Even though I played several hours on all three of the Guild Wars 2 (GW2) End of Dragons (EoD) elite spec classes that were part of the August 17-21,2021 beta test event, I don’t feel as though I have a lot to say about them. However, I’m sharing my opinion anyway.
I should mention that my testing ground was mainly the Auric Basin Octavine meta event, and a few guild bounty missions. I currently don’t PvP, and do very very little WvW, so, open world PvE is where my beta test took place.
My thoughts on the Elites (Virtuoso, Harbinger, and Willbender):
Virtuoso
I love the mechanics, hate the no clones, love the dual daggers. I love the amount of damage my character had. However, I know it’s going to get nerfed later, but I love it right now.
I didn’t really have to tweak much on the virtuoso, because it was already doing high damage by default. I only changed to see how core Mesmer illusion-related traits would react with the Virtuoso elite traits given the Virtuosos don’t have clones or illusions.
I like that my dagger collection stayed with me even after I’ve left combat. Currently, Mesmer clones disappear when out of combat.
In terms of navigating the aforementioned meta event, it has a knockback skill, however, I personally wasn’t able to get it to work right with the push/pull dynamic of the South octavine.
Willbender
First I should start by saying that I’ve never played a guardian before in Guild Wars 2. I went in to this test completely blind with no knowledge of guardian skills or traits. I didn’t watch the Willbender introduction video until after the beta event. In that regard this was a completely blind test.
I found my character to be extremely squishy with little HP, low toughness (equipment stats didn’t help much). Damage-wise it wasn’t an ideal experience for me. I had to change the Willbender default build out of necessity in an attempt to increase damage numbers, base health, and health regeneration. My attempt wasn’t all that successful.
I like the look of the gear that I received with my beta character. However, the gears stats left much to be desired. This is something I just realized, I didn’t even look at the stats on the items I received with my Virtuoso and Harbinger.
Harbinger
I like the 1-5 skills, I like the shroud/blight system. Has a big risk of becoming very squishy while in the shroud. Mine was pretty decent damage-wise in my opinion as I copied my build from my PoE elite Necro.
I ended up changing the 6-0 skills away from the Harbinger potions to core reaper minions and scourge healing skills. I personally don’t feel as if the potion were worth adding to the game. I didn’t get any benefits out of them, and I tried using the default build and skill set up for a few days before changing them.
Damage-wise Harbinger in the shroud is awesome, however, being in the shroud is also a suicide mission has it steadily kills you the longer you’re in the shroud. I’m looking forward to seeing how people navigate the line between high damage, shroud suicide, and healing. I am thinking of creating a battle healer with my harbinger when EoD is released. Some sort of combination of the high damage of reaper minions, mixed with the healing of scourge traits, and scrouge suicide and high damage of harbinger appeals to me.
Thought regarding things not related specifically to the elite specs::
I absolutely hate how they gave me 250 mystic salvage kits (with each beta character), but I couldn’t save them in the bank ( I tried the disappeared after the beta event).
Any money I made selling stuff to merchants (no Trade Center/Gem Store access while on a beta character) was removed at the end of the beta event.
I couldn’t access my guild panel while on a beta character, but I could still participate in guild missions.
I didn’t even try to do any achievements because I knew going into the beta event those wouldn’t be saved.
Noticed that even though they were beta characters they were still given a “My Story” journal story line that started in the race beginner maps. I didn’t work on them because my progress wasn’t going to be saved.
I don’t know if ArenaNet knew it or not, but when I opened the map and zoomed out (while on a beta character) I could see a small section near the top of the map that look like they were designing a new area. I couldn’t access said area but I could see the design of the map which reminded me of a dungeon or story instance. On a regular character it had the typical “this is a completely unexplorable part of the map” fuzziness with the number “80” over it letting me know that it might become part of end game content (Lv. 80 max level content).
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