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Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons Third Elite Specialization Beta is Now Live | MMORPG.com
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Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons Third Elite Specialization Beta is Now Live | MMORPG.com
The third beta for the Guild Wars 2 Elite Specializations is now live. Test out the Specter, Untamed, or Mechanist this week.
Comments
Favorite
Specter - this spec is cool as Hell and gives Thieves exactly what they're missing.
Mechanist - very clearly the best-designed spec of the batch. From the trait design to the class fantasy, this one just works. Might even dust off the only Asura on my account for it.
Love it but Needs Work
Vindicator - my favorite one thematically and conceptually. I am hyped for it. But it really is poorly balanced and needs tons of design work. If it's fixed, it'll be one of the coolest specs in the game.
Interested
Bladesworn - clearly a bit of a passion project for the devs. The concept doesn't quite resonate with me, but it looks very fun, and the trait synergy with old weapons and utilities is awesome. A good elite spec brings new builds. A great elite spec breathes new life into old ones.
Meh
Virtuoso - Mesmer already has everything it could ever need, so this one just feels kind of tacked on. I guess it's solid if you wanted to play the class without clones. But I can't help but feel this will end up being a more generic, less effective version of Guild Wars' most iconic class.
Bad
Untamed - I was really looking forward to this one, but there's so much that doesn't click to me. From the nasty green particle on Unleash to the general lack of power and interest in its traits. It also doesn't have any backwards synergy with old weapons - only the hammer gets unleashed skills. It's straight up unfinished.
Catalyst - I like the concept of ele hammer, but they've done nothing with it. This is easily the least interesting elite spec this entire expansion with bland traits and utilities, and a tacked-on profession mechanic. Oooh, it gets an extra combo field. Next!
Straight Up Disappointing
Willbender - I like the theme and the active skills of this profession. But the trait design with mandatory, debilitating tradeoffs everywhere is just irredeemably bad. This spec was clearly designed and balanced entirely around SPvP, and that's not okay. Split the balance to let this shine in PvE.
Harbinger - I was excited for a Plaguedoctor spec in concept, but the execution screams Wizardry's 2 favorite words - cheap and lazy. Everything that can go wrong went wrong. A profession mechanic that makes you more fragile on the class with the fewest active defenses. Bland utilities with no animations. The entire first tier of traits is uninteresting damage modifiers that should be baseline. Two elixir traits. And an entire tacked-on Power-based traitline option for a spec that neither needs nor wants it. We have Reaper for Power. Let this be the condi/support spec that it is.
Mechanist - very nice, no issues
Maybe
Specter - seems good, maybe too good, will have to see how end game with it is
Bad
Everything else - and let's face it, they aren't getting fixed any time soon.
ArenaNet is quite infamous for their balancing so I expect Mechanist and Specter to be nerfed before the other specs get buffed.
Mechanist probably won't get nerfed. It's one of those that is going to be really popular and fun to play because of the class fantasy, but it isn't doing anything crazy from a balance standpoint. It may get buffed if anything. Likely to settle into a niche where it's pretty great for PvE and virtually unused in PvP and WvW.
Untamed, Vindicator, and Catalyst are unfortunately probably going to fall into the Scrapper territory where they are totally mediocre for years and then get redeemed by a later rework.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKgAcqlFwuYcsOmLmaX2xeA-e
Or its rifle variant:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKQAQlFwuYcsOmLmaX1xeA-e