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

[aetemes.2603]

I think making us try these especs before baiting everyone with prepurchasing was a mistake.....

 

I sympathise though..cause this expac is not a labor of love..it's ncsoft putting you guys through the meatgrinder.......🤮🤮.

Edited September 25, 2021 by aetemes.2603

[XiraMint.3162]

Catalyst: I do love elementalist and I've spent months exploring the previous specs (to be fair), but I was less certain about catalyst so far.  First, I wasn't actually drawn to the hammer.  Apart from skill 2, it is full of longish cool downs and finishers are too rare for the fields Jade Sphere brings.  The hammer visuals also didn't wow me like most of the previous weapons really have done.  Okay they're swirly and slightly thumpy but they didn't feel as dramatic or unique at first blush.  

 

I gather that catalyst could either provide a few small bursts or one big one...  (Is that the theme?) And maybe smoother runs of support at 100% boon duration?   If you go for Empowered stats, then you need multiple, specific fuel-up steps (auras, disables, dodge etc.) and finally only get a few seconds before your ten stacks fade right back down.  You get five seconds on each of your augments and nearly all the augments are offensive ones.  Rewards repeated auras and ongoing boons, but boon duration will sap stats you're supposed to be proc'ing and you have to rotate like crazy to keep combo finishers in play.  Okay, it could generate endless Might from the sphere (" Hmm, did you miss what you took out of the Fire trait line earlier?" anyway)...  But there's no shortage of that in the game.   I would try catalyst more with other gear choices, but (like previous ele specs somewhat, yes) it requires hours of preparation to hit just fleeting moments of power. 

 

~~~ (one more for now)

 

Bladesworn, I have been enjoying!  The off-hand pistol 5 has a lovely little explosion visual.  I found lots of existing traits and utilities that clicked with the new traits.  There is ready access to heals, new cc powers and many different sources of flow.  The new traits augment some effects of existing weapons, before you even get to the dragon or gunblade options which is really a powerful feeling.  (Please don't remove that.)  The dragon blade bundle itself is useful and fun. 

 

Somewhat awkward for me: I was not too clear from the UI about when or how fast Flow should convert to charges, and often found myself slipping from Dragon Slash to Trigger Guard and out of Trigger Guard without being clear about whether or where the Trigger finishers were released.  But perhaps that's trying out two new bundle kits in a hair-trigger sequence under pressure for you.  When they did come off, they were certainly powerful.  

 

~  Thank you for all your work and keep producing amazing content!  I still haven't quite mastered all of the previous professions or even all of the beautiful maps after a couple years on, but it is a wonderful range to try.

Edited September 25, 2021 by XiraMint.3162
*combo finishers specifically

[Dante.1508]

I'm sad i missed out on trialing the mesmer.. But the revenant build had merit.  The Ele was far too much for me in multitasking i just cannot switch between 4 elements fluidly and play at the same time.

 

The warrior was sadly atrocious to play for me.. should have given him a ranged choice.

  

14 hours ago, aetemes.2603 said:

I think making us try these especs before baiting everyone with prepurchasing was a mistake.....

 

I sympathise though..cause this expac is not a labor of love..it's ncsoft putting you guys through the meatgrinder.......🤮🤮.

I'd never just buy an expac for specs anyway.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Dante.1508

[Olievlekje.7043]

Looks like i have to pick another class i want to be ranged why 3 elite melee specs...

 

sure give someone with lowest hp wearing light armor another suicide spec.

[XiraMint.3162]

11 hours ago, Olievlekje.7043 said:

Looks like i have to pick another class i want to be ranged why 3 elite melee specs...

 

sure give someone with lowest hp wearing light armor another suicide spec.

I"m thinking you could easily play catalyst with a scepter.  Combo fields are pretty big, and you don't have to stay in one spot.

Speaking more generally, a lot of the tirck to surviving as ele exists is making use of the mobility or defensive skills imo.  Though I wouldn't complain if there was more of an impressive offensive staff spec either.

