeping his current orange/gold colour scheme I'm going to theme him to fit being a bladesworn.)
 

Having said that I agree it would be nice if we could change the colour scheme or otherwise customise our abilities.

If it's true that the mechanist golem is based on the ranger's pet system (I have no idea where that came from, but I've seen a few people say it) maybe they could use that to offer a few variations with the same stats and abilities but different colours and maybe different designs.

For other professions it might be harder because I don't think there's any existing customisation scheme, but it would be nice if they could add one. For some professions, mesmer for example, even a single dye channel which changes everything that's currently pink to a colour of your choice might be enough. For others it might be more complicated (like offering different gunblade skins) but it would be nice to have more options in whatever format is possible.

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Maybe I'm unusual in this respect but I tend to either design the character around the elite spec, or choose an elite spec to fit the character. For example my first engineer is a norn who learned engineering from the charr so her whole aesthetic is very practical - she likes solid, functional machines with a minimum of unnecessary effects. It fit with how I wanted to play a core engi (turrets and grenade kit) and fit with the scrapper. It didn't fit at all with the holosmith so when PoF was released and I realised I wanted to play holosmith as well I made a second engineer who fit the theme. He's an asura and a re-working of an idea that was originally a necromancer (combining concepts from golemancy and necromancy, aiming to follow in Oola's footsteps) so the mechanist would be ideal for him and if I want to play one I'll be using him and keeping my original engineer as a scrapper (which I still really enjoy and won't be giving up on any time soon).

That is interesting. Do you have a lot of alts?

I have 10 characters, one of each profession, and one slot that sort of stays in flux depending on my needs.

I tend to swap speicializations either depending on what I'm doing with them, or when I just get tired of running the same spec after a while. For example, I've been playing Daredevil for quite a while, but that started to feel stale, so I built him out to D/P Deadeye. The Deadeye spec is a lot of fun, shadowstepping in, marking, and knifing down foes, but it's fairly single target based. In places where I need some more survivability and cleave, I swap back to Daredevil.

Even playing a different character for each specialization, the Mechanist golem feels so specific it would tightly pigeonhole designs around it, where I can see holosmith and scrapper with quite a range of looks. Gunsaber similar, though to a lesser extent.

[Harak.8397]

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

With how much this game relies on cosmetics as its reward structure and financial model through the gem store, I'm struck by the design of both Bladesworn and Mechanist. As part of the elite speicialization, both introduce a major, very specific, unchangeable visual to our characters.

This isn't entirely new. Holosmith spends a great deal of its time in glowy hexes, weilding uncustomizable light weapons. Necros and Eles all have the same minions. Engies have dealt with the transformations of wielding kits from day one.

The new specs, though, feel a step more specific than even those. While a flamethrower looks like a generic flamethrower, and Necro minions look like stock meat golems, the gunsaber and the mechanist's golem have very specific designs and coloration.

So this is to ask, maybe after EoD launch, would it be possible for some devs to start looking into a customization system for some skills? Maybe the gunsaber could have choices between current design, something more sleak and, well, saber-like, something a little more grungy tech, something with some jade showing? Maybe, in addition to the current jade-tech golem, we could have a sprocket and piston golem, an old school Asuran golem, a more crystalline sphere joint, arcing electricity golem?

And since the system for changing them would be implemented, it'd be a chance to go back and twean a few of the other specializations. What if Necros could choose a more spectral set of minions, or more skeletal? What if Eles could summon something more imp-looking for their elementals?

This would restore some of the appearance customization that is so rich in GW2, but we seem to be losing here and there as specializations get added that focus around a transformation or particular summon.

I wish I could like this more than once! All of it.

[MrForz.1953]

28 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

That is interesting. Do you have a lot of alts?

I have 10 characters, one of each profession, and one slot that sort of stays in flux depending on my needs.

I tend to swap speicializations either depending on what I'm doing with them, or when I just get tired of running the same spec after a while. For example, I've been playing Daredevil for quite a while, but that started to feel stale, so I built him out to D/P Deadeye. The Deadeye spec is a lot of fun, shadowstepping in, marking, and knifing down foes, but it's fairly single target based. In places where I need some more survivability and cleave, I swap back to Daredevil.

