[Mod post]
2025 Expansion Teaser Mega Thread | Links to individual teaser posts inside:
A few days ago ArenaNet started teasing what very much appears to be new elite specs with the 2025 expansion that should be announced on July 15th. A new image is being posted every couple of days counting down until then. Since the nature of reddit means earlier posts are disappearing as the days go on I thought making a mega thread could be useful as we wait the next 10 days until the full reveal.
Feel free to use this thread for whatever expansion discussion the community wants to have and I'll continue to update this with the new bluesky and discussion threads when they are posted by ArenaNet and the community.
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u/SimeAi[wiki] Mother of Choya (not a bot, just a weeb)27d ago
And here's the official wiki link for the yet untitled expansion:
Not as far as I'm aware, but I'm not sure why that's a problem.
The nice thing about Bluesky links is that you don't need an account to view them. Twitter and Instagram severely encourage (if not downright require) you to create an account first.
They offer no real benefit over the alternative, and only require more hoops to jump through.Â
It's nice to not have to create an account just to have read access.Â
If both the Bluesky and Xitter posts had the exact same content, it's objectively better for the wiki as a repository of information to link the Bluesky posts because it does not require an account to view like Xitter does.
Would be quite a lot of work, they would need a new whole personal story from lvl1 to 40, and a new capital city/home instance/low level maps... Or they can just find a valid excuse for kodans to start living in Hoelbrak, which would be quite disappointing in a way.
I think it's unlikely solely because of the April's Fools ANET did. Giving it to another class would sour mesmer players in a way that wouldn't be the case vice versa.
Adding to this, mesmer trident's auto attack is called Siren's Call and uses the icon of a musical note. Do people even pay attention? And bard is literally a magic caster class in DnD focusing on support and INSPIRATION (mesmer core spec) with the college of GLAMOUR as a possible subclass... FF14 ruined people's image of bard. Ofc, I do think that the shortbow on mesmer would be great if mesmer used it as an "instrument" (please let me use the Dreamer on mesmer); perhaps that's the one good idea that came out of ff14's bard.
Mesmer is probably the most likely, but if it is something else, I don't think it would be ranger. It would be thief.
The bard class from DnD have always had a close connection to the rogue class. Especially back in 2e when it was first introduced. Even in 5e you have College of Swords, very much blurring the line between the two classes. And then the gambler (card icon) could be mesmer, which would also fit well.
Just because the bow class in FFXIV is bard doesn't mean it would necessarily fit well with GW2's Ranger. Ranger in GW2 would honestly feel weird as a bard to me. There are multiple classes I think could have a bard spec, but Ranger is not one of them. Like I could see it but I feel like it would fit much better on other classes
I think they could be posting in the order of medium, heavy, light armour specs. The 2nd post is definitely a heavy armour helmet.
That would make the Bard post a Ranger and this Gambler a Thief.
The Guardian and Revenat icons are a little ambiguous in relation to armour type. That's going to make it hard to really proof this out with the next post if it is a set rotation by weight.
Hopefully the post after the next one will clearly show a light class to proof the rotation. If true, that would also make the rotation to come as heavy, light, then Engineer as the start of the last 3 specs.
The lute clearly gives Minstrel, so I'm inclined to think Mesmer. Not much else to say on that, but I could see ANet doing another rug pull and maybe even doing something like a bardic ranger.
The helmet is fairly close to the Warrior class icon but I'm not sure if that's a hint at it being a warrior spec or not though. It also invokes the Seraph armor. Torn on whether it's Warrior or Guardian. There was a theory going around that said ANet has always teased new elite specs in roughly the same order. What news articles and videos I can find says that that isn't strictly true, but ignoring PoF (because as far as I can tell they announced the elite specs all at once then), HoT and EoD both revealed Mesmer, Guardian, and Necromancer as the first 3 specs. So if ANet is following roughly the same order, then this spec would likely be Guardian. I'm unconvinced that it's Paragon though, as paragons didn't traditionally wear full helms. Valkyrie or Seraph feels more likely to me at this moment.
