Guardian main here ... thank you lets hope the devs listen :) i switched to scrapper just to get some tanking in :)

I just wish they had implemented the elite specs with a short side story quest or something rather than buying them form a vendor or from spending points

You know what would be fantastic if they made the elite spec thing a little storyline like if that was a story step or something where you find people and learn the new stuff from them or they show how to learn the new spec so you can unlock them with your skill points

I really like the type of discussion and critique you've been doing in this series. Hopefully some developers watch these.

The next gen specializations are going to be even better.

Another episode and the controversial opinions just keep coming! Buckle up people it'll only get rockier from here on out. In all seriousness, this was one of the harder videos to script. I feel like it could have been 3x longer than this and I still would have had a lot of substantive things to comment on. Drawing the line between what are class balance criticisms and the system itself is much harder than you'd expect. Enjoy, guys! Tomorrow: Raiding (probably, either that or my almost 3 hour dissertation on Guilds...)

Yeah, the thing that worries me the most about future expansions is that elite specializations will either be Power Creep and make old ones useless, or "why should I use this when *Previus Spec* is better?". This is something that will keep compounding as more specs get released.

"Dragon Hunter" I love that it has that name even though none of it's utility skills work on any existing Dragons in the game.

I was glad to hear that I wasn't the only one who was let down by the "road towards the elite spec." It was like the glider and everything else. Anet had some great ideas and then never fleshed them out into something narrative. For gliders you could have met someone who had cobbled together a glider in verdant brink, gone and done quests for him and genuinely built a glider and further skills. Elites they already had your "guildies." Each one could discover their new potential and brought you along with them, quest based, into a new profession. For me that would have meant something rather than team up and kill this frog or that giant bug and collect enough points. Even then if you had map completion you were already almost done at launch. Everything felt rushed and impersonal.

Props for bringing up DH, I didn't rly expect it since it seems it's one of the classes you don't rly play much. Tho tbh I think the issue is deeper than that. Not only did we not get our supportive espec, the support we already had pre HoT became entirely negligible. A few main examples here for ppl that played frac 50 and dungeons pre expac (especially as full zerk): Quite a lot of our skills were about damage mitigation and condi cleanse (wall of reflection, aegis, shield of the avenger, purging flames, etc). Even our quickness uptime was fairly decent near the end before the expac, with groups often opting for both a mesmer and a guard for optimal support and portal madness. These were skills we used fairly frequently but now... 1. Quickness lul, need I say more? 2. Why bring a guard for reflects when half the classes got decent projectile mitigation? A chrono can easily drop a whopping 3 feedbacks in a row and often just staff from druid is more than enough. 3. condi cleanse... well you can bring a healer class that does that already and buffs your dps to retarded heights in the process. 4. Aegis... it was a nice boon pre-HoT. It was fun timing it right to keep ppl above 90% and in scholar buff range. In HoT tho combat changed from quickly burning down bosses while mitigating their hard hitting attacks to a playstyle of bosses taking much longer to kill, making a healer much more useful instead (who as said earlier brings crazy offensive buffs anyway). The salt obviously became even higher when not the guardian, but the revenant got the supportive tanky boon spamming espec, which made a lot of guardians feel cheated. Anyway, I could keep ranting for another hour if I wanted to but I guess this about sums it up.

Hey WP, im so glad you mentioned the whole underwater weapons above ground thing because i've been super inspired by your elite spec-ulation video and i decided to come up with some of my own, most of which used underwater weapons. I think it would be a great idea not only to add more content but to also increase the popularity of underwater legendaries.

as much as I love to hate the name, the dragon hunter spec actually save my guardian from being deleted. I am in the final stages of redoing the gear and it's been a blast seeing it take shape.

15:54 That's why I think Heart of Thorns hero points should've awarded Heart of Thorns hero points, instead of regular Hero Points that only can be used for the Heart of Thorns elite specialization, so when the next expansion comes out, it will use its own type of hero point as well for said expansion's elite specializations.

Best one so far WP! This all needed to be said.

As far as making specializations a medium-long term goal for play, I feel a better way to handle it is to not present such a neutered version of the specialization out of the gate, or even half way through several of the classes specializations. This is where I feel like the changed system (overall specialization system) can really hurt the idea of the elites, where you lock every aspect of it behind a single linear line that you just pump points into, instead of the older system that allowed for a much more selective and emergent kind of progression. I like the new trait system, but I especially dislike that elite specializations lock traits, elite features, and skills behind the same linear line, effectively neutering and limiting the realistic use of it until it's majority unlocked. Even the base class alternative of splitting them up into linear lines is significantly better, and can easily be done in the UI for elite specializations in the future.

