Full list of the June 23 Specialization Changes

[rhandric]

Oh I just saw a reddit post that says the Spirit Shards are in this patch, thank you very much
But I guess I'll have to do 65 'skill challenges' on every character to get my full build.

Only if your full build requires unlocking every spec and skill (or the last skill from every skill category); otherwise, you don't really need to do 65 skill challenges

[carnifex2005]

Oh I just saw a reddit post that says the Spirit Shards are in this patch, thank you very much
But I guess I'll have to do 65 'skill challenges' on every character to get my full build.

Actually, you won't have to now. Colin just confirmed that getting to 80 only will unlock everything.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...st#post5187859

A quick update on this one -> After feedback from presenting the original hero point count – we decided getting to level 80 will give you enough hero points to unlock all the core skills and traits entirely. Doing hero challenges (aka skill challenges) will simply allow you to earn all the skills/traits earlier before level 80. With the release of HoT, there will be options to spend the excess hero points earned from doing hero challenges in the world.
There are a number of other changes on 6/23 to make the experience from 1-80 more exciting, better-paced, rewarding, and fun as well after having the time to evaluate and player feedback from the updates last year.
-CJ

[melodramocracy]

Well...I just came back from a long break so I have no gold, no characters with a 500 crafting skill, and no laurels.

Yeah, that's my own damn fault, but it just feels like a bigger hill to climb is all.

I'm in the same boat. about 8 gold, but somehow I have 4 laurels. And a whole lot of "what does what again?".... but I'm actually enjoying myself quite a bit.

[rhandric]

Actually, you won't have to now. Colin just confirmed that getting to 80 only will unlock everything.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...st#post5187859

A quick update on this one -> After feedback from presenting the original hero point count – we decided getting to level 80 will give you enough hero points to unlock all the core skills and traits entirely. Doing hero challenges (aka skill challenges) will simply allow you to earn all the skills/traits earlier before level 80. With the release of HoT, there will be options to spend the excess hero points earned from doing hero challenges in the world.
There are a number of other changes on 6/23 to make the experience from 1-80 more exciting, better-paced, rewarding, and fun as well after having the time to evaluate and player feedback from the updates last year.
-CJ

Cue complaints from those WvWers (and others, but mostly WvWers) who preemptively started collecting those 65 skill points across all their alts

[Soul Hermit]

Actually, you won't have to now. Colin just confirmed that getting to 80 only will unlock everything.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...st#post5187859

A quick update on this one -> After feedback from presenting the original hero point count – we decided getting to level 80 will give you enough hero points to unlock all the core skills and traits entirely. Doing hero challenges (aka skill challenges) will simply allow you to earn all the skills/traits earlier before level 80. With the release of HoT, there will be options to spend the excess hero points earned from doing hero challenges in the world.
There are a number of other changes on 6/23 to make the experience from 1-80 more exciting, better-paced, rewarding, and fun as well after having the time to evaluate and player feedback from the updates last year.
-CJ

That's a relief, I was just logging to do start doing that on my alts, glad I saw your post just now

[Kazgrel]

Actually, you won't have to now. Colin just confirmed that getting to 80 only will unlock everything.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...st#post5187859

A quick update on this one -> After feedback from presenting the original hero point count – we decided getting to level 80 will give you enough hero points to unlock all the core skills and traits entirely. Doing hero challenges (aka skill challenges) will simply allow you to earn all the skills/traits earlier before level 80. With the release of HoT, there will be options to spend the excess hero points earned from doing hero challenges in the world.
There are a number of other changes on 6/23 to make the experience from 1-80 more exciting, better-paced, rewarding, and fun as well after having the time to evaluate and player feedback from the updates last year.
-CJ

This only made sense, seeing how otherwise people would have to play/replay parts of the game just to unlock stuff they already had.

[rhandric]

Yeah.

Hell, it's already annoying enough that I have to go around unlocking traits on my Elementalist that just hit 80. (Or pay to unlock them)

Or wait til tomorrow...

[Soul Hermit]

Added an option to lock the ground-target marker at maximum skill range, preventing the marker from being placed out of range.

Jesus freaking christ, that's the best thing in this patch! And it only took 3 years!

[Edge-]

Jesus freaking christ, that's the best thing in this patch! And it only took 3 years!

Yeah, this is awesome.

This patch is huge and now I'll have to relearn/look up some builds for my characters. The bright side is my ranger/mesmer alts could fill out all their skills/etc. So there's that!

[PACOX]

I only had an hour to mess with all the classes, haven't touched conditions yet but somethings I play to play with later:

Venomshare on thief seems good in PVE/dungeons + thieves can stack fury pretty much indefinitely along with high ferocity . Rune of Rage?