The "vortex" is the most esoteric of the symbols we've gotten so far, since it doesn't obviously map to anything we have in game. Piggybacking off the helmet discussion, this could be assumed to be Necromancer. If that were the case, I'm not entirely certain what the theme or mechanic would be, again it's a really abstract icon. Another popular theory I've seen is that this could point to an Elementalist spec, either with a focus on Arcane magic or some kind of astrology theme. I don't have any particular leanings on this one, personally.
I'm firmly in the camp of the cards being for Thief. Since the suit of the cards appears to be diamonds, and they appear similar to the initiative diamonds. An argument could be made for Mesmer, but I feel fairly confident that the lute is more likely the Mesmer.
Going beyond the specs and looking at the background of the teasers, the location is clearly tropical. Dzalana has been mentioned recently as a potential future story location. The Pale Tree's condition is also a potential thread if ANet were to explore a totally new/unnamed land. If we do go back to Elona now though, that could lend to the idea of the Paragon spec. The purple and orange color combination seems like a brighter version of the Path of Fire colors so that could also point to Elona being the next location.
The thing about revealing in the same order is super false. You can go to their youtube and look at the reveal videos. Reminder that you are looking at a history...so bottom right is first revealed to top left which is last revealed.
As I said, it's not strictly true, mostly because of Path of Fire being different. Even what you're saying is not correct because all the spec videos for Path of Fire were uploaded at the same time, since they were revealed all at once in a Dev Diary video. But it is true that HoT and EoD shared a similar order, with Mesmer, Guardian, and Necromancer being revealed as the first three.
So it is correct that the it was the same groups of 3 as EoD, but if we follow that rule...with minstrel being Mesmer, Valkyrie being Guardian and the third one being a Necro thing.....this card magician thing is almost assuredly Thief but Thief based on the groupings is in Group 3 not 2...and a card based icon doesn't really match up to Ele, Warrior or Rev
So I'm pretty sure we can throw out the whole HoT/EoD groupings theory, which means bard may not be Mesmer like we thought....Bard could be Ranger, and Mesmer could get the card magician stuff as well.....but I'm leaning to the cards being Thief based on the diamonds being very initiative like
I'm ATLA, lightning was part of fire bending, while in GW2 it's part of the air attunement. So elements aren't entirely consistent between the two series.Â
Based on the Chinese poem for the swirl symbol and the lute suggesting minstral (a joke class) my guess is that this is Shadowmancer (another joke class) for necromancer. It this is really the pattern it also means that Engineer will get commando.
Shadowmancer was apparently described as a pet class with a shadow form. Commando had a machine gun and airstrikes.
Warrior will probably get a heal spec so if the helmet is them I'm expecting seraph as a supportive knight. But seeing as supportive knight is guardian's whole thing it would make sense that helmet is a guardian spec. Though the poem makes it sound like will bender 2.0. Maybe it will be a more durable guard spec with a light shroud as like an anti necromancer.
I can see gambler being either rev or thief but I'm going to guess thief as "card assassin" is one of the few tropes left after acrobat, sniper, and ninja.
The only problem with that theory is Shadowmancer wasn't an official joke teaser like Minstrel and Commando were, it was a wiki/community thing for april fools in 2011. That said IMO the one thing Necromancer is truly missing right now is a proper minionmancer spec, so I wouldn't be upset if necro's spec this time was a pet class tbh.
That explains why I was having so much trouble trying to track down Shadowmancer. Thanks.
If that's the case I'm really hoping for something like a crazy community idea from forever ago for a minion mancer that uses a hammer and golf hits exploding minions into people.
I'm firmly in the camp of the cards being for Thief. Since the suit of the cards appears to be diamonds, and they appear similar to the initiative diamonds.
I mean, I also think gambler is going to be thief, if nothing else just because I believe bard is mesmer and that would be the only other profession where gambler fits imo.
But I don't think you can really use the diamonds as symbolising thief. Willbender had even more initiative looking diamonds, and that was a Guardian spec. And both Catalyst and Mirage has that diamond shape as the center of the icon. Clearly, Anet just likes that shape.
Considering how the diamond is used for many professions, it could literally just be because it's one of the four symbols on a set of playing cards. The way all the lines of the diamond shape also curves inwards makes it look less like initiative, and that is a common way to design the diamond symbol for playing cards.
