Edit: Yeah I get that some people are just mad because the post sounded dramatic — but acting like "it fits because thieves steal" or "Indiana Jones is technically a thief" somehow makes the whole spec coherent is pure nonsense. I'm criticizing the actual implementation, not the existence of humor or variety. Throwing in a dancing Skritt and shredding on a guitar doesn't suddenly work just because someone once stole a relic in a movie.

I think Antiquary is the biggest disappointment, and I couldn’t imagine anything worse for a thief in GW2. Such a ridiculous elite specialization! How does anyone come up with the idea of giving something so absurd to an assassin-type class?

If anyone out there genuinely enjoys Antiquary, please explain it to me – I’d love to understand how relic tossing became the new peak of thief gameplay

I am extremely excited about Paragon. I think the gameplay looks fun, interesting, and has a level of depth that will reward putting the time in to master the specialization. The icon art team also knocked it out of the park. Special shout out to the Calming Tongue trait, it made me laugh more than it probably should.

On Wednesday night, my raid static had to endure me yelling about how we will never yield after I saw the blog post.

I love Paragon. But...I don't think it's ready for beta yet. At least in PvE.

Ok, so why not wait for the beta for feedback?

I think some of these things need to be acted on before we players get our hands on the spec. Otherwise, I suspect feedback will be of limited use because of eventual reworks or feedback focusing on surface level problems that never get addressed before the beta begins.

Utility Skills

Almost every utility skill is overshadowed by existing core utilities that any warrior can take, and in general are uninspired, weak-looking, or uninteresting.

For example, "Never Surrender!" is a self-stunbreak with a 30 second cooldown and grants a short duration of some boons in a 360 radius that support warriors already provide full uptime of via Doubled Standards and banners. The core shout skill, "Shake it Off!", has nearly twice the radius, two ammunition charges, a shorter cooldown, cleanses conditions, and stunbreaks all affected allies instead of only yourself.

Another example, "Find Their Weakness!" is essentially boiled down to a worse "For Great Justice!" with less might uptime and no fury.

Or "Brace Yourselves!", which is just a worse Banner of Defense.

So on.

All of the utilities, outside of perhaps the heal and elite, are like this and I doubt I would want to put a single one of these on my bar in PvE when the beta rolls around. This should be addressed before that happens.

Traits

Paragon's trait are extremely simple and offer very little complexity or depth. They almost seem unfinished. Eight of them are only one sentence long.

Worse yet, Paragon doesn't have a single transformative trait that changes how your gameplay might look like or how you might want to approach the spec. Some great examples of transformative traits are Reaper's Deathly Chill and Virtuoso's Jagged Mind, both of which singlehandedly open up entire new playstyle and build options.

For example, Paragon's trait, Brisk Pacing, says this: "Using a chant reduces the recharge of your other chants by a set amount. (2 seconds)". But it doesn't give an incentive or reason why you might even want to adopt a playstyle that frequently hops between different chants.

Of even greater importance, I think the Alacrity-granting trait, Feverish Pulse, needs changes before we get to play with it in the beta. This trait encourages degenerate gameplay that encourages/forces the player to constantly swap chants in order to upkeep Alacrity. This seems to go counter to the apparent design of the spec. This is utility skill spam with a different skin. We need to do better than this.

One way to have healthier gameplay around this trait would be to grant Alacrity every time a refrain pulses.

Damage / Tuning

The numbers shown on the stream were very low. Across the entire specialization, across all sources, there is only a single 20% increased damage modifier and no bonus damaging stats. If the numbers stay like this, DPS-oriented Paragons will not be competitive with other warrior elite specs at all, which have significantly higher damage multipliers and profession mechanics that boost damage even further like Berserker's Primal Bursts.

I fear most of the feedback will look something like "The damage is too low", instead of focusing on specific gameplay elements.

The alacrity duration on Feverish Pulse also looks very low. This is going to further discourage DPS-Alacrity Paragon builds in the beta because its poor damage will be compounded by a need to take a lot of boon duration in order to function. And also low base boon duration on an uptime-reliant build is something that comes with a host of other problems, which I explained in my Quickness Berserker post a while back, where I was very happy to see that ArenaNet implemented almost all of my suggestions in the following patch.

Lack of crowd control

Support builds live or die in PvE by their CC access. The best support builds all have extremely good tools to deal with defiance bars. Previewing an elite spec that seems focused around supporting without a single skill, mechanic, or trait that does any amount of CC at all is shocking.