Never ever thought of the fact that clearly Reaper was made to be a power-based elite spec. I love theorycrafting and in my head one of the specs with condi/burning on hit was my go-to thing. Made a stupid hybrid reaper necro and had lots of fun with it, in PVE and PVP, but your point still stands! Very vague. It's a strength in the games mechanics aswell as a weakness in terms of "class" building with the elite specs.

One of the few videos I can almost fully agree on. Good stuff.

I hope they do plan on adding in some lore for future specialisations, it doesn't have to be anything super grand and would be fine with 3 story mission which I would envision something like this: 1) Meet your mentor/teacher who introduces you to the idea of your specializations and teach you the basics of your weapon and new profession mechanics etc and then sends you out to train by yourself. After this instance you keep on doing your hero challenges until you've unlocked all your basic utility skills, traits etc. 2) Once you have your utilities and traits except for the elite and grandmaster traits you return to your mentor/teacher and demonstrates what you've learned while he/she explains the lore behind it. Impressed with what you've accomplished so far they will now tell you about the 'secrets' of the specialization and send you off to master said secrets. After the instance you continue to unlock your elite and final traits etc before returning to instance 3. 3) Once everything is unlocked you return for the final story instance where you demonstrates everything you've learned and your mentor/teacher explains the last bit of lore aswell as tells you that you've now fully mastered your specializations. When the instance is finished you get your armor piece and has finished your specialisation. I think something like this would be more than enough.

Perfectly echo my thoughts on Elite Specs! I'm super glad this constructive criticism is out there in such a way that the developers will likely receive it.

Elite specs are my favorite feature to come with HoT, I love the idea of progressing your characters in different ways, expanding on what they can do. I really hope for the next expansion, they implement some type of tutorial mission for us to learn about our elite specs, giving more relevance and making it feel like a real progression and not just spending hero points.

Guardian main right here...I loved your thoughts on elites the entire way through, and absolutely agree with you. Funnily enough I loved that Guardians got long bow because I did want a long range weapon in my arsenal for my guardian, but at the same time I wanted to actually tank for once and have my class's "lore" fit. Let's hope the next Elite guard spec tunes to that desire.

Thanks WP, these videos are rly awesome :) keep it up!

Remember how we reforged Caladbolg? Elite Specs and Masteries needed a quest system like that. Furthermore, those quests should be in the story journal. So we can access, and do them again.

I appreciate your being open to other players' experiences shaping their opinions regarding Elite Spec unlocking. I have nine characters and I only ever play open world PVE - I'm a story junkie and exploring the actual game world is all I'm usually interested in doing. I was really frustrated by the Elites at first because I wanted to try them all and unlocking them was taking way more time than I had (I'm a grown man with a full time job and a family, so I GW2 time is very limited). One of the reasons I love GW2 is that people who have very little time to devote to gaming can still succeed at it; moreover, they can actually excel and be great players without unreasonable time sinks. I love the 10pt HPs and lower unlock costs because it allowed me to unlock all nine specializations within a couple months of release and I was then free to look deeper in to other aspects of the expansion as a fully-fleshed out character. :-) You rock man, keep up the great vids!

I liked the system where you have to complete certain task in order to get traits. Even had a character to unlock all traits by doing these. However it was removed, before I got all of them. If given the right tasks for the elite-traits, I believe this would have been a nice system.

I felt they should have introduced 2 Elite Specualizations in HoT because it felt as if it was mandatory due to how powerful they are. It left a mind set that if players want to be at the best they need the Elite Specialization.

Could only watch about half of your video, but I would love to see the old capture skills from special bosses like they had in GW1 for future specializations. Or going off on your idea for double dipping with different specializations with already existing weapons, you could make hybrid specializations once you fully unlock 2 or more previous ones.

I think in future storyline part they should introduce the Eltie Spec "Orders"/Groups that founded these Elite Specualizations. it would give opportunity to explain the origins of these Elite Spec and why the player can learn them while also expanding on the world of GW2.

I geared a Dragonhunter for Fractals but she always got left behind my Chrono or Viper Ranger. She didn't see much light until I took her to WvW to get a Gift of Battle and roaming on her was incredibly fun! I think each elite spec will find a home somewhere in each game mode even if it's not at home in all. That said I agree that Necro/Reaper needs some love as there's got to be more to a class than AFK farming UM and soloing your T4 Fractal dailies. Really enjoying your review so far, I think you've struck a good balance between objectivity and asserting your own opinions - looking forward to more!