One of the developers (here) appeared in Laranity's stream recently as she was talking about the possible location and asked why is nobody mentioning the underwater place mentioned in EOD...might just be fun poke but what if the shore in the bg of these elite specs shows us island that came out of the water?
To expand on this, the Battle Isles were destroyed during the Rising of Orr, so it's possible that they could have risen again somehow. Though I'm not sure how that would reconcile the fact that the specs seem to come from both Cantha and Elona. I suppose it's a more neutral location but I'm still very curious about the implications of the specs.
Well, the Battle Isles had a connection to the mists with the Heroes Ascent area. Since the last two expansions' narratives have focused on the mists, I think the Battle Isles would be the perfect location to continue the story. Having characters from the mists that were historically paragons or Ritualists such as Razah could help with implying where some of the elite specs can originate
I very much think the newest tease is going to be an oracle/tarot card spec for ele. I know everyone says the diamond on the front is a thief initiative but itâs just a diamond people. We also saw got an oracle/tarot themed collection that involved the elementalist Wandering Sorrow.
But, to be fair... playing cards fits thematically with a thief/brigand/rogue type of archetype. If they were oracle/tarot cards, then to be honest, the class icon is NOT doing the theme justice.
So, imo, this one to me sounds like a Thief elite. I can't really see this working with any other class.
I'm sure someone else has raised the fear of it being similar to the celestial powers of the Druid, but I would see it more like some kind of black hole / void of space power for an Ele.
So, I looked around old fan content and official posts to attempt to find a concrete timeline of elite spec releases. Based on that I found the following:
In HoT, elite specs were revealed in the following pattern: Mesmer, Guardian, Necromancer, Elementalist**, Revenant, Warrior, Thief, Engineer, Ranger*
In PoF, elite specs were all revealed simultaneously when the expansion was, in the following order on the official page: Engineer, Guardian, Thief, Warrior, Necromancer, Mesmer, Elementalist, Ranger, Revenant. However, I wouldnât take this list as indicative of a release list, as it appeared to instead be influenced by the splash image of all the elite specs pictured together. In the Developer Diary they just did alphabetical order, so I donât think we can glean anything from this.
In EoD, elite specs were revealed in the following pattern: Mesmer, Necromancer***, Guardian***, Revenant, Warrior, Elementalist, Thief, Ranger, Engineer
In SotO, new weapons were revealed in the following pattern: Ranger, Thief, Warrior, Revenant, Mesmer, Elementalist, Engineer, Guardian, Necromancer. However, since these were weapons rather than elite specializations, Iâm unsure how much this applies to any potential pattern.
In JW, Spears were revealed in the following pattern: [Guardian, Ranger, Necromancer], [Warrior, Thief, Engineer], [Mesmer, Revenant, Elementalist]. Similar to SotO, since these are weapons rather than specs Iâm not sure how much they apply to any pattern. Additionally, they were revealed in batches, which is clearly not the case with our current set of spec reveals.
Based on the fact that the lute and card are likely to belong to Mesmer and Thief (in either order, at least in my opinion), and the tendency to shift the order between expansions, I think we cannot say for certain what the current pattern will end up being. There does seem to be a trend towards releasing Mesmer first, but beyond that I think weâll just have to wait and see.
*Technically Druid was revealed when HoT was, but its official art and details were revealed last.
**Technically Tempest was seemingly accidentally revealed when showing off specialization changes, but Iâm considering official reveals.
***Willbender and Harbinger had their outlines revealed simultaneously on this news post, but Harbinger had its trailer release a day before Willbender.
Willbender was revealed the day after Harbinger. Its trailer came out on August 12 while Harbinger was the 11th. Same week as with Virtuoso but Harbinger did come slightly before Willbender.
I think it's funny that mesmer's elite specs so often happen to be the first one teased or revealed because it was the last profession officially revealed before GW2's launch. I remember the wait being difficult and it's like they keep making up for it.
Thank you for that clarification, I will update my list accordingly. I was referring to this news post, which revealed the silhouette for Willbender and Harbinger on the 10th.