Even playing a different character for each specialization, the Mechanist golem feels so specific it would tightly pigeonhole designs around it, where I can see holosmith and scrapper with quite a range of looks. Gunsaber similar, though to a lesser extent.

I only have 1 engineer with pretty much 70% of my ingame time on him. While I did manage to figure out around 15 mixed and matched outfits on a charr across core and all specs ranging from noble desert traveler to a beast high on Elixir X while going through tech pirate and marauder, I have a hard time figuring out how I'm going to justify hanging out with that gold and jade construct as a charr without having it look like an eyesore.

Edited October 21, 2021 by MrForz.1953

[Naxos.2503]

1 minute ago, MrForz.1953 said:

I only have 1 engineer with pretty much 70% of my ingame time on him. While I did manage to figure out around 15 mixed and matched outfits on a charr across core and all specs ranging from noble desert traveler to a beast high on Elixir X while going through tech pirate and marauder, I have a hard time figure out how I'm going to justify hanging out with that gold and jade construct as a charr without having it look like an eyesore.

Only thing I could think of is a Toxic engineer look, with emphasis on poison damage and skills that emits similar green effects. The downside of that is, it's appearance dictating gameplay, rather than the opposite which is in my opinion what it should be instead.

[Matoro.9708]

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

With how much this game relies on cosmetics as its reward structure and financial model through the gem store, I'm struck by the design of both Bladesworn and Mechanist. As part of the elite speicialization, both introduce a major, very specific, unchangeable visual to our characters.

This isn't entirely new. Holosmith spends a great deal of its time in glowy hexes, weilding uncustomizable light weapons. Necros and Eles all have the same minions. Engies have dealt with the transformations of wielding kits from day one.

The new specs, though, feel a step more specific than even those. While a flamethrower looks like a generic flamethrower, and Necro minions look like stock meat golems, the gunsaber and the mechanist's golem have very specific designs and coloration.

So this is to ask, maybe after EoD launch, would it be possible for some devs to start looking into a customization system for some skills? Maybe the gunsaber could have choices between current design, something more sleak and, well, saber-like, something a little more grungy tech, something with some jade showing? Maybe, in addition to the current jade-tech golem, we could have a sprocket and piston golem, an old school Asuran golem, a more crystalline sphere joint, arcing electricity golem?

And since the system for changing them would be implemented, it'd be a chance to go back and twean a few of the other specializations. What if Necros could choose a more spectral set of minions, or more skeletal? What if Eles could summon something more imp-looking for their elementals?

This would restore some of the appearance customization that is so rich in GW2, but we seem to be losing here and there as specializations get added that focus around a transformation or particular summon.

Completely agree.

[Danikat.8537]

41 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

That is interesting. Do you have a lot of alts?

I have 10 characters, one of each profession, and one slot that sort of stays in flux depending on my needs.

I tend to swap speicializations either depending on what I'm doing with them, or when I just get tired of running the same spec after a while. For example, I've been playing Daredevil for quite a while, but that started to feel stale, so I built him out to D/P Deadeye. The Deadeye spec is a lot of fun, shadowstepping in, marking, and knifing down foes, but it's fairly single target based. In places where I need some more survivability and cleave, I swap back to Daredevil.

Even playing a different character for each specialization, the Mechanist golem feels so specific it would tightly pigeonhole designs around it, where I can see holosmith and scrapper with quite a range of looks. Gunsaber similar, though to a lesser extent.

I have 11 permanent characters with plans for a 12th who I haven't really started yet; one of each profession then a second elementalist and engineer and that 12th one will be a second thief (deadeye, my existing one is a daredevil). With the other professions either I only like one of the specs so far or they both fit my character.

Although if I had the time I'd almost certainly make 1 character per elite spec, just because I like coming up with different character concepts.

[Gibson.4036]

2 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I have 11 permanent characters with plans for a 12th who I haven't really started yet; one of each profession then a second elementalist and engineer and that 12th one will be a second thief (deadeye, my existing one is a daredevil). With the other professions either I only like one of the specs so far or they both fit my character.

Although if I had the time I'd almost certainly make 1 character per elite spec, just because I like coming up with different character concepts.

If I could kit myself out with full legendaries, I might do that as well. In addition to paying for all those characters lots, I really wouldn't want to gear them all up, so I'm content with my 9 +1.