I completely agree with you about the principle of integrating the Elite Specs into the story. It'd be nice if we had an Elite Spec story category like we do for the Living Story and Maguuma Jungle. Or maybe attach the elite specs to the Living Story and Maguuma Jungles as side-missions you can start at ease. I felt the general theme of the Elite Specs for HoT fit the environment: The classes were loosing control of their power and going wild, like the Jungle around them. They were, with the exception of the chronomancer (or not, depending on how you feel about the Exalted, who you wouldve learnt it from) all more primal versions of the base class. I hope the new expansion addresses this...if the leaks are true, it'll be the opposite, with classes becoming more focused and pin-point in how they use their power

Perfectly captured my thoughts. I'm a pretty casual but committed player, guardian main since launch. I was so disheartened when HoT released with Dragonhunter and I have found myself so much at odds with the conflict that despite grinding for all the ascended gear to set up a perfect build, I have since transformed all my ascended gear into the herald gear set, mace/shield build to be the tanky support build I was always promised at the start of GW2. I now find myself in a position where I know full well that there are other professions better suited, but for me the immersion and concept is more important than efficiency, and for that I have to suffer 😭

I like the of story for proffesions. They are already missing out on some things such as tutorials on combo fields etc. I recon they should expand the story journal to have a set of training options similar to shing jea monastery in gw1. They could tie these missions to your class specifically and say guardian, these are your CC skills etc. Of course theres this idea of playing on your own and not being forced to do this content, i think in its current state we should make this optional but heavily incentivised to try it. Theres this idea that some people just want everything straight away which i hate. The elite spec can add to this, teaching you about your elite spec and a chance to add lore. I really really like the elite spec collections where you eventually earn a weapon specifically to your character, the armor piece you earn is also great. This could easily tie in to the story or you can earn part of the collection through the collection.

As a guard main, im reasonably happy with DH. It got me into pvp , be it with my cheesey trap build. A lot of the skills were based on the old ones such as its F1 F2 F3 abilities; i thought it was easy to pick up and expand on my previous playthrough. But yeah, the main thing was just a slight expansion on my already dps class. Hopefulyl we can fill a different role at some point.

I think one of the main issues with buying the elite specs at launch was that we were expecting that having 100% completion on core Tyria would get us further along the spec line than we actually did at launch. We looked at existing costs and reasoned that even if they doubled them the 100% characters could just slot straight in. As a mostly solo player with a number of alts, what actually happened was a nightmare ... thankfully ANet listened and reduced the costs significantly so core Tyrian hero points weren't effectively worthless. It's interesting that you mention the "old fashioned" view of earning something, because what I was doing (and I suspect I wasn't alone) was the even more old fashioned idea of saving up to buy something you wanted! I spent the months before HoT launch grinding through Core Tyria hero points with the sole intention of saving them to buy elite specs on launch. I'd put the work in, I'd just put the work in early. Hopefully future elite specs will recognise that it's just as okay to save up for an elite before release as it is to work through it after release.

Random thought. Devs have repeatedly said that creating outfits is far easier and takes far less time than creating sets of gear. So why not create an outfit for each elite spec? And have it be only usable if you use that spec? It would cut the work for them, and still allow quick, easy customisation that really gives a feel and identity to the spec.

Hit the nail on the head there, my first elite spec was my Guardian and I felt it was very well paced. I didn't like the fact that I had to trade in a full trait line for a half-finished one for most of my first playthrough, but I toughed it out because on top of a fun new weapon I basically got three new skills available to me at all times just for equipping the thing. I could wait to get to get the rest. But then I tried it on my Thief. Staff is a ton of fun and that third dodge was... alright? I had actually made my first thief after playing the HoT beta weekend and enjoying dashing around as a Daredevil, so I was pretty hyped to finally build him into what I had designed him to be, but it was seriously underwhelming for what eventually would become my favorite character to have to go through his jungle journey a shadow of the incredibly fun class I played during the beta weekends. I've got a ton of alts, at least one for every profession that I play regularly, sometimes more, and I would end up judging the success of the elite specs based on how much I rushed through their elite spec unlocking. The fun ones, like Tempest, Necromancer, Druid, ones that make fundamental changes to your class mechanics and give you new toys to play with right from the start made the "grind" enjoyable. I had a lot of fun trying to reach the next hero challenge WITH the new skills I was learning. But then others like Scrapper, Chronomancer (it took me a while to get the hang of the F5) and to an extent Warrior and Herald, just didn't give you enough to play with right off the bat to make that experience feel fresh. I didn't even use Scrapper when I was unlocking it, it didn't give me anything worth sacrificing that third trait line for until I had the full package. On these characters, I would rush through the unlocking experience as fast as possible and was very grateful that I didn't have to do the entire jungle to do that, since a lot of these were newer characters without Central Tyria completion. IMO, I feel like they should continue to unlock your new traits and skills relatively fast, playing through an expansion without those new abilities is a horrible let down, but then keep the specialization track going after you learn them all, make half the elite track unlock collections and pseudo-quests, and use that to work the elites into the game world and your character's personal progression more.