[rylien.3824]

On 9/22/2021 at 12:15 PM, Mik.3401 said:

If they want to sell the expansion to wider audiences than open world casuals then they really need to work on these specs. It is just beta so maybe they will rework them - again they must if they want to keep the game going

 

"This is called the requirement. We can have none and say to ourselves that everything that exists is better than nothing, than nothingness ... Seen like that, there will never be any reason to complain, to put something back. thing in question or even to make a constructive criticism.

 

Personally, I chose the camp of the demanding. Those who are fed up with seeing a license slaughtered as we have seen with the Icebrood Saga. Those who also look at what is being done with the competitors and who prefer to give their money to devs / talents / managers who deserve it. It was the case of Anet there was a time, not today in my eyes.

 

They will not die and neither will I, but as we are still free to say what we think, I will not hesitate to share my opinion and my criticisms wherever possible. There is a reason why GW2 is so little hyped on the internet that no one talks about the game's expansions or considers GW2 to be one of the big MMOs ... Anet looked for him to make a ton of bad decisions and players are grateful to him because to this day GW2 is considered the doormat for AAA MMOs like SWTOR and Anet has lost 10 reputation points between 2012 and today 🙂

 

They will have to invest massively in a crazy com team to sell their next game. They will need more than they modify the economic model and that will be the knockout." - Quote of player

[Flapjackson.1596]

Catalyst:

Hammer 3 is far too quick and the hit box is poorly spaced. This is an issue given it’s a primary source of damage for the spec. I also think the spec has clashing themes. On one hand, you encourage fast swapping around for combos and auras. On the other hand, the orb wants you to stay in an element so you get actual value out of the boon application. This forces you to choose between actually applying quickness by camping Air or doing any sort of damage.

 

Vindicator:

This class is janky. The GS skills are good. I don’t agree that you should have designed so much of it around dodges. The dodges themselves are awkward and the power dodge is a joke for the damage. Isn’t a hugely committal move for big damage the bladesworn’s niche? Why compete? Why is the best build to come out of this spec a support build. Did Rev really need another support build? The traits are bland and focused entirely on the dodges as well. The utilities are not fun to use and the F2, the button designed to make it all work, costs 25 energy on a spec already starving for energy. This spec needs way more than some numbers changes.

 

Bladesworn:

This spec is in the best shape out of the three. Where I see room for improvement still is the pistol and the gunblade as a whole. The pistol is mostly just used in the opening burst rotation. It could use some more functionality outside of those beginning seconds. The gunblade itself feels like a poor trade-off. We lose unique bursts on our weapons and an entire second weapon set. We should be able to access the gunblade through weapon swap and put Dragon Trigger on F1. Keep it consistent with other Warrior builds where F1 is the big damage burst. If you’re going to act like Gunblade is something special, a spec-specific weapon rather than a kit, then treat it like a weapon! 

[Myster Marz.6481]

I have an suggestion for the Catalyst air attunement skill 4 and 5.

Remove the self knock back from skill 4

Turn skill 5 in a short range teleport (same range as skill 4 self knock back maybe). The teleport could have an animation where the player raises the hammer calling forth electrical energy to zap them into the air only to come back down (instantaneously) as a lighting strike at the target area. The hammer raise part could be a 1s cast time (or longer, whatever balance demands) and the ending lightning strike could deal damage and be a blast finisher. 

 

I think this would not only look cooler but will also remove the uncontrollable mobility from skill 4 and add some controllable mobility to skill 5.

 

P. S. The range skills on hammer, I think should be at least close to the range of a short bow. They feel pointless as a "range" attack in the current state (might as well commit to full melee). I know it may seem controversial having that much range mixed with melee but it would essentially be the same as any other class doing a weapon swap between ranged and melee weapons. 

 

[Rimour.9260]

On 9/24/2021 at 9:47 AM, Monarc.9726 said:

I had the same impression after playing WB. The general staples of Guardian, like passive virtues and blocks were gone and replaced with what felt like less effective and clunky skills. I appreciate what Anet is trying to do; give the classes a new play style as an alternate to the core mechanics. Not an easy thing to do, difficult to have synergy with other traits and skills, pretty ambitious overall. I’m a little afraid that they bit off more than they can chew, but I’m also hopeful it will all come together before release.

