Greetings, adventurers! Back in August, we ran a beta event to test and collect feedback regarding our nine new elite specializations that will make their debut when Guild Wars 2®: Visions of Eternity™ launches on October 28!
Today, we’re going to go over the feedback we received and what changes we’re making to each elite specialization for launch. This blog will outline what we feel are the most impactful changes at a broad level; the full list of changes will be detailed in the expansion release notes.
To kick things off, we received feedback during the beta that some of the elite specialization emblems didn’t represent the mechanics and themes as they were presented. To better align the art and design, we’ll be updating the icons for the antiquary (thief) and luminary (guardian) during our first major update to the expansion early next year.
Amalgam (Engineer)
Feedback regarding the amalgam landed in a solid state for the beta. Along with some balance tuning, amalgam is receiving a new grandmaster trait, replacing Contagious Mutation, which shared strain bonuses to allies. Contagious Mutation was a niche trait compared to its neighbors, and its existence limited the effects we could put on strains as we had to consider them being given to allies. Contagious Mutation’s removal allows us to keep strains strong and interesting while also making room for a new grandmaster that can open up a new role for amalgam.
The new grandmaster trait, New Genes, provides boons to allies when a morph skill is used, as well as an additional boon based on which specific morph skill was used. In PvE, the generic boon will be alacrity, allowing the amalgam to mold into a more supportive playstyle. With these gameplay changes as well as some visual effect updates, it’s never been a better time to slime!
Antiquary (Thief)
We’ve taken steps to reduce the amount of guesswork required while playing as the antiquary. For starters, we’ve made the Split Deck trait a baseline mechanic when the elite specialization is equipped; you will now always obtain one offensive and one defensive artifact whenever you pilfer, regardless of the traits you have equipped.
All artifacts now additionally give unique, temporary passive effects to the antiquary after activation, allowing for additional strategic choices even after the corresponding artifact has been used. As an example, using Metal Legion Guitar grants an effect that allows the antiquary to use sneak attacks for a short period of time, even when not in stealth.
Traits have also been reworked. Split Deck has been replaced with Repeat Ransacker, which reduces the recharge of Skritt Swipe whenever you use an artifact. Possessive Hoarder has had its boons altered and now grants its effects to allies around you as well. Lastly, Double Edge skill icons now have a different appearance whenever they can be used while on cooldown, to differentiate them from regular skill cooldowns.
Conduit (Revenant)
The majority of the feedback on conduit gameplay revolved around the conduit’s profession mechanics and bonuses being too passive. As a result, we’ve made several changes to this elite specialization to make it more rewarding to players who wish to play the conduit more proactively.
Cosmic Wisdom has been moved to the F3 slot, and their effects have been altered to provide bonuses specifically for the legend that each form represents. As an example, Form of the Assassin now fires lesser enchanted daggers at enemies close to you whenever you use a Legendary Assassin skill or while channeling Impossible Odds. Invoking a different legend will now automatically switch your form to match the new legend, ensuring that you’ll always be able to make use of the new functionality of Cosmic Wisdom even when moving to a different legend.
In place of Cosmic Wisdom, Release Potential has been added to the F2 slot. These are a set of skills that are automatically equipped depending on your active legend, so players will have access to two different Release Potential skills based on the legends you bring to combat. Certain aspects of these skills will scale based on the amount of affinity you have built up, encouraging the use of other legendary skills before this one to obtain the maximum effect.
For example, Release Potential: Assassin is an attack that sends out three increasingly large shock waves from yourself that damage enemies and immobilize those that are struck by all three waves, with increased damage and greater immobilized duration depending on how much affinity you have accumulated.
Evoker (Elementalist)
A big point of feedback was that the evoker trait line tried to do too many things. The element-themed traits were flavorful and helped to further define the playstyle of each familiar, but they took up a lot of space that could be used for other things, like addressing the lack of support boons. We still like what most of these traits brought to each of the familiars, so we’ve decided to make them passive bonuses tied to each familiar. For example, while you’re accompanied by the otter, you will always heal allies when you grant them regeneration.
As we mentioned in the preview stream for the evoker, we suspected that the utility skill bonuses could be more than a stun break, and the majority of the feedback we saw agreed, so we went ahead with some improvements to those.
We also saw a ton of feedback asking for the ability to enable autoattack for familiar skills. Our initial investigation found that this would require a complex technical change and need more time to ensure quality and stability, but rest assured that it’s a high priority for the team, and we’ll release it as soon as it’s ready.
Galeshot (Ranger)
Galeshot aimed high and shot true over the beta week. There’s always room for improvement, so here’s a bird’s-eye view of the adjustments we’ve made. The largest change will be to galeshot’s arrow generation. Gaining arrows was largely a passive experience, and there weren’t enough options to add arrow generation to your build.
In the beta, we saw that in PvE, most of galeshot’s strength came from triggering the Shrike grandmaster trait rapidly. We are happy to see galeshot reward the projectile-focused builds we saw utilizing Shrike, but we want to make sure playstyles built around the other grandmasters are also viable. Shrike’s arrow-generating capabilities are going to be lowered, and Squall skills will now grant arrows on use. This will help the grandmaster traits stay in parity with each other while also making arrow generation a more active process.