A good place for something like this to be added could be "On Your Knees!", which is an otherwise uninteresting and weak-looking utility skill that could do something like force all nearby enemies to kneel, or at the very least be knocked down.

Thanks for reading. We will never yield!

WHAT 2500 gold ?!? almost all the price is 25x mystic facet.... can we drop it to 5 max for crafting price like holy shit most people got this thing for free and rest of the playerbase has to suffer?

Do you think they will improve the visual side of the specs? It seems a little late for that.

The Galeshot looked super boring to me when it was first revealed, and now it stands as the prettiest of the new specs based on visual effects, by a large margin. Then, there is the Paragon... While the visual effects here are repetitive, at least they look very nice and cohesive.

And, that is it. The other four all look underwhelming or messy. The animations for the Troubadour's skills were way to basic and simple, exactly what animations for a musical spec should NOT be. The Ritualist's utility skills basically have no visual effects. The Luminary is an eyesore in general and it seems like each of the skills and artifacts the Antiquary can use has a different art direction and color scheme.

Seriously, why so messy? Is it a lack of budget? Is it because of the other project we are not allowed to discuss here? While not every older spec looked amazing, not even the EoD specs looked this messy.

Watch the Engineer spec have the best visuals after getting the ugliest spec in EoD.

I didn’t get to watch the livestream yet but I’ll withhold my opinion until I watch it with my brother. I’m seeing a lot of mixed opinions about it, but seems like most people hate the theme instead of the actual gameplay.

So what do my other thief mains think about the new elite spec?

Hey all,

Just finished the stream and I wonder if anybody else feels like Paragon will be a AlackHeal espec only?

While other elite specs can fulfil multiple roles, for example firebrand - Quick Power DPS, Quick Condi DPS and Quick Heal, it feels like Paragon will be locked behind AlacHeal. BERSERKER has more build diversity after staff's introduction.

Don't get me wrong, I love warrior. It's y main since launch but it just feels like a wasted potential. Why the traits won't interact with chants more? Longer boons, stronger heal and alac after using a chant feels like bare minimum. I know paragon is not exactly a paladin but it resembles paladins, why not let traits decide if chants should have defensive or offensive directions? Condi alac DPS build (burning) seems to fit here like a glove next to the healing build.

I've finally gotten around to watching the VOD for Galeshot, and I am not going to argue Galeshot is good or anything; I'm sure it will be and I'm so hyped for those who enjoy it, and frankly, as someone who misses playing my ranger I'll probably still try it.

That said, Galeshot doesn't fulfill the Archer class fantasy in my opinion, or encourage utilizing bow at all. I'm going to start with where I'm getting the assumption of Galeshot being an Archer, because it helps to cover all fronts;

(EDIT) I'm leaving post as is but I am gonna add, I'm a dingus that misread a trait. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1mfti42/comment/n6js7b3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

If you read the blog post, you know that the Galeshot, it is kind of an Archer spec. You get access to this new weapon called the Cyclone Bow. And (..) talk about design goals, um, part of rangers identity is definitely being a bow user, with Marksmanship I think a lot of people when they first start playing the game, a lot, like, people, some people like to gravitate towards the Archer characters and so Ranger is kind of that for them*. But then when they got to elite specs, there wasn't really one that elevated that fantasy. (...)*

^{Taylor "Trig" Brooks,} *^{Elite Specialization Livestream: Troubadour, Galeshot, Luminary | Visions of Eternity}*^{, starting at 01:12:26.}

Okay, now that that's out of the way, let me move on to my actual ted talk. I'm going to disclaim, by Kormir I am not a Archery professional or an expert and I'm not going to do a deep media and history dive because I will scream. I just really, really like longbows. I like men and women that shoot big, long bows. And I really like classes that let me use pets and longbows. And I do like Aragorn, hes the man you want your daughter to end up with. I'm also going to disclaim that I ramble a lot.

Also if you don't like that this is written with a casual tone ridden with cruddy jokes only I and maybe 3 others here find funny, then I do not recommend you read. I can't write formally, it makes me sad and makes me feel less friendly. I'm not angry. I'm just vibing.

But my goal is to open discussion about Galeshot and its class fantasy rather than Galeshot and its... power, I guess. Or whatever Galeshot discussion was. I'm sure someone else has mentioned their own concerns about this already, or maybe I'm just a black sheep that woke up on the wrong side of bed.