Elite specs were designed to change the playstyle for a profession, so the farther away they get from the core profession then their goal is achieved. For example core Ranger playstyle is range dps or condi dps, then Druid came and added healing support. Now Rangers had a reason to run healing power and concentration on their gear. Overall elite specs are/should be an optional way to play a profession but when one shines above the core or other elites that's when there is a problem.

[Hattarx.5947]

imho it is right that elite specs can change the way a class plays. But now we have arrived with the latter to three specs plus the core. I would not like all this to lead to a general flattening of the classes. I don't like the classic tank dps healer triad of so many other MMOs, but I wouldn't want to have all classes dressed in celestial armor with the same weapons and more or less doing the same things. The game would get pretty boring.

 

 

 

 

[Lord Krilik.3692]

Here are my ideas to improve Catalyst.

 

• You can move the field once placed for free. F5 repositions it. You have a timer showing when it will expire. Once expired the field goes on cooldown.

 

• Changing attunements causes an effect to trigger around the field. Such as damage, buffs, etc. Traits interact with this.

 

• Combo finishers and augments cause additional effects to trigger around the fields when used. You dont need to be inside the field for an augments to trigger these effects. To prevent combo finishers being too powerful, there will be limits on the ability for the catalyst and allies to trigger bonus effects from combo finishers of bonus effects. Such as allies having less of an effect and cool downs on effects triggering. OR only the catalyst triggers bonus effects and these have less of an effect on allies to what they do on the catalyst. Effects are unique to prevent duplication by multiple catalysts.

 

• One of the grandmaster traits changes the field to follow the player as a mobile field (like an engineer gyro) but at a cost in other ways. This will enable build diversity between ranged and melee, dps and support.

 

• Hammer skill 3 needs to be gotten rid of. Change this to be how the field works if you select the grandmaster trait to make the field follow the player as mentioned above and fix the hit boxes so it works in melee range more consistently. Perhaps change to pulsing damage.

 

• Revise the hammer skills and add more combo finishers.

 

• Enable the field to be cast at 0 energy, but make it weaker jf energy isn't accumulated to incentivise energy accumulation but still allow it to be used if needed. Right now its hard to accumulate energy to get any use out of it. Ideally it should be used to engage using a weaker field then build up to a stronger one to then chain combos and reset again.

 

• This one requires more work, but I think could really position the elite in its own unique space. Have energy act as a bar with a positive and negative side. If you go too far tk the left (0) its bad. If you go too far tk the right (100) its bad. (Think like the danger zone of a holosmith heat bar but both ends of the energy bar instead). There should be detrimental effects if energy reaches 0 or 100. Using any kind of skill will either add energy or deduct energy. Your goal is to maintain a steady flow of skills (to align with the reveal video that suggested catalysts were a steady force in battle) that either add or subtract energy. This means all weapon skills and utilities either add or subtract energy. Augments are particularly potent at this, but with positives and negatives. Changing elements should always add or subtract energy to bring it back toward the centre point (i.e. if you are above 50 energy then changing attunements should subtract a value to bring back to 50, if you are below then changing should add a value to bring it toward 50) so that the core class identity of ele that encourages attunement swapping is maintained and encouraged. Augments should be updated to skills that only "augment" the combo field (triggering an effect from where it is positioned that either buff allies or harm enemies) and have the most significant effect on energy. Some should rely on spending accumulated energy and have a greater effect the closer to 100 you are. Some should rely on adding energy and have a greater effect the closer to 0 you are. That way you can strategically accumulate or spend energy with the aim of letting off an augment when you reach the correct value. The elite skill should be changed to temporarily disable energy so that skills do not add or subtract energy and augments provide their maximum effect but go on a longer cooldown if used. Energy should reset to 50 after the elite expires. 

 

That's all I can think of for now.

[DeadMeat.8724]

Vindicator:  while some may like the dodge attack on vindicator, i found myself trying to use dodge as a dodge (cause almost everywhere else that's what it is, except thief of course).   I didn't look to attack easy stuff to kill with dodge, i looked to attack vets/champs with vindicator to see what it could do, but due to fight mechanics on some stuff, dodging as a defense was more relevant - only i find myself with 1 dodge with a long cooldown, unless i trait for endurance to recharge faster.  I feel there should still be 2 dodges available for fight mechanics, with a few ways to change this:  1) 2 dodges, but only the first one does damage (with a full recharge indicator to ensure you know the combat dodge is available); 2) allow traiting for whether you want 1 single combat dodge, or 2 regular dodges.