Additionally, Fetch, the master trait that also aided in arrow generation, is being reworked to Thrill of the Catch, granting an arrow when you or your pet disable an enemy. Squall skills will also see usability changes, such as Whirlwind breaking stuns, Perfect Storm being castable while moving, and Mistral becoming a dome. In competitive modes only, Quarry’s Peril and Pelt will grant two wind force stacks to make it easier to access Hawkeye in higher pressure situations. Lastly, the Cyclone Bow will now remember when it’s been set to autoattack.
Be sure to keep an eye out for a new pet to encounter in Castora that works with galeshot’s Flock Together trait!
Luminary (Guardian)
While reviewing the luminary feedback, we saw a few of the same points being repeated consistently. The lack of luminary-specific virtues, the penalty for using too many radiant weapons, and the low impact of the weapons themselves are the main issues we’re addressing.
We’ve introduced a set of radiant virtues to replace the core guardian virtues. We still wanted to capture some of the feeling of core virtues with shorter cooldowns and instant effects, but they will bring a bit more to the table. Each of the virtues will also power up the next usage of their respective radiant weapon, with Virtue of Justice empowering the hammer, Virtue of Resolve empowering the staff, and Virtue of Courage empowering the sword and shield.
Our initial goal with the shroud’s recharge time, which scaled with the number of weapons used, had been to create more flexibility to dip in for a single radiant weapon—for example, using the shield to block an attack and then immediately exiting with a shorter cooldown. It became clear that scaling—past a typical recharge time—disincentivized interacting with the shroud too much and felt like a significant penalty beyond our original intent. We’ve reduced the maximum recharge time to 10 seconds (15 in competitive modes) while continuing to grant a reduced recharge for unused weapons. This will allow players to still get a small recharge reduction when using a single weapon without the downside of an excessive recharge time when utilizing the full suite.
Finally, Radiant Shroud has been renamed Radiant Forge.
Paragon (Warrior)
Paragon feedback was largely focused on a few key areas: many utility skills lacked impact, some traits felt a bit plain, and adrenaline was hard to come by. We did a pass on the utility skills to add some additional value; “Brace Yourselves!” now also grants protection to allies while granting bonus adrenaline to the paragon on both activation and echo. “We Shall Return!” and “Find Their Weakness!” also grant some bonus adrenaline on their respective echoes, which we expect to play well with the Reverberation trait to fuel the paragon’s chants.
Feverish Pulse lacked depth for a grandmaster trait, so we’ve folded in the effects of Brisk Pacing to give it some additional power. This also frees up a slot in the master tier for an additional damage-focused trait, as we saw a lot of feedback that paragon’s damage potential wasn’t quite there yet.
Strengthening Stanzas moves out of the grandmaster tier to fill that slot, making room for a new grandmaster trait with a bit more active gameplay. This trait will grant bonus damage based on the current motivation tier—the same 1–3, 4–6, 7–10 thresholds used by chants—rewarding good resource management with a nice damage increase.
Ritualist (Necromancer)
Ritualist’s shroud lacked some impact, with a lot of its damage coming from the spirits’ autoattacks. We’re putting a bit more damage into the shroud skills themselves and adjusting some cooldowns to give some more incentive to stick around in shroud for a longer period of time.
Summon Spirits, while bringing a good amount of utility with its teleport and ability to reposition the spirits, felt too simple when compared to other iconic fifth shroud skills. It will still teleport and bring the spirits along with you, but instead of causing them to perform an autoattack, each spirit will now use a new, unique skill. Anguish will fire off a quick flurry of projectiles, Wanderlust will launch a larger projectile that dazes nearby enemies, and Preservation will create a protective barrier that destroys enemy projectiles.
Rupture skills brought powerful effects, but tearing down spirits was slightly opposed to the core fantasy of summoning and maintaining the spirits. We’ve rebranded them as Innervation skills (e.g., Innervate Anguish) to give ritualists the feeling of channeling power through your spirits. The effects are still the same, but using the skills will no longer destroy the respective spirit.
Troubadour (Mesmer)
Troubadour is seeing changes across the board after its beta performance fell a little flat. Reverberating Lute is becoming Lively Lute, sending damaging sound waves toward your enemy while also sending healing tones toward your allies. The Harmonious Harp is being updated to function as a channeled skill, having its healing condensed to give a more impactful feel while also granting distortion at baseline. This allows the troubadour’s harp to be a strong healing tool while their lute can handle smaller amounts of more frequent healing.
Tales and their performance bonuses are also being adjusted. For the healing and utility Tales, the performance bonus will grant notes for playing their matching instrument, and the abilities themselves will always be full strength. This allows for more innate note generation while also making their usage more flexible.
There’s a decent amount of trait adjustments, both small and large. The minor traits are being fully reworked. Symphonic Resonance now grants a unique bonus based on which instruments are playing, such as movement speed with the drum or small pulse healing with the harp. Harmonize will now grant a note whenever you use a phantasm skill to improve note generation even more.
Troubadour is being changed from granting allies alacrity to granting quickness and will do so with the new master trait Life of the Party, which grants boons to allies affected by your Lively Lute or Crescendo skills. We hope that with these changes, the next time you see a troubadour, it will strike the right chord!
Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity Launches Soon
Thank you once again for playing in the beta and for giving us your feedback. It is truly invaluable to have a community so committed to helping us shape our game. Be sure to check out the official release notes when Guild Wars 2®: Visions of Eternity™ goes live on October 28 to see all of the changes we’re making. And, as always, we’ll keep our eyes on the forums and elsewhere for feedback after the expansion launches.
Until next time, we’ll see you in the Mists!