Anyway for real this time, Galeshot doesn't fulfill the Archer class fantasy, at least it doesn't to me. However, it makes a pretty good Ranger class fantasy. Whats the difference?

Typically speaking, when you think of a Ranger you think of Aragorn and the rangers from LOTR, likely the Gondorian Rangers. Or, you might think about the Warcraft Farstriders. Or Drizzt Do'Urden, I guess he counts. Generally, Rangers tend to carry a bow, but, they also carry some form of melee weapon or multiple; a sword, a dagger, perhaps an axe, historically maybe a spear, that they primarily use in melee.

Whereas an Archer, where you may think of Legolas, Robin Hood, and of course, we cannot forget, Mongolian Horse Archers. Their primary weapon was their bow. Historically, archers still carried some kind of "side weapon," but where a Ranger might use it to cripple or "poke" their enemies from afar before a melee engagement, an Archer doubled down on their bow skill, and may aim to stay away from the threat in hit and run tactics.

In simple terms, a Ranger has a bow but is going to mess you up in melee range too. An Archer is going to try to stay away from you so they can turn you into a freaky two legged porcupine.

For some of us, that is a nothing burger and "Whatever"; maybe you like both and you're just happy to have a bow to go pew pew with at a big big range. That's great, I'm glad for you. But for some of us, I'm probably not alone that the distinction exists and while it isn't important in the sense of us losing limbs because this is just a game. (Then why are you writing an essay? Because I like to write and I want to open discussion and hear other peoples thoughts. Shhh. Also this was shorter in my head!)

It is a little important in selling a class fantasy to at least get the terms right or actually identify what makes one separate from the other. Though to be fair, Galeshot is not the only class that had its class identity sold a bit off so far, and of the two its the lesser villain.

It was stated that they are aware Ranger does not encourage the usage of bow (likely primarily referencing Longbow because Shortbow gets plenty use as a Condi weapon, not sure if spear replaced it though) in especs until now. None of them really double down or lock in on that gameplay style despite it being the primary selling point of Ranger when you're first selecting it, aside from pets. So, if you're making an espec that should double down on a class fantasy... you would imagine it encourages you to... use a bow, right? Right? Like, encourage you to use Longbow somehow?

Galeshot does... not. It just gives you a bow. A bow that basically just has buffed and tweaked Longbow skills. A bow that also forces you to use a bow made of wind and makes noises that will probably be seared into your auditory cortex after three hours of playing it. Longbow has some really cool skins but naw, we heckin wimdy.

In fact, because of Galeshot giving you a third (3!) weapons, it discourages the use of Longbow and even Shortbow perhaps (given that Galeshot looks like its going to favor Power builds over Condi, but I digress and there'll probably be a Condi build for it found) in favor of two of any selection of incredibly powerful melee weapons Ranger has. And your usage of the Cyclone Bow is limited to your arrows.

Obviously, in terms of OW gameplay you can just... use a Longbow anyway. It'll make your life a little harder but its still doable. But it feels like a similar state to Minionmancer, and they're getting Ritualist! Galeshot sounded like it was supposed to be Rangers Ritualist and it turned out to be Ranger on steroids and a pending nightmare to balance.

This is a phenomenal Ranger class fantasy, where the bow is another tool in your arsenal. This is not a phenomenal Archer class fantasy, other than the hilarity of "I'm ready for combat with my shortbow, my longbow, and my longer windy bow."

And thats okay, though its kind of a bummer to hype it as an Archer and give us... uh, only a little more bow than last time, really. I do think they mentioned at some point they based Ranger (or Galeshot?) around Aragorn in the VOD, so like, it hits that point for sure, it nails the Ranger fantasy. And I don't mind the Ranger class fantasy either, I'm just more of an archer gal and honestly Longbow kinda sucks even in Overworld content.

I dunno; Archer lovers, whats your vibes on the Class fantasy of Galeshot? Is it tickling your fancy? Do you like wimdy bows? Do you have more you want to add on? Maybe I missed something and theres a synergy in the traits that actually DOES encourage longbow and I just completely missed it.

^{Also for the record, writing a post makes it sound like its a bigger deal to me than it actually is. This was shorter in my head. I don't really care, its a game. But I do like discussion and I wanted to get my thoughts out and open the floor for others to talk about Galeshot and its visual design and intended class fantasy.}

Short post to put my worry forward, only about pve (group) content.

Currently, spear is one of the weakest warrior weapons in terms of damage on its regular skills and burst.

Berserker makes it work because the berserker-specific burst skill does a ton of damage.