[Matt H.6142]

The ranger untamed trailer was the less interesting one of the series, and so lacked the new shiny things, they are literally dark stripey green.  Will wait for the preview for further thoughts. 
*coming back after the reveal, and happy with what I saw, boon rip on ranger is great. Please redo Catalyst.

Edited October 22, 2021 by Matt H.6142

[Shin Ryu.5802]

Hot take on the final batch of elite specs (pre beta event):

Full disclosure, I've got literally nothing but the teaser trailers to go on at this point (sorry, I skipped the long intro video), so these are literally nothing more than an impression based on their respective elevator pitches. 

Specter:  Admittedly, I was a bit disappointed when scepter was first leaked as the new thief elite's weapon.  Forums had discussed the idea of great sword in one form or another, and despite trying to sell my own idea, I was converted by those who really wanted a revival of the assassin, to give thief the off-hand sword.  Seeing all that interest completely ignored was a bit disheartening.  Never the less, I was determined to at least give it the ol' college try.  Having a necro-leaning mesmer-ish thief doesn't look horrible.  I'm still a bit skeptical about scepter thief, but somewhat less pessimistic.

Untamed:  "Hammer ranger" raises an eyebrow, but at least the primal flavor is on-brand for the profession.  Many of these elite specs have been different for the sake of being different, losing cohesion because they didn't synergize well with their core profession.  The new gimmick looks like it should synergize well with existing pet traits.  I'm cautiously optimistic about a ranger elite that actually leans a bit more into a core aspect of its profession identity.

Mechanist:  Everything seems to be perfectly on brand for the engineer; it basically gets a customizable pet golem.   If anything, I'm surprised this wasn't an earlier elite spec.  With any luck, the turret-related traits should synergize well with the jade golem, perhaps making turret tosser builds more viable in a variety of play modes.  Making use of turrets, pets, minions, fields, and other things outside the toon itself is something I find interesting and can have fun with.  Maybe it won't be a different new meta or even terribly practical; so long as it's fun to play, I won't care.

For this trio, every profession already has two outstanding elite spec alternatives.  Having new ways to play old favorites is nice, but I'm a bit less invested in whether these new ones have any "wow" factor when there are really good fallbacks already in place.  If they're a little different, functional,  and just plain fun to play, I'll be satisfied.  If they turn to be the subliminal manifestation of a subconscious desire to inflict mental anguish upon players, well, it'll be time to dust off an older elite and check out what the most popular current builds are.

But oh, wouldn't it be great to be positively pleasantly surprised!  I'm really starting to miss that feeling...

[rylien.3824]

So now we know what all elite specializations are, the last 3 unveiled are just as filthy as the others (as much I find the mechanist more interesting than the most part, as much for the moment it remains just a golem, (already that 'at the level of the lore it gets stuck)). This expansion was truly a bitter failure, and it will be the last. They just made no effort, it's really just there to line their pockets and basta. No respect for the license or the work. Its not worth that have lingered on it any longer. Even less with the only content being peach, slobbering and saturated textures, and low-end copied / pasted. (Lack more than the story completely farted and uninteresting to complete the game).  

It's hopeless, the game is well and truly dead.

Edited October 22, 2021 by rylien.3824

[Dami.5046]

15 hours ago, Matt H.6142 said:

The ranger untamed trailer was the less interesting one of the series, and so lacked the new shiny things, they are literally dark stripey green.  Will wait for the preview for further thoughts. 

yeah cos ranger. Always be the joke of the game.

[AusarViled.7106]

Like the thief trailer, gives me a warlock feeling. Not a fan of necro you can kill me but i am not using it unless its purely to aoe grind. Looking forward to use 'tenebris' and endless dahknes

[Rauderi.8706]

Poppin' in here in the hopes that devs will see. =3

 

RE: Willbender

 

I realize one of the things that makes it feel so *off*. Sure, you can use them for active Virtue activation, but they still require a huge number of hits in comparison to trigger their effects, rooted in ground effects for bonus hits. GW2 fights aren't static enough for that kind of head-to-head fighting most times, and needing 5+ hits in an activation window means you're almost never going to see it outside of large groups. 