[LightHeart.9786]

Ok. So i play mostly elementalist and this is my review of the new elite spec "Catalyst". I apologise for bad grammar.

 

Disclaimer:

- I didn't play MUCH (only about 4-5 hours)

- I'm not theorycrafter or guide writer or any other "good" type of player

- I did play only berserk stats for i think it is good way of understanding first and second feelings (especially in open world)

- I didn't play condi or support builds

- I didn't play pvp, wvw or high end pve content, only open world things

 

So consider things above before reading following text.

 

Following text:

Hammer.

The first thing spec gives us is a new weapon and it is.. weird.

Fire hammer feels all about condi, but since i didn't play condi build i could not feel its full potential. Yet it sill felt weird: strike numbers seemed too big for condi build yet too small for berserk, yet burning numbers felt too big for berserk and less than good for condi. Auto attack is boring, 2 is strange, 4 is interesting, but little weird, 5 has surprisingly good damage in berserk.

Water has surprisingly cool damage in comparison to other weapons: auto attack has chain (sadly we have it rarely on ele) with decent total damage (but not as good as other classes whanded weapon can be), 2 has cool animation and good damage but nothing else (chill after landing ALL strikes feels kinda meh in pve), 5 has amazingly mad amount of healing, 5 is just good.

Air is really strange: it has weak autoattack, cool 2 with really good aoe damage (and also cool animation), but beside this it has nothing. 4 and 5 are CC where only 1 is combo and bot have realy big cd.

Earth is just earth. It feels like they copied daggers earth (including animations lol) so there is not much to talk about. Amount of bleeding even for condi build feels meh.

The spheres (3 skill), which took 4 slots of skill on hammer feel WEIRD. They are hard to maintain, their bonus is good as bonus but besides it spheres have almost nothing (333 dmg in bersersk is not fun at all). If you want to play around spheres you feel like weaver: constant swapping between attunements while gaining only 5% dmg and dmg/condi reduction and 7% of crit, but you dont have attunement swapping reduction of weaver, you dont have anything useful in other attunements than water and air.

What is also strange with hammer is that for some reason it has range fire and air, yet it is only 600, which does not help if you need range neither it works with Jade Sphere. I could not realy make hammer work.

 

Jade Sphere.

I did not play engineer at all so i can't compare Gyro with Jade Sphere. Yet i played elementalist. If you think hammer feels strange Jade Sphere feels very weird indeed. The concept "stay in cirlce and get buffs for it" is fine (yet not realy interesting), but the Jade Sphere itself contradicts with most of elementalist mechanics (including hammer):

- you must stay in the sphere, but often you need to dodge (which boviously moves you out of sphere and buffs), yet radius is too small to dodge and stay in it together

- sphere does damage (not much, but enough in terms of elementalist), but much of hammer skills are ranged, so you either deal damage with sphere and take buffs (which you obviously want) etiher you use opportunity to deal range damage and loose buffs or damage from sphere (you dont realy want neither of it)

- you cant move sphere & sphere has awfully large CD (15 sec when this is core mechancis is too large), so basically you use sphere, get benefits, then enemies die and you ned to cancel sphere, get cd and then on next pac or even pacs you will not have your core mechanic which sucks indeed

- you can not move sphere yet you don't get any benefit from canceling sphere which sucks, coz you dont want to neither leave nor cancel sphere

- boons from sphere are decent or even cool but.. strange. The only one that cought my mind was quickness from air, the other ones are easily got from other players (where quickness is not EASILY, but got too). So i tried to build around quickness which made me take some talent so i also start getting fury. And what i can say, air hammer with quickness and fury felt decent but not any more. 'll talk about it more after.