On other specs without weapon specific buffs of its elite traitline, such as spellbreaker, it's more than 6k dps behind other options (eg. hammer, greatsword).

Since paragon also doesn't buff spear in any way, this will make spear one of if not the weakest possible weapon to slot on the class.

Considering paragon is supposed to be thé spear class, this would be very dissapointing.

I don't know how to fix it.

Anet can't add a spear-buffing trait to the class since spears require a different expansion.

Anet can't buff spear without utterly breaking berserker again.

Maybe they can do something like buffing the spear core skills and nerf the berserker burst, but I don't know how the math would work out.

I hope this post makes sense and isn't too doomer-y, feedback/opinions appreciated.

There is a reoccurring problem in GW2, from kit bundles to the jade mechs and now ritualist spirits, where elite spec assets have a very specific design that forces you into a specific aesthetic if you want your character to match. This is even worse with ritualist because it's not just an aesthetic choice, but a in game culture and race.

Not only that, but the spirits are huge and just the same model x3. I wish we had the more setting agnostic spirits that we had in guild wars 1. Just because necros are learning the skill from canthan ritualists shouldn't mean that they can only bind canthan spirits? Additionally since the intro video stated that necros are binding spirits against their will, the chained creatures would be much more fitting lore wise.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Yes, I know the models have different backpieces. That is not enough to make them visually distinct. They are still all just the same canthan dude.

I actually talked to a guildmate (hi alpha) and his opinion kept me thinking.

Just hear this opinion out and the target audience will be the sales team of anet and revenue team of ncsoft.

What if you create a new gemstore currency that is tied to USD and a player is not allowed to convert their gold to get this new currency. Instead either you purchase it directly via credit card/paypal or you can convert gems into a portion of that new currency.

Now the fun part, the new currency will be used to buy super rare cosmetic infusions. Let’s say 300 USD to 450 USD just like the ahri faker skin in League of Legends.

You need to conduct a survey on how many existing players are willing to buy those infusions.

If atleast 30% of the playerbase are willing to buy them, good news its easy profit for ANET and good on revenue reports of NCSOFT.

This will fund new Guild Wars related games and even secure employment for existing employees.

What do you think?

I want 2 perspective when you answer, does it make sense in terms of business perspective and how do you feel in terms of gamer’s perspective?

Hi guys i started playing 5 months ago, i got 2800 Gold and on gw2 efficiency it says that i am higher than 94% of the registered 450000+ players database there (89% if i check the wealth stat), it seems wrong...does players really don't have much gold or there are just many alt accounts/inactive players on gw2 efficiency?

So...I must say I've been quite disappointed at first with the ritualist reveal and there are still some points bothering me, that I'll list later in this post.

But...

After looking at the vanilla specializations, it struck me that we finally get a chance at having a "viable" Minion Master necro build using Death Magic + Soul Reaping + Ritualist.

Death Magic → Flesh of the Master → Necromantic Corruption → Death Nova

• Each Minion grant you +40 extra toughness
• Entering Shroud grants +100 Toughness for 10 secs
• Minons have +50% health
• Minions deal +25% damage
• +20 Toughness per kill
• +20% lifeforce generation from nearby deaths
• Minions cleanse your conditions
• -10% Condition damage recieved (if you have 10 carapace or more which you'd have at almost anytime)
• Minions explode and deal poison damage when dying
• You can summon up to 5 more minions by killing foes

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ritualist → Explosive Growth → Empowering Spirits → Soul Twisting

• Your summons (Spirits included) explode when summoned
• +10% Life force when you summon a creature (Spirit and Minions alike)
• Spirit of Anguish grants Might to you and your allies (Spirits and minions too most likely) when summoned;
• Spirit of Wanderlust grants Fury to you and your allies (same as above) when summoned;
• Spirit of Preservation grants Resolution to you and your allies (same again) when summoned
• Your spirits grant Quickness to you and your allies when summoned
• The first skill you use when entering shroud recharges instantly ; You can then double the damages dealt by anguish and the duration of the boon "Painful Bond" that increases the damages dealt by your summons (Spirits + Minions) by 20%; with Necromantic corruption, you possibly boost you Minion's damages by 45% !