 

If Willbender wants a risk-reward takeaway, here's the suggestion:  

Make Virtues like Elementalist attunements.

Have an enhanced passive that really works for using it, while the other two are inactive. Virtue swapping could still spawn Willbender flames or have other movement effects (though isn't that more a Dragonhunter thing?), but it would allow Virtue swapping to be on par as a combat decision as attunement swapping. 

 

(Not to cram too much here but also)  

Do have a few concerns about how Specter's going to do in its Single Target Support role. It needs to have huge impact for taking itself out of combat to target an ally, at least 2x, if not more because of how most support is spread out among the party. 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Rauderi.8706
added Specter blurb

[Gibson.4036]

After watching the stream, I’m feeling the need for customizable Mechanist mech aesthetics even more. We get to name them! Except every single mech will look like every other single mech. The nameplate is going to do little in the light of that.

If “hey I hand built this Mech” is realyly supposed to be the vibe for Mechsnist, having different skins and the ability to dye them is needed.

[Xanadrine.4352]

All im hoping for is the Devs please rethink the Untamed color theme its pretty yuck, and pleaase make sure the pet AI for both Mech and Untamed are not slow and function properly! Other than that im loving these last 3 specs to pieces! But please do something about that most horrendous empower color and the pet AI

[Golvellius.7856]

So about that Specter deep dive today...  First, let me say that the design and mechanics look very cool and super useful - which I expected.  Though, let's just call the Specter what it is..  It's a Necro in medium armor.  If you want to get all "akchually" on me, then call it a Shadow Priest.  That's what it is.  It's not a thief and nothing about the mechanics are what I look for in the archetype.

I may not bench my thief, but I certainly won't main it.  I might try it out in group content, if there's a viable alternative to the scepter (ala Pistol/Pistol deadeye).  Otherwise, if I'm forced to use the wand...then I'm benching my main.  Regardless, I feel good about other main options.   Bladesworn is more than likely it, though Mechanist and Untamed look good.  I also need to try out the Vindicator if we get another crack at a beta with it.

 

[Zzik.5873]

18 hours ago, rylien.3824 said:

So now we know what all elite specializations are, the last 3 unveiled are just as filthy as the others (as much I find the mechanist more interesting than the most part, as much for the moment it remains just a golem, (already that 'at the level of the lore it gets stuck)). This expansion was truly a bitter failure, and it will be the last. They just made no effort, it's really just there to line their pockets and basta. No respect for the license or the work. Its not worth that have lingered on it any longer. Even less with the only content being peach, slobbering and saturated textures, and low-end copied / pasted. (Lack more than the story completely farted and uninteresting to complete the game).  

It's hopeless, the game is well and truly dead.

Can I have your stuff?

[aetemes.2603]

Yeah saw the last 3 specs..that is good enough for me...time to accept and let go. 

[rylien.3824]

9 hours ago, Makuragee.3058 said:

Can I have your stuff?

 

Oh no sorry, it's all going to the Asura commission, Phlunt wants me to donate my body to science ! 🤓

 

When I think back to the mess made by the races.
The Norns will have been spit on at least 10 times in a row in such a short period of time, just the uselessness of Jhavi ... that disgusts me, Jormag had so much to offer, all to end up in a fleet like this game.

Come on, Icebrood Saga will have been an unfulfilled failure, a big middle finger in Guild Wars 2's lore, but don't worry, there's End of Dragons to make up for it! End of Dragons is the extension of the situation ! 😹

 

(Poor Tyria, she would have done better to blow herself up with Kralkatorik, rather than put us through all this...).
 

[Fire Wizard.9285]

Arena Net change people from marketing your presentations on youtube are super weak.
Instead of a nerd from your YouTube stream, it's better to hire someone who cares about the game and knows the mechanics because he is a player himself. (I've watched a lot of live presentations in my life and really amateurs do it better from their own room using a smartphone LOL)
As for expansion itself, it looks poor so far professions do not match the specialization, in addition, players got not what they wanted, e.g. ele profession, thief, etc. (just boring gamplay compared to others)

[Dante.1508]

I agree the new class specs are a total let down.. this is not the Cantha of Guildwars i remember fondly as a teenager.. Sadly we either conform to this new rehash of classes or move on i guess.