You're invited to the first elite specialization beta event!

[Chemistral.7318]

1 minute ago, Dante.1763 said:

One can assume around when it will go live based on their location(Washington State) and past patch time.

True, however not everyone knows the normal patch cycle. Given the building hype of EoD and the catastrophe of the current state of WoW, a good number of people are just starting or returning to GW2. (I myself returned pretty recently and on the day that I did I happened to meet with two other players who switched from WoW to GW2 that same day.) Having information on the launcher about the estimated arrival of big patches would be a nice addition, although not required. It's relatively common to know in advance in other MMO's when the servers will go down and for how long.

[Dante.1763]

Just now, Chemistral.7318 said:

True, however not everyone knows the normal patch cycle. Given the building hype of EoD and the catastrophe of the current state of WoW, a good number of people are just starting or returning to GW2. (I myself returned pretty recently and on the day that I did I happened to meet with two other players who switched from WoW to GW2 that same day.) Having information on the launcher about the estimated arrival of big patches would be a nice addition, although not required. It's relatively common to know in advance in other MMO's when the servers will go down and for how long.

Ahh thats true it would be nice to know when exactly, but i doubt even they know exactly, and id at least rather not have to put up with the "YOU SAID IT WOULD BE LIVE NOOOOOWWWWW" threads that always happen in other games xD

 

Also the servers dont usually go down for patches here, so thats a good thing too.

[Danikat.8537]

I think it's probably because they don't take the servers offline for updates that we don't get told when they'll be. Other games need to let players know when they won't be able to log in (in can be hugely disruptive for daily quests/achievements and for festivals and things) but in GW2 they do updates 'behind the scenes' and we just get a notification that a new build is available and we can download it when we're ready. It's not nearly as disruptive so it doesn't need as much planning or notice.

 

The downside of that is we don't get told when updates are scheduled and generally just have to know from past experience that it's always around the same time. For a long time all I knew is updates came out on a Tuesday and it was always live before I got home from work (back when I had a semi-regular working schedule), I didn't know exactly when it happened because I was never online.

[TheWhiteWolves.3076]

With the patch now out just a suggestion for future betas regarding the below line:

 

• Beta characters have access to a copy of your account's Legendary Armory. Legendary items newly added to your Legendary Armory while a beta event is in progress will not be usable by beta characters during that beta event.

 

Maybe give the beta characters access to the full armoury (all armours, weapons, trinket,  runes, sigils, etc) instead, then every player is able to test out any build, stat, weapon they want during the beta period

[MedievalThings.5417]

Unable to delete the beta character I made.  Tried harbinger as an asura, and wanted to delete it to see how it looked as another race...but it does not delete.

[Harum.2896]

So, I was hyped to properly test out the new elites in beta (haven't bothered much before with previous xpacs). Wanted to wear them in all ascended to get a proper feel and compare them to the live game. Well logged in, created beta char and realized I don't have my n+1 ascended sets stored in the bank but actually have them equipped on my different live game chars.

 

Well no worries, I thought! I'll just delete this beta char and deposit all the gear I need into the bank before re-creating a new beta char... voilá!

 

But no, apparently the bank copy is/was created during the patch. Is it too much to ask for the bank copy to be created during  the creation of a beta char.

 

If so, then just slap every beta char with full legendaries.

 

/facepalm

[Stalkingwolf.6035]

2 hours ago, Harum.2896 said:

 

you can use your Legendaries on the Beta Chars but not anything else.

But you can change stats on the exotics and you have "some" runes and sigils. its not great but it works

[Rory McGowen.5038]

Playing the first of the new Elites - Virtuoso - I feel like the heal is a little too slow for the level of armour. I mean, Each hit by a Champion, for instance, does X# of dmg, and by the time the heal is effected for the Virtuoso a second hit has landed and you're down. I'd shave .25 second off the heal. But otherwise, so far it is a really nicely balanced Elite. Thank you. 

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

short question about the bank: this bank there is mirrored = a copy and i can  use/waste everything inside it and will NOT lose the stuff on my real account, correct?

and, does that also count towards my gold on the beta characteres? xD

_____

 

outside of this: i have and had yet a ton of fun with my harbinger in Wvw. a bit sad however, that we cannot keep any of the loot and levels we make during the beta in Wvw. 😜

 

like, i had alone today two reward tracks running through, and we been just fooling around with a ton of bursty new elite specs. so much loot that will just go bye thaha.