i enjoyed this.. you made a lot of sense.

WP, you have brought down the hammer. I really hope that this review will go with the intention to improve what gw2 has introduced in the future. I really think Anet can nail this now that they've laid the foundations down ^^ . Elonian themed specs? Work it Anet 😊

I didn't even roll a necro until after HoT came out. I'm a power Reaper and despite the apparent lackluster damage potential, I'm still having a grand old time.

First of all i want to say that this video, or better this series of videos is mostly spot on and I dont even have something big to complain about. On the topic of guardian & necro (and their respective elite specs): I don't think completely reworking reaper is a good step (neither DH or tempest), but what i would like to see is to have classes be able to use the weapon that comes with the elite spec even if they are using a different elite spec, or no elite spec at all. Somewhere down the line in the life of gw2, when we will have maybe (hopefully) 3 elite spec or more, this could come in handy. Let's say a future elite spec has an amazing weapon which has great potential to be used together with the reaper, or the other way around: reaper GS could benefit from the new elite spec. This could potentially solve the problem. Guardian being a tank was never realllyyy advertised, it was mostly used as an example, an comparisson. I think if somebody says, it would be a great class to fill the roll of the tank spot they aren't wrong, but in truth i really think it should be a supporter, probably something similar to the druid, a supporting healer. Healing while providing useful (maybe even unique) buffs. I think you are completely right if you say that elite specs may be even better if they would expand on what a class is already good at, instead of potentially failing while trying to be something the core class just is not! I'm gonna go again with guardian: - Good at shouts - Team support in general (aegis, protection, concecrations) - decent damage Especially the shouts the guardian has could (imo should) be expanded on, shout are amazing. Give guardian a paragon spec, that buffs teammates, while reducing dmg taken (different aegis mechanics anyone?), maybe even traits that do different things if you use an old defensive shout or one of the new ones which could buff offensively. Oh yeah and give them god damn overland spears ;) PS: i have to agree with some comments that you seem a bit too cynical in those videos, in some less, in some more like in the masteries video. But nonetheless great videos and like i said in the beginning i agree with basically everything.

Part of the issue was the order of unlocking. The unlock would have been less annoying if they had gone horizontally (as the screen is set up), allowing you to have a full tree unlocked after the first few challenges, with more options coming as you continued. As it was, until almost the end, you didn't want to equip the elite at all because you would lose so much from having only 1 or 2 traits and not many extra skills (and as pointed out some classes had a larger issue with this due to how the special stuff was distributed).

Is it weird that I've been waiting all week for this?

As someone who looks for progression in games as a high priority, I appreciate that it is fairly quick to get elite specializations. You touched on this somewhat with the Daredevil, but even with the classes that get cool things early on in the specialization line, I never really felt like it was a good idea to swap over to the elite spec until it was nearly done unlocking. The reason for this was that you would swap from a full specialization that worked over to a line that may have provided a few cool things, but at least looked weaker since you could only have 1 or 2 traits. Yes, when all was said and done, the elite specs are more powerful than base, but if you only have access to a small amount of it, why would you use that over a full build of base specs? One argument would be for those that like to experiment with builds a lot and try new things, but I don't see that as very compelling, since you would be able to do a much better job of that after you had all of it unlocked.

In regards to earning the Elite Specs, I was the opposite of you; I have at least 1 of each class and couldn't fathom how Anet wanted me to get 400 Hero Points to fully unlock each class. That's an insane 3600 HP combined! I was very relieved when they reduced it to 250. Not only that but certain HP in HoT were locked behind certain Masteries, so even if you knew where the HP was you couldn't earn it until you had the correct Mastery. For a game that's all about "play how you want," I'm not a fan of being FORCED to play the waiting game. However I think this all goes back to what you said about the Specs needing story steps. If the game -eases- me into my new profession, I have less to complain about because I'm following the narrative the developers have woven into the story. Maybe I learn new skills because I come up with them on the spot! I'm an innovator within the world, and am changing my class to better battle Mordremoth! But no, we get none of that. Instead we just have the option of changing into these new specs without any rhyme or reason. So if there's no reason as to why I can change, why would I feel there's any reason as to why I need to take so much effort to change at all? If I have the option to Elite Spec I want it now rather than later, if only because the game doesn't GIVE me a reason to wait til later. We are a society of instant gratification, and that's something Anent overlooked completely.

there actually is an pre-HOT event NPC who will acknowledge you being a fellow scrapper and actual gives you a small advantage in his event.