 

Augments

Augments suck. Just like this. They are completely garbage at first and second look. Basically they have 1 very questionable effect with realy big cd for it. Secondly you CAN , BUT NOT 100% get another effect.. which is weird. So the conception of augments is that they augment your Jade Sphere, right? BUT in reality THEY ARE augmented by your sphere in SOME SITUATIONS. Example: you are wielding hammer and want to get full advantage of fire augemnt - you get 15% of damage for 5 (FIVE!!) second half of which you spend in fire where you don't have damage as you have in water or air. So why would you even try to get these unblockable attacks at such cost? No benefit in pve at all (in most situatons). Same may be said about other ones. But not only you need to be in corresponding attunement but also in range of sphere. So you use air augement int air sphere to get more endurance and superspeed to.. to what? Run from your sphere? Or even dodge-sprinting around the perimeter of sphere?!?! (Why the stars would you do that??)

Heal augment is useless at all. It has LESS healing than the glyph one and at the same time longer cd than the glyph one, it CAN (MAY BE, NOT EVERY TIME) clen 5 conditions IF YOU ARE IN WATER SPHERE. So basically if you want to heal and clean conditions you must switch sphere and attunement to water to lose damage, boons in exchange for 5 condi clean. While you can take cantrip heal and heal for around 1k less, clean 8 (not 5!) conditions and you can be in any attunment. WHY WOULD you in any case take this augment? No way you will do it, you dont get ANY benefit of running it.

Ultimate is.. pure meh. 90 sec cd get boon (one boon!!) an reduce cd of some useless skills on weapon by 8 secs. Is this a joke? You can reduce cd of small cooldowned skills or long cooldowned skills, neither of which is usefull. Why so? Because for example in hammer you have either 8sec cd 2 skill either 20+ cd on 4 and 5. So even if you run through all attuments to use every 2 (you dont want to use 2 in earth even if this is the end of the world, for it is useless and dps loss), at the moment when you can return to 1st attunment the 2 skill will be off cd anyway without ult. Or you can use you 4 and 5 so it will take 8 secs from total 20-30 of its cd which will not give you benefit at all. The same can be said about most of other weapons skills. The boon Elite Skill give you is ridiculous: get fury one time in 90 seconds if you are in air sphere. Nice joke guyz, i would not even belive this is an elite skill if some one told me. Weanwhile bladesworn can realod 1 ammo on EVERY equipped skill (which is about 15 if you take utility with charges) it is a shame even to think about comparing these. Ridiculous.

 

Talents

This ones are strange. Most of them give you Elemental Empowerment which is just bonus stats. It is good but nothing more. You can't realy build around it alone. I tried to take advantagr of grandmaster talent which doubles your bonus stats at 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment and.. I barely could reach 10 stacks not even talking about maintaining them. Meanwhile the most of the build was about getting stacks of Elemental Empowerment so it did not do much besides getting stacks of stats. Also hammer felt useless here.

I tried to play around auras and... Hammer is useless here too. The whole idea of getting benefit from auras is already used in Tempest, WHICH HAS AURAS ON SHOUTS!!!! Augments dont have any help neither here, nor in any other talent tier. Minor trait about combos felt interesting but i could not make it work for there is almost no synergy with this in hammer particular or other talents.

What COULD i do was build around quickness and fury. I took standart frsh-air build and tried to make it work with Catalyst. Of course i tried first of all play it in hammer (for why would they give us weapon which we will never use?) and it didn't not work well. It became smoother and quicker (really?). So i switched to daggers (we have never seen dagger fresh-air builds, have not we?). And what do you think? It worked amazingly well. Except for you must always stay in the sphere which is unmovable with long cd. Thid build did very good dps. But.. It only shows us that quickness works good with daggers and that fresh-air build is good, WHICH WE ALREADY KNOW!!!! You can get quickness from other players, don't you? I didn't compare it with Tempest or Weaver on numbers, but something tells me that unmovable sphere will loose in most solo scenarios, not talking about getting support with you.

 

So this is it. I do not pretend to be pro player or even good player, but these probmles are what you see first (well most of).

 

What could i suggest:

- Total rework of augments. This is what MUST be done anyway. For example: they could not be empowered by attunement, but empower sphere depend on which attunment you are. AUGMENT sphere, not AUGMENTED BY sphere. So in this case they won't be skill with strong effect and little bonus with concrete attunement, but skills with little general bonus and huge bonus depending on current sphere. Because now augemnt are not only useless for you but thy are also not even close to support skills for others.And i mean utility augments, for heal and elite are absolute garbage.