[windyweather.1238]

So, the 4pm update to the Beta? We all see all of our WPs gone? Sure Sure... everything else was reset too, NP I understand it's a beta.

 

1 - But losing all WPs makes playing the beta a bit of a problem.

2 - Specs were reset too. Not even set like they were the first time in.

 

Everybody else seeing this? Or just me?

[Donutdude.9582]

Latest hotfix broke the beta characters.  No map unlocks, meaning we're locked into the surrounding areas of Lion's Arch or running hideous distances to get to meaningful content to test.

 

@ArenaNet Team.4819 @Fire Attunement.9835 Will you be fixing this?

[Beleron.9347]

So... much... pink...

[Donutdude.9582]

Further to my last post, the beta characters are completely borked.  Cannot leave Lion's Arch - attempt to portal away, instant reload into Lion's Arch with char fully reset.

 

@ArenaNet Team.4819 @Fire Attunement.9835 How do we effectively report this bug?  It is currently preventing any further testing.

[Donutdude.9582]

Map porting bug is now fixed, it seems.  Map completion bug still exists.  I hope we can get an answer to this soon ArenaNet.

[Vaeo.4097]

deleted, moved to another thread

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Vaeo.4097
delete

[tim.4596]

I noticed that there isn't a "Feed Back" button. It would be good if it could be added within the next few days to give some feedbacks about the new elite spec.

[JustTrogdor.7892]

1 hour ago, tim.4596 said:

I noticed that there isn't a "Feed Back" button. It would be good if it could be added within the next few days to give some feedbacks about the new elite spec.

 

There are sticky threads in each profession forum where Anet asks for feedback.  Here is the announcement thread where it is mentioned.:

 

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/99819-elite-specialization-beta-event-feedback/?tab=comments#comment-1434586

 

[Anyandrell.6238]

I guess I was among the first to get in when the beta started. Awesome. Created my characters, went through each of them, settled on the virtuoso, started jumping around.

Took a 4 hours break, now my beta character was back in Lion's Arch with no map uncovered.

I totally understand that the beta characters achievements/rewards won't be saved, but I thought it would be "not past August 21st".

To have my beta characters back in Lion's Arch every time I log in, un-specced, no map, is too much time waste for me. As much as I enjoyed (the first time) trying them, if it takes every single time at least half an hour for me to spec my char and travel to a map that can actually give me a glimmer of how the elite will work in a boss/dungeon/raid setting, I'd rather wait for the release.

[Shin Ryu.5802]

Now that I've had a chance to briefly tinker and play with each new elite spec, stress testing them a bit against fire hydras and wandering bands of Forged on the Crystal Oasis map, here are my hot takes:

It's already been stipulated by the design team that one of the more popular ways of creating new elite specializations is to view one profession through the lens of another, so naturally, I reference that for each one.

Virtuoso:  Apparently the mesmer as seen through the lens of a super-bomber elementalist.  Very cool, very fun, very high chance this gets nerfed in its official iteration.  It's the most crazy powerful mesmer build I've ever run, even just using the default skills and build.  Never thought they'd come up with something on par with the high water marks of chronomancer and mirage in terms of being just plain stupid fun to play, but I think virtuoso pretty much nails it.  Even post-nerfing, I'll probably still run a virtuoso build just as I still run mirage after it lost its ability to easily pile on 50+ stacks of confusion.

Willbreaker:  Apparently, someone was really jonesing for a thief with access to more aoe and burning, and was willing to give up the Steal core mechanic, access to stealth, and its top tier dps capabilities to get it.  Nomad's armor with Dolyak runes still feels like medium armor, and neither Berserker's nor Viper's stats seem to give it a punch commensurate with everything it has to give up for a modest damage boost.  Practically everything that makes a guardian iconic--its toughness, armor, top-tier ally buffing abilities--is scrapped or seriously nerfed in favor of making it a second-rate thief.  At least when a thief shares boons or outgoing healing,  it's never nerfed in terms of duration or effectiveness for others in exchange for some tiny added benefit for themselves.   Definitely needs some love; feels like the victim of some overly harsh and unnecessary nerfs straight out of the box.  It was a cool concept (the "Shiro Tagachi" guardian), but as it stands, the current iteration of willbreaker would be completely outclassed if there was ever such a thing as a "burn thief."  Maybe they could draw a bit of inspiration from the revenant's Legendary Assassin Stance abilities or even its sword skills if "Shiro guardian" was really what they were going for.