Necros see to have a lot of support and ways to fend of death now. It will be hard for me to play anything but power necro but I will try some tanky/support builds later (PvP)

My mesmer is build is all messed up but are mantras no longer meta in pve? At least completely dominating pve?

I want the first two specs and beast master on my Ranger just to be a selfish longbow camper, seems viable in a selfish sort of way.

Warrior is pretty much the same but with more room imo.

Haven't been able to look at ele or guard yet, engis look nice but I don't play engi.

[carnifex2005]

Interesting bugs found in this Reddit thread. My favourite... "Thief grandmaster trait in Critical strikes "No Quarter" is bugged as it give 20 seconds of fury instead of 2. I managed to get 3 hours of fury by just auto attacking a golem."



I've got to try that on my thief.

[Karizee]

Before you monsters get too giddy with blowing everyone/everything to smithereenies, the devs have been spotted warming up at the plate with their nerf bats.

Things we know

Just getting these out there so we know we are all in agreement:

1) Conditions seem a bit strong
2) World bosses are currently too easy
3) There are some bugged skills and traits
4) There are some overpowered builds

We won’t fix it all at once but these are four large topics we are talking about. In the meantime keep the feedback and bug reports coming, and I guess farm up some world bosses. We are dedicating time towards these issues and are intending to resolve them as quickly as possible. As we have said before, the live environment differs too greatly from anything we can reliably simulate internally so big changes like today’s build will cause things to sometimes change at an alarming rateTM.

Thanks for your patience,
Jon
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...Things-we-know

For you art lovers or if you simply want some cool art to play around with for your webpages and whatnot, here an album of the Specialization backgrounds courtesy of that_shaman:
http://imgur.com/a/cIOW3

[zito]

Mantras were never meta in PvE

- - - Updated - - -

Maim the Disillusioned: Reduced the torment from 2 stacks for 6 seconds to 1 stack for 6 seconds.

Typical, necros and engineers keep their OP conditions and now a grandmaster trait is useless

GG

- - - Updated - - -

interrupt traits still don't work in PvE

can I just... ugh what the fuck is the point of half of mesmer traits if they don't fucking work in the majority of the game.

[Fencers]

Really don't get why certain stats are a thing anyway in GW2. Seems super pointless most often. Usually I just made sure I had enough crit/power and proceeded to smash all PVE content in the game I tried my hand at with second thought, pre-planning and usually in total ignorance of mechanics.

I don't know what a single boss in this game does at all. I beat all the dungeon, LS, fractal and open world bosses I have come across.

Not sure if any stat in game trumps "running in circles while shooting at monster and dodging".

[Edge-]

And yet, the class always feels...messy? Disjointed? I don't know how to explain how it feels, but it always puts me off playing it.

Kinda feel this way on my mesmer alt (who I need to finish the main story on). Felt like my guardian/ranger made sense from top to bottom, and even my midish level elementalist makes sense. But my mesmer? Kinda just feels...eh. May be that I'm fucking awful at this game (it probably is that), but mesmer has never really felt like it "fit" to me.

[Karizee]

In case you didn't catch it (since it wasn't in the patch notes) the game now saves a different build for you in each of the 3 game modes. So if you're seeing an ability performing differently in WvW than PvE, check your build. Not quite a build template function, but they're getting closer!

Glhf and don't slaughter too many innocents!

[zito]

Oh finally wvw has its own trait spec. Now I'll play wvw because that was literally the only reason I didn't play it. No sarcasm.

I just want like for example to apply vulnerability to a target with defiance if I'm doing the act of interrupting but not actually interrupting (cause balance). Fucking engineers get their quickness on knock back on a foe with defiance but mesmer shit can't?

[PACOX]

In case you didn't catch it (since it wasn't in the patch notes) the game now saves a different build for you in each of the 3 game modes. So if you're seeing an ability performing differently in WvW than PvE, check your build. Not quite a build template function, but they're getting closer!

Glhf and don't slaughter too many innocents!

I cab settle for this (even though I still want an actual build manger).

[carnifex2005]

I'd grab the normal GW2 ($50 version with HoT). In my opinion, the additions to the $75 version aren't worth it. I only grabbed the $100 version because I was probably going to be spending $50 in gems anyways during the life of HoT.

[rhandric]

I personally find that the $100 version is the best value. The $75 version effectively costs $25 for the character slot (the other additions are fun items but probably not really worth $25). With the addition of the character slot (to come later, vs 1 immediately and 1 later with the $75/$100 versions) to the $50 version, the value on that is decent as well. If you plan on ever buying gems during the course of HoT, though, the $100 will be worth it.