- Jade Sphere must be moveable. AT LEAST ONCE. F5 must relocate sphere, not put it on cd, for there is absolute need in movement in this game and sphere is the opposite of idea of movement. May be some talents that make sphere either moveable, or making it follow you and smth else.  No way Jade Sphere can stay unmovable.

- Sphere must have any bonus for canceling it manually. For example give it some effect depending on current atttunment when canceling it. Just like Tempest has overloading attunement Catalyst can have exploiding sphere with effect of attunement. For example with dependence on how much energy you have left. this will make you choose: get boons and damage (and may be augments) or get immediate effect from explosion.

- Hammer needs further work. Really. Hammer feels useless in comparison to other melee weapon in total or to dagger and sword i dont even talk about how usefull is staff. Range on hammer makes no sense for it does not correspond well with Jade Sphere, so it should be reworked too. Make it either support weapon for some buff-catalyst build or cool melee damage weapon, for now it is neither range nor melee and neither damage nor anything tanky/support.

- Chain attack on hammer. Please. We dont have chain attack on ele at all except for sword in tempest. Hammer water 1 and 2 is excellent example of how chain attack be made here so please.

- Sphere on hammer 3 are VERY strange and confusing. They feel like they can be usefull but defintely not core of build so they better be reworked totaly o smth else or to more direct feect skill, not some buff with some miserable dmg.

- Elemental Empowerment is strange also. Vindicator and Bladesworn have very cool grandmaster and master talents and what have Catalyst? Get more stats, thats all. This mechanic feels like it could be something but definetly not in current state.

 

I hope devs understand that people dont need 20 weaon skills on ele just to have 20 skills not 5. It is cool that i cant jump to earth, spin hammer and pull earth spikes from the ground. It loos cool, but if is useless in any sense, we dont need it. Using skill 1 time in Divinity Reach for roleplaying is not core idea of weapon skill.

[Golvellius.7856]

I thought for sure that I had already commented on the last beta, but I guess not...  Anywho, don't have a lot to add that hasn't been said already.  I love the Bladesworn's whole bag - mechanics, theme, all of it...so much so that I forgot all about trying out the new Revenant spec.  I even had a moment where I just lost all interest in playing the game because I can't roll my Charr Warrior off the bench yet.  😞 Mad King is almost here, so I'm probably going to log in and run around and start working on ascended gear for my guy...

 

...and I have to say I will play this class just for how it cool looks.  I don't care how well it does in anything.  I literally spent the whole time powering up and cutting things down with Dragon Slash lol I love it.

 

In other news...

New teaser looks like Thief scepter is a thing.  👎🙄 Wand/support?  This is what Thief mains want? I want to trust in these guys' vision, but...not feeling this at all.

[genjonah.1253]

Big issue with vindicator I had was the dodge changes. Not being able to have two dodges is crippling in a lot of boss fights, especially. Maybe make this the F2 skill or something like that? I like the concept of the jump damage/heals, but not at the cost of desperate escapes from, say, Samarog or the Boneskinner

 

otherwise, beautiful animations on the GS. And while I don’t currently like the switchover skills in legendary alliance, I’d have to have more time with it before final judgment 

[Mesket.5728]

On 9/24/2021 at 8:07 PM, aintnoprophetjr.7068 said:

TLDR: I dont know much about warr, but the design of this spec is cool. People seem to like it!

Just a correction... most warriors if not all warriors hates bladesworn. Just a few "i dont play warrior much" seems to like this abomination of a spec. Its terrible and will probably never work specially in pvp. They made a 101 game design class rookie mistake of bullding a class around a one shot mechanic. You never do that in competitive games. Never. Thus, bladesworn will probably ever be a hot mess to balance and prone to a thousand reworks. The mechanic of loading a bar just to load a second bar its the most stupid thing ive seen in video games. Specially considering this was given yo warriors who have been loading thar bar for 9 years.