This video and the comments from other people made me think about how GW2 does things. You have a very good point in that some current elite specializations dont really fit in to the lore or story in a familiar way GW2 has done it before. Before HoT would launch and rumors on elite specs started I, like many others, went out to think of a cool elite spec, but it never got much ground on the forums. Probably because it was just a new idea for a weapon, some skills and that was that. The lore was missing completely and so the immersion into the game. On future elite specialization they might or might not get proper balance at the start, but I think Anet will fix that so older elite specs dont get obsolete. They should be just a new way of playing with your favorite profession and so new group configurations will emerge. The other problem that might emerge which you also mentioned. Are adding new classes. The way I think about it is that most classes are a deviation of the trinity, in this case, the heavy, medium and light armor. Also the difference between the type of stats that profession focuses on. High health, High armor, High attack etc. Because most types of base combinations for this universe already have been implemented you could only focus on elite specializations from now on. Else you would get professions and elite specs which just aren't any different from one another.

Am I the only one that actually likes the Dragonhunter? I was actively excited when I heard about Longbow. Some proper Ranged weapon, finally, that feels good and weighty to use. And oh did it deliver. The changed Virtues were equally exciting. The old ones never felt good to use, feeling unimpactful - the new ones? Oh yeah, I see what they do, and I barely have them off cooldown in Combat. Traps? Well. I would probably at this point have been satisfied with many options, but I do love the gameplay that traps give. I think what fell a bit under the table in the discussion, is that all classes were supposed to do everything. The Guardian was never MEANT to be "just a tank", it was meant to be able to do that - and it did, and continues to - but also a lot of other things. Now, sure, I mostly play Damage dealers, everywhere, that is just my style, but I loved Guardian. It was my second main. For me? I don't hope for the quickest possible DH replacement. I actively wonder what on EARTH Anet could do to make one that competes. A tank might be a good idea, to support playstyles that differ from mine. But dammit if Dragonhunter isn't glorious.

Love the fact that they actually let us WvW players complete HPs from within the WvW lakes.

LUV this series. Dragonhunter wasn as bad as i thought it would be when i first unlocked it... i never played my guardian befoore hots came out but after i finished the dragon hunter it was my second spec after berserker

i agree with you 100% playing druid n loving. so happy i was slowly unlocking it

Oh I remember when i was playing dungeons once, I somehow became a tank with my guardian, it was so much fun, I somehow got a bunch of people that never did AC before (myself included) and we went and played and I somehow became a tank and it was fun, and then it never happened again, but I'll always cherish that memory. I wish we could have a tank elite for guardians, just so I could do that again...

This was so on point.

Great video! I would only correct that for pvp, power reaper is considered equally viable to condi reaper at meta level. Power reaper is just not a thing in pve.

I think the a lot of the problems of HoTs can traced back to a statement you made earlier. "There was a lack of content in HoTs." It just seems like stuff was missed because they where busy trying to get features working. That things such as the language masteries ended up boiled down to only being visible in the UI or worse. With this said though. I hope that with more time to focus on the content of the next expac. A lot of these problems will be ironed out. P.S. I agree with the point about Guardian. I picked Guardian when I first started playing because I've always been someone who enjoyed supporting others in melee combat. But Guardian never really lived up to it. I stuck with it for 2 years till HoTs dropped and I picked up Herald.

While I can understand your view on purity of purpose I do understand why they added some traits that break it andactually enjoy it being a ranger myself. A reason to do so for example is exactly because there is power creep and if they kept the purity of purpose the power creep would lead to only 1 viable build, while adding these traits adds synergy for existing builds to still be viable. As a ranger for example i specced in druid for the free extra heals but also mainly for the trait that lets you root the enemy when hitting them after a knockback, which gives great synergy with longbow power ranger builds. Especially when only having 1 elite spec I think this is necesary to still keep other playstyles alive, that is not to say that once there are more perhaps some traits have to be moved around between the different especs so they match better for purity of purpose but its a hard thing to do with 1 espec when it takes so long for new ones to be added.