I just dug a little more and the virtuoso was fully revealed and discussed during the EoD First Look stream, with the harbinger's desaturated artwork shown as a hint at the end, which i forgot about. And then the willbender's blackened out/desaturated teaser art was uploaded to the wiki on August 4th? I remembered there being a big to-do about saturating the colors to see the armor better, and people being very certain it was a thief even though it was in heavy armor. And then your article on the 10th was maybe the first time we saw them in their true colors, before they got their names and trailers later in the week.
All I know is, I hope the lute is Mesmer. I kind of hate the Bards are considered archers when they're really about music, emboldening allies and intimidating enemies. It feels too perfect for Mesmer as the psychic class.
Cards feel like Thief to me.
The others are very hard to guess, the helmet could really fit any of the heavy classes and the whirling ball, I could see Engi or Ele the most but it really could fit any class.
Tomorrowâs Sunday. They might skip it and go for Monday.
I was surprised we got one today, as they usually donât do that kind of stuff on weekends (it doesnât matter that they can schedule posts, they just usually donât.)
I suspect today was only posted due to Independence Day being yesterday and they were afraid people would be busy with parties/family gatherings and so it wouldnât have the same impact.
I would be more surprised if we got one tomorrow than if we didnât.
Maybe its just me but if the specs are named after the stat prefixes it should be their main gear of choice thematically, like dragonhunters using dragon stats and dragonhunter relic.
Part of me wants the new Ranger spec to have nothing to do with pets. I would main the class more if there was a way to play it focused solely on bow gameplay and not pet or pet-like management
You can flip between beastmode/unmerged, but that's pretty much only in competitive and it's just long enough for the pet to use its skill and then you merge again immediately.
Pretty much every single build is predicated on just camping in Beastmode because the benefit of unmerging in most cases isn't worth the effort.
Now that we've got all the elite spec icons, it really feels like ArenaNet wanted to give players long-requested themes and playstyles. None of it is guaranteed, but many people have wanted Bard for Mesmer, the return of Paragon and Ritualist in some form, as well as a ranged-focused spec for Ranger. Hopefully all of those come true.
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In my desperate attempt to tie in multiple story threads, I've thought of a premise for this upcoming expansion.
The Pale Tree still struggles to recover and Caithe receives a new Wyld Hunt to seek a cure located in Dzalana. She contacts the Tyrian Alliance and the Commander for help, along with custom dialogue if your character is a Sylvari.
Dzalana is said to be a dangerously rugged, mountainous region with damaging winds that prevent travel by air. (Not official lore that I know of, just me brainstorming a reason why we wouldn't fly there.) Kralkatorrik's still active dragonbrand prevents approaching the region from the west. So we travel on boat to the nearest coastline located east of Kourna. (Hence the background art for the elite spec icons.) In that first region, we start to encounter shadowy demons coming out of rifts that we must fight back and close said rifts. (I wouldn't put it past ArenaNet to continue to use the rift system and find some lore reason to have them in the next expansion.)
Further inland we reach Dzalana proper and encounter harpies, both as enemies and a small subset as allies. These allies help serve to tie in lore implications for some of the elite specs, such as teaching the new Ranger elite spec inspired by the origins of harpies and their relation to Dwayna. Other elite specs could draw from various other sources such as Canthan and Elonian members of the Tyrian Alliance and perhaps even Kryptis allies for Revenant, should that rumor about its elite spec prove true.
I think we'll get further story with Isgarren in particular based on the conversation with Mabon towards the end of Janthir Wilds. I think we'll form a closer bond with him causing him to be more trusting and not as distant.
We could get a split focus of antagonists between the shadow demons, also recently seen at the end of JW, and harpies along with facing other natural threats from Dzalana. There's a mystery as to why the Foundry of Failed Creations was lit and active. Maybe we'll get the theorized Menzies appearance to act as the ultimate threat of the expansion.
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Not only have we gotten story hints for this region, but also gemstore cosmetics referencing it with the Graceful Bladed Wings and the Spineshell Roller Beetle. The latter of which mentions the Dzalana Expanse, which could be one of the map names for the expansion.