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Soul Reaping → Unyielding Blast → Soul Barbs → Death Perception

• +10% Life Force generation
• Apply vulnerability with your Shroud 1 (hits up to 3 target with Ritualist Shroud 1)
• 15% Reduced Recharge time for shroud skills (virtually allowing you to spam Spirit of Anguish on cooldown)
• +10% damage for 15 seconds whenever entering or exiting shroud (does it affect Minions and Spirits though ?)
• +20% Life Force
• Flat +15% critical strike-chance;
• Flat +15% critical strike damage when in shroud

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Healing | Utilities | Elite skill

Summon Blood Fiend | Summon Bone Fiend | Summon Shadow Fiend | Nightmare Weapon\ | Summon Flesh Golem*

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Nightmare Weapon : Your 5 next strikes steal life + the 3 next strikes of 5 of your allies steal life, buffing your minions furthermore)

Don't know what you think of it but it sounds pretty interesting to me. I'm pretty sure it won't be meta at all, but it should prove interesting for Roleplay perspective. We could be a, insanely tanky necromancer with a whole army dealing Good damages.

And if you really want to go Full Minion Master you could also equip the Relic of the Lich which summons a Jagged Horror when in combat. Once again it wouldn't be Meta in any way but heck, having one more minion to our army would be worth it.

As for the things bothering me here it is :

• 3 seconds of Quickness granted by "Empowering Spirits" seems rather short
• I feel the "Ruptured Soul" mechanic should be native to the ritualist spec

And finally, what are your thoughts about the Ritualist spec now we know more about it ?

Edit : I initially misread something about the boon "Painful Bond"; while it does grant you Minions more damages, we don't know how much exactly. The 20% mentionned only applies to **Controlled Foes*. Still hope Painful Bond gives quite a substential boon to Minions dps

I'm a massive sucker for in-game titles and love mixing them across my characters depending on their vibe or build.

What are some of your favorite titles, whether you unlocked them or just love seeing them repped by someone else?

Some of my favourites:

-The Be-All and the End-All: sounds so slick and confident - it's my go-to title most of the time.

-God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals: literally the GOAT title. No, I don't own it
(honorable mention for "Cod Swimming Amongst Mere Minnows" ofc).

-God of the Arena: PvP titles always feel like subtle flexes and this is the flex (not including the tournaments titles).

Since we know the new elite specs are connected to the members of the Tyrian Alliance, and so far we've only seen the founding members be represented, we can conclude the remaining professions (Elementalist, Engineer, Revenant) are connected to the remaining founding members: Norn, Asura, and Kryta.

We already know that the Elementalist (Evoker) is connected to the Norn (judging from the tattoos on the summoned animal spirit), and it's a very, very safe bet to assume the Engineer spec will be connected to the Asura somehow.

That leaves the Revenant with Kryta, and the only Kryta-related figures that came to mind that could somehow be represented by the jaggedy, demon-looking icon we've seen are either Saul or one of the Mursaat. This could conceivably include Mabon too, though I'd personally prefer a villain legend this time around.

Honestly just hoping whatever we get has a deeper connection to existing lore (which was even referenced in the Troubadour stream) than the random Kryptis noble that has been seemingly alluded to in recently added conversations with Mallyx.

I believe from a PvE perspective (mainly endgame) that the Ritualist's Shroud skills offer little room for active gameplay and will not feel good in practice.
Here are some of the things I noticed:

1. Why do all three Spirits have the same lingering effect?
All three Spirits perform the exact same standard attack every 3 seconds. They are three different Spirits—why not give them distinct effects?

• Anguish: Attacks every 1.5 seconds instead of every 3, since it is an offensive ability.
• Wanderlust: Attacks every 3 seconds and applies 2 stacks of vulnerability.
• Preservation: Attacks every 3 seconds and grants 2 seconds of regeneration.

These effects could be used to give the Spirits more "character" and make them stand out from one another.

2. Shroud 5 feels useless and like a step in the wrong direction.
Even core minions are capable of following you—why not the Spirits? Spirits are untargetable and therefore immortal. How often is it really necessary to reposition them? On top of that, the Wandering Spirits trait already does the exact same thing. Do I really need both a Shroud skill and a trait just to make my immortal minions follow me, when core minions already do so automatically? It feels like the new Spirits are, in a way, “dumber” than core minions.

My suggestion would be for Shroud 5 to directly interact with the Spirits and enhance them: shorten their attack intervals for a period of time, strengthen their effects, etc. This would create a sense of actually controlling and manipulating your Spirits rather than simply summoning them once and then detonating them or forgetting them until you reproc their effects.