I really hope that what ArenaNet will do is develop the Elite Specs to revive their initial idea that you do not have to play a specific class to find a place in groups. As it is right now we do have a sort of holy trinity scenario with Druid being the dedicated healer, Warrior and Ele are there for the DPS and so on. Some classes like the Necro or the Guardian don't even have a good chance of finding a place in raid groups right now. It might seem weird at first glance but I think in the end it would make sense for ArenaNet to use Elite Specs to again make every class able to play every part of the group as they initially invisioned it at launch of the game. Let aside for now that it would be hard to balance say all the healing elite specs without one ending up being the best or worst in this scenario. But I like the general thought.

Since it's been so long I unfortunately don't recall what my preconceived notions about elite specs were going to be beyond the hope before all the reveals that one or more might receive rifle (and thus support my desire for predator since only two classes utilize rifles). I will say that I would be down for even a small little quest you have to play through in order to unlock the next spec before dumping points into it with reckless abandon. Something that gives it a story feel beyond mentions here and there of some things (like in story the necros gaining greatswords before, Braham taking up Eir's longbow that I sort of didn't really notice at first, and I guess mention of druids in Auric Basin as a part of North Tower meta events). I can create mental stories for various things (like my engineer taking heaps of scrap metal from ships and his destroyed turrets to create gyros in Verdant Brink), but this is something I'd like to see built upon a bit more with the next wave. Make it feel like a part of character progression story-wise even if it's more of a sidequest rather than fully attached to the main story. It doesn't need to be a three tiered collection of grind, but some small journey I'd be down to do.

That Reaper trailer was the sole reason I bought HoT. But I totally agree about the lack of any in-game acknowledgment of the elite specs. It is so frustratingly obvious to pretty much everyone that things like that would make this game go from good to great, and yet the devs seem completely oblivious.

I always had issue with some professions getting what are essentially straight upgrades (Tempest, Chrono), and others got some nice unique, completely redefined classes (Druid, Scrapper).

I agree with everything except the point about guardians not wanting ranged damage. That's just not true. There were *tons* of guardians calling for another ranged damage option (specifically a longbow) because the scepter was kind of boring. The devs listened. Personally I agree with you; *I* wanted more tanky stuff and I hated the idea of a longbow, but in this case Anet catered to the vocal crowd calling for a bow.

when more Elite Specialisations are added should you be able to run 2 at a time? Or does it make more sense to limit to one at a time? Right now I am leaning to one at a time.

Made a Reaper during beta and fell in love with the specialization. it not being or incapable of doing as was advertised is really saddening. I really wanted power reaper to succeed

I think the main issue in regards to the relevance of base classes has to do with how elite specs were essentially advertised (or assumed) to be side grades rather than upgrades. Highly specialized roles that feel like new classes without making anything prior feel useless. I feel as though both this issue and power creep could have been addressed if class mechanics had been throroughly altered rather than just added on to. DH and reaper actually changed the class mechanic while others feel like base class 2.0. If chrono got all new shatters instead of adding one to the already existing ones, it would have still been strong, but base mes shatters may have still had a use even still, making that class itself worthwhile in some regard. Ultimately, because no substantial tradeoffs are required, the specs feel naturally better by comparison. Honestly when I heard "tempest" I assumed the attunements would be totally different, giving me something unique and powerful, like a storm attunement, at the expense of the base ele mechanic, which itself would have always been available /ramble :)

I'd like new weapons or more weapons per class in the next expansion. Two-handed axes or throwing spears (like Paragons in GW1) would be amazing.

THANK YOU WP I am so glad to see someone a bit more prominent than just another GW2 player and forum poster really rake arenanet over the coals (rightfully may I add) for the complete lack of story basis and lore behind any of the elite specs, I would extend that to the revenant as well, If the next expansion continues this trend of just dropping in elite specs with no information story-wise...yeah I'm not going to be happy, paying a bit of lip-service to explaining how the hell the original elite specs came about wouldn't hurt either may I add, at least Chronomancer has some basis, as far as I'm aware, none of the others do (aside from once again, the vague things like Marjory having a greatsword or Braham getting a longbow)

Second major issue, absolutely, the balancing since HoT (especially from a revenant perspective) has been ATROCIOUS ridiculously slow, terrible ideas, completely out of touch nerfs and buffs, its dungeons all over again, they acted too damn slow to tighten and reel in all the elite specs into their effective niches and now the community has kind of settled into the idea of the elite specs not being specific and just being a general overall buff to the professions, and that as WP addresses SERIOUSLY messes with future elite specs, will they just be more of the same? Just generic buffs that can be speced to specialize in anything but just with different mechanics and names and skins? I dunno what they can do at this point, if I had it my way though, they would say, "screw what the community has to say, we are reeling this in NOW Reaper is your power spec, if you don't want to play power necro, don't be a reaper" etc. but...geez that would make things pretty awkward until the next expansion and elite specs drop...where the hell was the balancing arenanet?