[rylien.3824]

I expected nothing, but still disappointed. If it's not making fun of people what is it? It's a big filthy recycling of the necromancer, which was already filthy from the base. My god ... ah bah I am very happy not to have taken this extension. 🤮

Edited October 19, 2021 by rylien.3824

[Gibson.4036]

6 hours ago, rylien.3824 said:

I expected nothing, but still disappointed. If it's not making fun of people what is it? It's a big filthy recycling of the necromancer, which was already filthy from the base. My god ... ah bah I am very happy not to have taken this extension. 🤮

It's the one e-spec reveal so far that has me excited to know more. So I guess to each their own?

I'm not gonna overhype after the rest of the e-specs, but I'm cautiously hopeful.

[Foxy.5319]

https://youtu.be/TMD1Cwmx3Nw

[mistsim.2748]

Had a bit of time to reflect on these. They neither sound good, nor do they make any sense whatsoever.

 

Willbender - whose will is being bent? And how are you doing that - by teleporting on top of an enemy repeatedly? I think of CC's, Dot's, etc. 

 

Untamed - so the ranger is untamed? The animal...is untamed? Yet it seems pretty tamed to me. This is by far the most criminal name out of all of them. It sounds lame, doesn't abbreviate well, and makes no sense. 

 

Bladesworn - but it's a gunblade. So the warrior is sworn to a gunblade? To do what, sharpen it? Take care of it? Kill with it? But it's a gun. Gunsworn? Gunsamurai?

 

Vindicator - sounds good but who is being vindicated? Way too general - a person who clears someone of suspicion. A judge? Like wtf. Maybe. I don't see it. 

 

Virtuoso - a skilled musician or artist. Not sure what that has to do with manifesting psychic knives.

 

Harbinger - usually someone who deals in prophecies or marks oncoming change. So like a kung Fu alchemist, exactly. Yep.

 

Catalyst sounds fine but it just doesn't play like something that would catalyze any chemical reactions. And I don't know what elemental spirits have anything to do with this.

 

Specter gets a pass as the only one that actually makes sense.

[Tanith.5264]

Glad you brought this up. They've made little to no sense to me.

However, today's revelation of "Untamed" is by far the most unfortunate. The phrase "Untamed French Video" is getting bullhorned all over the place in my GW2 feed because apparently somebody in France leaked a video or something? 

Quite confusing to someone who just got in from work and sat down to learn what's happening in Tyria today. I thought Snargle Goldclaw had taken his bodice-ripping game to the next level.

[ShroomOneUp.6913]

boots stop using your third account. your naming conventions is generic as heck.

but in seriousness they are not as bad if you actually read up on things correctly. virtuoso is NOPT just music but also fine arts. creating blades that stick around and are sharp as heck can be considered a FINE ART in mesmering.
"but it should be bard because blade song utilities"
sword singing has nothing to do with music either. its enhancing sword skill and attacks with spells.
 

blade sworn. he is sworn to the way of the blade. its pretty stereotypical thing for east asia.

vindicator: youa re alsoo a renegade...but you do not actually renegade against someone or something. its referring to archemordus and saint victor who vindicated cantha 450 years ago from the back then mortal shrio.

harbinger. he is the harbinger of a death. a necromancer, user of of the dead. fits perfectly. also where the hell did kung fu come from? he shots with a pistol.

cataclyst is also not exclusive to chemicals. its  its derives from catalyse  which means "cause or accelerate a process" its not apparent atm since the class is not designed well and needs to e re adjusted.

willbender is truly the only one that makes no sense. but this one is also massively unfished and needs rework.

 

and i have NO idea where you got untamed from. that wasn't  even a leak yet except for one french video that nobody could confirm in the slightest.

[Sobx.1758]

21 minutes ago, ShroomOneUp.6913 said:

 

and i have NO idea where you got untamed from. that wasn't  even a leak yet except for one french video that nobody could confirm in the slightest.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-untamed/   ? 😄

[Tanith.5264]

Now, to compare, they just released the Mechanist, a spec that not only makes sense with a sensible-sounding name, but looks cool and fun to play. And I just happen to have an engineer character (currently serving as a mule) all ready for it!

[Gibson.4036]

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.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Gibson.4036