Harbinger:  I was honestly skeptical about the idea of a necromancer seen through the lens of an alchemist engineer, and whether it would actually be any fun to balance that Blight-for-power mechanic.  It also has the awesome alternative elite specs of reaper and scourge to contend with.  Fortunately, it actually played pretty well even just using the default stats and trait lines.  I'm impressed with how well the life force mechanic is balanced, how there always seems to be something for it to do so overcapping is never really an issue and it can be built up steadily enough that the character is rarely caught running on empty.   Out of the three presented thus far, harbinger is easily the best straight out of the box new elite spec and the least likely to be in need of any substantial modification.

Give Blight a chance; it grows on you after a while--it's apparently the GW2 version of GW1's Masochism enchantment.

So a very solid two out of three so far:  Virtuoso is fun but probably a bit OP, willbreaker is basically a nerfed thief that makes me sad, and harbinger is a pleasantly novel surprise.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Shin Ryu.5802

[Loosmaster.8263]

I gave up and deleted my character within a hour. During that time, while changing maps or going to Mistlock, my character was sent back to LA and reset from creation with all the mails and what nots. Even happened after the game update. 

[Biermeister.4678]

Virtuoso is nasty wipes Omega's and other siege very well has good F skills 

Harbinger great boon strip what core and Scourge should have been would have preferred Longbow for weapon for a stand off choice

Willbreaker eh not as useful as previous elites for class 

[Ghostkat.9580]

I feel like they all try to do too much at once. Willbreaker is a Guardian trying to be a thief and a martial artist in one. Harbinger is trying to be a pistol-wielding necro and a thief and do Revenant's Pain Absorption thing AND be a martial artist all in one.

They each should have been their own archetypes with their own sense of identity, instead of trying to do too many things at once, because then we get into "jack of all trades, master of none" territory.

This, to me, is sloppy design, and is why I think the general consensus is that Willbreaker isn't as useful as other elite specs in the class. A good solution, IMHO, is to remove all the martial arts stuff, the shadow steps and the elite skill, and replace them with things that would feel more appropriate for a Guardian. I believe this would solve all of the specialization's current problems, and make it more desirable to play, without encroaching on Thief and/or a spec centered around being THE martial artist as its sense of identity. Same concept goes for Harbinger. Design it around a singular idea, instead of like 4 ideas trying to compete with one another for attention, then move all the martial arts moves to THE martial arts class, which would ideally be the most obvious and straightforward choice considering the history of martial arts classes in MMOs and their historic portrayal in fighting games.

I'm deeply concerned that all of the other elite specs will suffer from the same problem, trying to juggle too much at once to have their cake and eat it, too, when they'd all be considerably more solid if designed around a singular idea and trying to push that to be the best it can be.

I'm very worried that ANet is trying to be different for different's sake, not understanding the market has expectations for a reason, and instead of just going the obvious route, they'll put more effort into trying to subvert expectations, which is incredibly disappointing. You only get one shot at the Far East Asian expansion, so I don't agree with giving into demand for specs that could have waited for a more thematically appropriate expansion, and then trying to dress up bad picks like they're relevant because of Canthan lore we missed out on over the past 250 years. I think it would've been significantly better to use the 250-year time gap to make the most out of the one shot they have at a Far East Asian-themed expansion to try and broaden the player base in the Far East Asian market and among anime fans, instead of alienating 1.68 billion people in a region where mtx is culturally accepted, along with fans of that stuff in the West, just to pander to a portion of the existing player base at the risk of alienating others in the existing player base. That seems like financial suicide from a business perspective.

[Dante.1508]

No Ranger or Engineer elite specs?

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

26 minutes ago, Dante.1508 said:

No Ranger or Engineer elite specs?

Those will be in a later Elite Specialization Beta

 

Link

 

Quote

Beta Event 2: September 21, 2021 — September 25, 2021

During this beta event players will have access to three other elite specializations.

Beta Event 3: October 26, 2021 — October 30, 2021

During this beta event players will have access to the remaining three elite specializations.

Beta Event 4: November 30, 2021 — December 4, 2021

During this beta event players will have access to all elite specializations and to the Siege Turtle.

 

[Dante.1508]

1 hour ago, Just a flesh wound.3589 said:

Those will be in a later Elite Specialization Beta

 

Link

 

 

Thanks good to know.