Great video. I completely agree! Elite specs were, overall, great. But there was a missed lore opportunity. Dragonhunter, Scrapper, Daredevil, names, names, names. They could have had lore behind them, with in game story. Maybe this is just an old FFXI player talking, but it would have made it better to play a lore intro or quest to unlock elite specs.

they would really improve tgeir player's acceptance of the elite specilization if people had to do like a small quest chain or something along those lines, maybe just an instanced ceremony, but something that introduced you to this new path your taking

Future elite-specs could perhaps instead of giving you a new weapon, change the function of an existing one. I believe i've posted an idea like that a while back, but we could do the similar thing with weapons as we do with the utilities and that is to have multiple skill options for each weapon slot. We could then slot 2 of the same type of weapon, but each having a different selected skill. So for example Mesmer's 1st slotted Greatsword could be the standard Long range, but the 2nd slotted Greatsword be something different because you have selected different skills for it. Instead of a push you could have a pull, instead of a ranged AA it could be melee. Mind-fucking would be on a whole new level and at that point mesmer could truly be the master of chaos.

Holy crap you guessed the name of the next Mesmer elite spec at 5:37

So true , I really hope they step up on elite epecs next time :P would be way more awesome

13:25 They didn't increase the hero point rewards, they nerfed how much hero points you needed to unlock your elite spec (went from 400 back to 250 hero points needed). They also changed a few hero point champions to veterans.

Hey wp do you think there will be power creep in the next expansion ?

I'm fairly worried about the weapons attached to the elite specs. For so long during my time with HoT I was convinced that tying a weapon to each spec was a novel idea. But after thinking about it for over a year being mostly done with HoT, it would be an absolute shame that even 8 elite specs down the line we will still be running all core 2012 launch year weapon skills besides a singular new equippable weapon at a time. This is especially terrible for professions like Engineer who will only ever be able to equip 4 core weapons plus 1 elite weapon; I know you can re-spec into a different elite but at the end of the day we're still just tied to core+1 forever. I feel like something unique is lost when we can't mix new weapons with each other to see how they synergize after being so many expansions deep into GW2, and still end up with relatively the same 1-5 skill bar as we started all the way back during headstart.

Easy solution to multiple problems: *make the current elite specs free to non-expansion owners.* >F2P players get an elite spec, keeping them relevant in terms of build power without having to buy expansions >People who buy expansions get new elite specs and more options for builds >Requires no work for ArenaNet, good PR move, no need to integrate old elite specs with world because they're now "defaults"

I've always loved guardian. Even before the elite spec. I didn't mind the change to dragonhunter. it feels good in PvP, but I will admit the glassyness doesnt feel right when I'm in pve and I feel like I should be taking the hits more than throwing out dps.

The adventurers has no high healthpool proffesion though, so adding a class would be possible. Spears on land would be awesome, but it should be called something else, to avoid confusion. Like pike or something.

i can already see it "heard of sand, with this expansion we wonna try a new idea. We will call it... balance team"

I think the original cost would have been OK if the hero challenges were soloable. In core Tryia I usually soloed map completion which was fun as well as meant I would come across someone doing the same and could team up with a complete stranger. I would have been happy to go with the original HP requirement if I wasn't forced to have a group. Another thing is that so easy of the hero challenges either require or are almost impossible without some masteries. Lastly I would love some lore with the specialisations. I hope the expansion 2 can use experience from what is happening with current events to maybe have something like that for the elite specialisation.

I did not agree with you on the mastery video, but in this one I agree 100%

Hi how can I get the Revenant amour you warring?

*Thank you* for addressing the lore/backstory/context (whatever you want to call it) issue. I want to feel like the elites (and professions for that matter) are part of the world and not just a set of mechanics you suddenly have. I hope they will have some sort of quests in the next exp. (if they don't add a proper quest log/system -which would be a shame - at least do one similar to the broken caladbolg one). I've said this a million times before: I love the cool mechanics they come up with (and the elites are a great way of expanding professions/classes) but whenever you add something, think how it would fit in the world first, don't just stick it in a fkin menu.