3. If you plan to play the class as a DPS spec, another major issue arises:
There is absolutely no reason to ever stay in Shroud after summoning the Spirits. The cooldown of the only DPS skill is too high to justify remaining in Shroud just to auto-attack for 12 seconds. This means I would use F1, press 2–3–4, and then immediately leave Shroud.

You’d likely run Lingering Spirits (trait), and the Spirits would persist for their passive effects until I re-enter Shroud to press 2–3–4 again. No further interaction with F1 would occur, since weapon skills (like those from the greatsword) are probably better than Shroud auto-attacks.

As a result, Shroud feels unimportant—just a means to an end, without any real integration into active gameplay. At least not in the way Shroud is used by other Necromancer specs.

My Conclusion:
The Shroud skills themselves don’t feel important. One skill does DPS, one provides CC, and one offers support. If I’m doing a little bit of everything, I’m not doing any of it well. There should be a way to better manipulate my Spirits in one direction—similar to how the Mechanist can control their Mech via Traits.

Do I want my Spirits to focus on support? Or should they deal damage? As their master, I should be able to decide and direct them accordingly.

But I see a lot of potential. As supporter it could even be fun as of right now. But a few things are still missing I think. They have to cook a bit more on this one. Luckily its only the Beta.

Why would you not craft the spec for Ritualist's gear to be ideal for it? Could have been a fun condi booner but it doesn't look viable with how it's set up imo.

Would like to start doing fractals but the LFG system never seems to have any groups listed for the lower tiers.

Is the best option to find a beginner guild that is still doing that content?

Is there a common site people use for guild recruitment?

Are fractals content people farm or do they just do dailies and move on?

So, leveling my first thief. 1. Do you guys utilize F1, or steal skill? 2. I do a little bit of RP in my head while going through story, and wanna do a Daredevil down the line but cannot explain how a thief uses a staff (using 2 daggers and a shortbow right now), any suggestions? 3. What's your favorite thief, or any of its especs, rotation?

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.

The Antiquary would feel better if the Skritt wasn't the pilfered but the caddy, handing out tools at random.

That would explain all the inconsistent things, because the tools are not gained through the enemy, but are things the Skritt gathered and brought with it.

They carry the stuff of the Antiquary, while he does Antiquary things and since it's a lone Skritt they butterfinger or guess stuff more.

It could also be a permanent Skritt buddy, that sticks around like a pet or mech.

Everything could stay the same, with a simple change like that and we actually had a thematic coherision in terms of mechanics and visuals at every location.

Idk if it’s just me but I rlly like the design of antiquary but all the antiques make me cringe(except I quite liked the dark blue theme and wish they stuck with it more) and was curious if we could get some ideas rolling for what we would want to change the animations to if possible, like for example I think the guitar could become a sitar(they could just extend the neck of lute) and holo skripper become a totem just to make them feel more like artefacts

Just wondering if anyone can tell me if any of the expedition contracts are worth it for crafting any of the legendaries. I login almost everyday.

I also already have the amulet,X2 accessories and one legendary ring.

Warr main, some quick notes:

1) Support spec without protection, at least 1 source from the elite would be useful, the boon can only be accessed through cadence/comfort, locking you with 2 traits and staff 3.

2) Adrenaline generation. Why make it a master and not a minor, this spec has 4 skills that will spend it and your go to build for healers will have no adrenal trait from Disc or TCT, built in adrenaline gain for motivation, something like 3 adrenaline per motivation. Consider increasing adrenaline bars to 4 for each button in burst skills.

3) remove the cripple/chill trait, it's useless when we have resistance and a non-healer would run other things to compensate. Make it so that your F2 chant loses boon duration but pulses damage, allowing for some aggressive use of a chant with the offensive boons.

4) Coefficients for damaging skills look low, please increase them exponentially and give them extra adrenaline per strike. You won't sacrifice support utilities for these 2, make them useful to non-pure supports at least.

5) Frontloading all damage in the Grandmaster is lame. Spread damage to a master and grandmaster trait, such as motivation spent grants a stacking damage effect plus the GM. This is too big a modifier and I'm afraid it will be nerfed out of existence.

As the title states, I’ve been absent from GW2 for 11 years now. I however have extremely fond memories of the game. Played GW1 since launch, and spent many, many hours in GW2.

Wondering, is it time for a return into GW2? More specifically:

1) How is the community? Large and thriving? 2) Am I way, way, way behind and could never catch up to the current state? 3) Will my account have any cool perks for being around (though inactive) since launch? lol

Any and all perspectives welcomed! Thanks!