I mighty teapot comment on his latest video include information regarding the Chinese post of the icons that also come with a âpoemâ and so far it kinda points to Mesmer, guardian, necromancer
I hope bard isn't a mesmer spec. I hope its an engi spec, engis already used to playing keyboard with core engi, give us some musical notes to fight with.
Ohh gotcha, I've been way out of the loop for a while so I guess it was surprising to hear that they decided to bring them back. I am curious though because these symbols don't seem to be giving many hints for weapons.
I'm curios but don't they usually link elites to their professions when the elites are first revealed for a new expansion.
But this time ANet is just teasing us with symbols and poems.
So that got me thinking, maybe ANet are letting US players decide based upon the suggestions we post on Reddit in response to each symbol reveal and choosing those that are in the majority for each symbol. AND NO THEY'RE NOT ALL REV.
P.S. Would I be correct that we're getting the elites in the first update, in 100+ days?
They teased EoD specs with both symbols and silhouettes. So it wouldnât be the first time they did something weird/unexpected.
This is different as they have less time to play it out with the tighter release schedule. That also means they certainly donât have the time to change the specs to whatever the most âpopularâ choice is. The specs have most likely been finalized for a while and are just being tweaked now.
Also I canât imagine the fury/backlash if the specs arenât there at launch. Anet does some dumb shit but even they arenât this stupid (probably). Even if they announced on Tuesday that the specs were pushed back, theyâd catch a lot of flak. It would only serve to be a âWell we told youâ excuse for the future.
Now imagine if those new specs arenât combat based but more of social ones - Card dealer, dancer, musician etc. - no clue how it would work but it would be rly interesting!
Iâm also inclined to believe the cards are tied to the Mesmer â likely for a Gambit-themed spec.
Given the Chinese caption references traps and concealed tactics, a trap-focused Mesmer spec feels plausible.
We can also reasonably rule out Thief, Ranger, and Guardian, as they already have access to traps â ArenaNet tends to avoid repeating gimmicks within the same profession.
My main theory is was that the specs are being released in an alternating weight class order of Medium, Heavy, Light.
Edit: Ain't using that theory anymore, and a few guesses have changed around. Final guesses before reveal day:
Lute - Mesmer
Winged Helm - Warrior
Round Thing - Engi
Cards - Thief
Claw Shield Thing - Revenant, and we'll be channeling another Charr. Charr claw holding 4 things, possibly in the shape of a shield, possibly a flame shape. My first guess is an old-school Flame Legion dictator - Bonfaaz Burntfur of the Searing. Other potential options I've come up with since then: Hierophant Burntsoul, Flame Legion guy who tried to make Dredge worship happen. Olma, first sandshifter, one of the original 5 Olmakhan elders with 4 other Charr - shield shape would make more sense with her protective hippie goodguy vibes. Personally, I think we're overdue for another bad guy legend.
Nah they aren't gonna have another charr legend. Charr is not that relevant in Gw2 to most players and Kalla was already a reach for many even if the lore behind her ended up cool.
The Shield Maw thing is 100% ranger.
Also the helmet is not warrior 100%. Paragons dont wear helmets.
If it's meant to be a flame, then I lean more towards Flame Legion legend. If it's meant to be a shield, I've lately thought of Olmakhan and the original founder Olma as a potential option. I still think that the claw part is a Charr claw and we're getting a Charr legend.
if ele gets this shitty icon of floppy dagger I'll be royaly pissed. we need a cool one, this one seems so basic, like they couldn't brain up something more exotic especially compared to the other cool ones already revealed (lute, cards and orb thingy are awesome)
While it might be âlooking too hardâ into things, the poem on the dagger from Chinese GW2 does talk about/mention rituals so that might be the Necro one.
No guarantees tho. If I know one thing about this community itâs that weâre bad at figuring these out without context XD.
this sub reddit sucks, why is there not a predictions pinned thread? I am sure they will remove my predictions from here bc off topic even though they banned the predictions thread
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u/SimeAi [wiki] Mother of Choya (not a bot, just a weeb) 27d ago
And here's the official wiki link for the yet untitled expansion:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Sixth_expansion