The issue I see is that the GW2 community want the professions to be something completely different from their intended role. Guardian was designed to be front line tank support, yet the GW2 community is asking for guardian to deal condi damage or high burst damage. Necromancer which was designed to be condi damage, applying condi to foes and turning their boons into condi. If played with the designed role you'll see that each profession excels at their job and if played with a different role (ex: necromancer dealing high burst damage) you'll see that they don't perform very well.

I am interested in seeing what happens to Revenant in the next expansion. With all the class bugs in place now, coupled with the afterthought of underwater combat, the class is really an embarrassment as it is now. Herald is necessary to make Revenant have any role at all, despite the constant attempts to get people to run Ventari form.

Guardian fulfills the tank role excellently in WvW as a frontline.

I'm amazed that players accept the idea of elite specializations becoming more powerful replacements for all of the original game professions as being a good thing. The PVP situation proves that introducing power creep into elite specialization makes them mandatory. I don't look forward to any future where having 2-8 elite specializations per profession makes running a build with no elite specialization too underpowered to be practical. Having to include an elite to be competitive isn't adding choice for players, it's limiting choice for profit. I'd preferred a different direction all together, that allowed new profession abilities that where balanced to the existing ones while providing greater choice. Ultimately, GW2 has been an exercise is reducing the choices available to players for the sake of avoiding complexity. I think this underestimates players' abilities to accept and rise to greater challenges.

This is a great series of a HoT review but you make it sound like a history documentary :P That doesnt mean its bad though

Would have loved if elites were learned and built upon as part of the expansion story content, instead of just being there for no lore-based reason just from buying the expansion. Having to discover factions of your elite (a necromancer stumbling in to a settlement of reapers, for instance, and learning about how this small group of people have pushed the necromancer's abilities beyond it's limits, etc gaining the trust of this group, and slowly being opened up to it's secrets through meaningful story)

I personally main a chronomancer in wvw content and its great I've never had so much fun with this class before. but as a main wvw player, I would've loved if they implemented my mesmer picking up a shield in pve, how they slowly learned something about their elite spec and so on. As wp said, its just like.. getting the heropoints so this bar fills up to finally be able to play my chronomancer. I've personally not spent a lot of time with HoT pve content, which is kind of sad.

If you play guardian and want to support people, go to WvW where base guard is a necessity in the environment and are the support and frontliners.

as a dirty casual, I liked the 'difference' the elite spec made more than anything else. I didn't care that the Reaper Greatsword wasn't the best use of it, nor that the Dragon Hunter wasn't guardiany :) It made all the classes worth playing with again as I'd long since got everyone to 80 as was basically bored. I do agree that they're not integrated (unlike the new class), and that unlocking shouldn't just be given away. For WvW its just more argument it should adopt the PvP style separation of build.

WP guessing PoF's mesmer Mirage spec at 5:38, i dont know how i missed that before xD

It funny because I had the opposite issue that DragonHunters had with the Daredevil, and that was that to me it felt like it was just a stronger thief and not something new. The concept of Elite specs was sold as a subproffesion that would make the cote feel different, and to me that wasnt the Daredevil, they just made the evasive assassin even more evades and power. Dont get me wrong, I love the Daredevil and I main it, but I just wish someday we get some varity on our purpose other than the sneaky killer.

I think in the way stuff is right now I might be to late for the deves to try to truly fix the elite spec to the way that its supost to be but I do agree with you that most elite specs are way to blendy and in a neesh for custom play

just a thought on guardian, could we get something related to its ANKH icon. There could be some great ties to the crystal desert with some anchient egyption real life lore

As a WvW player it was much needed to be able to unlock the elite specs without leaving WvW. I understand your point of view, but imagine if the shoe was on the other foot, and you suddenly had to spend hours and hours in WvW to unlock your elite spec instead of vice versa. That said, 100% agreed that future elite specs need to be balanced with the current ones.

It's not really a matter of the other elite specs within the class being stronger from other (mirage being stronger than chronomancer) which could happen but i find it unlikely. What i DO find likely and if they go along with it will hurt the game is elite specs of other classes (for example quickness gaurdian) being better at what existing elite specs (chrono) do. They NEED to be on par with their hot counterparts.

then how about make the new expansion underwater themed and the new elite spec all about underwater? or even crazier, aerial combat?

the problem with making elite specs slow to unlock is that you start off without having traits, this to me means that using the new spec early is like nerfing yourself as you couldn't have a full trait line so i end up not running the elite spec till its nearly complete.

What armor is that @1:10