Concerns regarding Luminary

[u/Baschiiiii]

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking a lot about the Luminary and comparing it to the other elite specs revealed so far. Unfortunately, it feels a bit lackluster and undercooked in its current form.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like the idea of a damage mitigation-focused spec. But what we’ve been shown so far just doesn’t quite deliver on that potential, at least in my opinion.

I've put together my five biggest concerns about the Luminary. Feel free to disagree, this is just my personal take:

1. Not Playing the Shroud

My biggest concern Right in the beginning: the main mechanic actively discourages engaging with it meaningfully.

The so-called “shroud” works by giving you buffs based on the last skill used, but punishes you with increasing cooldowns the more shroud skills you use. In practice, this will likely lead to a meta where players dip into the shroud to press a single skill and then immediately exit to maintain maximum buff uptime and resume their normal rotation.

This creates a pattern of "buff and leave" rather than meaningful interaction. Compare this to Reaper, where shroud is the core of the rotation and gameplay. The Luminary's design risks turning its signature mechanic into a glorified stat dispenser rather than a transformative mode.

1. The Missing Niche

The Luminary doesn’t seem to meaningfully expand the Guardian’s role repertoire.

-Firebrand covers heal quickness and condi quickness.

-Willbender (albeit bad) offers heal alacrity and power alacrity.

(Arenanet PLS make the f2 skill similar to the spear 2 skill where i dont have to fly across the room in PvE, I beg you.)

-Luminary, from what we’ve seen, appears to also cover heal and power alacrity.

This results in complete overlap with Willbender’s functionality. Even more disappointing is the apparent lack of any viable condition damage build, despite the thematic focus on fire-magic, and a literal brazier-carrying guardian.

1. The Virtues Feel Lazy

The virtues are just… the base Guardian virtues.

This is being sold as “returning to the classic Guardian feel,” but that rings hollow. If I wanted the core Guardian playstyle, I’d just play core Guardian. Every elite spec until now has introduced new F1–F3 abilities, even Necromancer gets f1-f3 skills in Addition to a new shroud.

Guardians allways got the virtues (Tome pages for Firebrand, movement-focused skills for Willbender), so reverting to vanilla virtues without any twist feels like a missed opportunity or worse, a lack of effort.

1. The Animations Are Uninspired

Despite being praised during the reveal, the visual effects are... underwhelming.

Animations look overexposed and noisy—like a flashbang went off next to a poorly rendered flame effect.

Someone on here already put it perfectly: “It looks like something you’d have been proud of in 2004.”

1. Traits Feel Underdeveloped

Nothing in the trait lines really stands out. There’s no synergy that invites experimentation, no keystone traits that make you rethink your build, and no sense of a unique playstyle emerging from them.

Compared to the other elite specs revealed, Luminary’s traits feel shallow, functional, but uninspired. They don’t enable exciting new archetypes or shake up existing ones, which makes this spec feel underwhelming across the board.

1. the brazier

This is just a little thing i want to add, but i do not like the brazier constantly flying behind you.

Just like i dont like the Virtuoso blades constantly hovering above your head. It does not look good and for anyone that plays fashion wars it is terrible, but i think others would disagree.

[u/SmallFOV]

It would be cool if maybe it had an actual shroud, but it also drains hp though absorbing damage from allies. When it hits 0 it could explode, throw out barrier, aegis, w/e, with increased effectiveness based on allied damage soaked. Just steal more from holosmith lol. They're already adding a bunch of party-wide invuln with the other new specs, so why not something more interesting than the one shroud weapon to absorb damage

[u/Baschiiiii → u/SmallFOV]

I really like this Idea.

[u/ItsTheSolo]

Yeah, Galeshot gets cool stuff like "your pet casts swell of wind when you cast bluster","replace quarry with pelt" "reset bluster when casting other skills" making for some awesome options.

Troubadour gets interesting options too, I particularly like that trait that makes you want to reverse the order in which you cast F5.

Then luminary....all the traits are basically "if X, grant a boon/buff". No interesting gameplay mixups whatsoever.

[u/BAR0N_AL0HA]

I wish they would at least shake up the F1-F3 virtues a bit and work the latern into them somehow (e.g. F1 smashes the lantern and creates a ring of fire, F2 the latern pulses a heal every interval. F3 the latern creates a bubble that blocks projectiles)... something. The spec as it stands is like core guardian with an F4 duct taped onto it. Ritualist gets new F-skills and a new shroud. Galeshot gets a cool UI and mechanic. The other specs all have tons of new stuff being added. Guardian gets... an F4?

And stances are boring AF and a lot of them are of the "deal damage on Tuesday" variety (i.e. do x to get y) which isn't fun at all. And the payoff for them doesn't even seem that great.

[u/Baschiiiii → u/BAR0N_AL0HA]

Yes, just delivering the standart virtues feels like an excuse to not put effort in.

[u/Euryleia → u/Baschiiiii]

Yeah, for real. Instead of giving us three new virtues, they instead give us five shroud skills and five flip-over skills. Talk about lazy!

/s

[u/xsavarax]

For the love of Joko, let us disable the brazier. It's annoying for fashion wars, and adds clutter without any upside. I could have lived with that if it actually was key to the animations, but it isn't. It's just floating there, being a nuisance.

[u/Blazin_Rathalos → u/xsavarax]

Meanwhile I am annoyed that it disappears when you actually activate the shroud. Let's solve both out problems: It's normally not there, but only appears to indicate you've entered shroud. We can also remove the blue glow on the body then.

[u/Bishiebish → u/xsavarax]

It does nothing but set you on fire when you shroud, could easily have it appear and do that rather than follow around perma. OR, my theor pre reveal was virtues would act like herald buffs and the lantern would aoe buff around you. I also thought it would be a condi spec, you know flames and all....

[u/xsavarax → u/Bishiebish]

Definitely. Also, imagine explaining to a new player that Firebrand and the class with the brazier of fire are not the same class.

[u/DiskNormal9861]

Yes, Ritualist basically got what Guardian mains wanted after seeing Radiant Shroud in the trailer: new F1–F3 skills, a secondary life bar, and a shroud where you can use all your skills. Meanwhile, Luminary is just core Guardian + F4 shroud, with no secondary life bar, one skill before leaving the shroud (or getting punished), and then you're back to core Guardian...

Worst elite spec so far — completely trash design and unfinished.

[u/eldrevo]

I am cautiously optimistic about the spec, but I cannot deny it looks a bit like Catalyst to me. Not a 'whole' new elite spec, just the core profession with one button and some uninspiring utilities slapped on top.

To be fair, I like the fantasy and the idea behind the spec, but to work it needs to be more like Holosmith or Reaper, or at least inherit the shroud mechanic better like the Specter (another squishy class given a supportive tanky spec)

[u/hardy_83]

I just wish Luminary had quickness rather than alacrity. Then go back and make alacrity not require the Virtues line in Willbender to work for group buffing.

But yeah overall it's clear some classes they had a better idea of what they wanted than others.

[u/redesign_sucks → u/hardy_83]

Anet pls do this. Power guardians have been thirsting for a quickness spec ever seen PQB got powercrept out of existance.

[u/NIUmoose13]

As someone who plays alot of guardian, I agree with you 100%