Now I'm Ranking The Heart of Thorns Specialisations (Much Tougher!) 

I like the facet skills of herald because it reminded me of playing a dervish in GW1. The idea of starting and enchantments for passive bonus effects and then ending them for different attacks and effects. I know it's not the same and not as complex in GW2 but I liked playing my herald with a scythe staff and pretending to be a dervish. x)

Disliked Dragonhunter at release, still do. The fact that to this day a guardian is superior to ranger at power traps has affected my perception of both classes.

As a Scrapper Main, I love playing it. I find it the most fun of anything I've used, in every game mode.

Reaper best spec! Even though I know Scourge is broken op I just can't bring my self to play it over Reaper because Reaper is just so fun.

All HoT specs are pretty solid at this point. When it first came out I definitely liked Druid the most for the theme. That’s also when I started playing this game as well.

I love these kinds of videos! HoT is also my favorite expac so I was looking forward for this one :3

Wierd compliment for a tier list guide: the way you move the ranks up and down on the tier list as you talk about the pros and cons respectively is actually a brilliant way to hook me as an audience member. Not sure if this was intentional but it was a brilliant subtlety that hooked me throughout your series.

16:10 - I LOVE that you talked about this. Often I see comments from people saying they don't like a new elite spec because it doesn't make their char more stronger, like a new elite spec is an upgrade to their current one. They miss the whole point! This system's idea is to give you another TAKE on your class. You don't HAVE to use it, it is rather an option. Like Rangers, masters of bows, get to use nature power to heal instead of dps, hence the druid, etc, etc.

Congrats on 150k :D! I'm coming back to GW2 after a long break and I remember watching your videos all the way back in 2012. Glad you're still going strong!

I'd say make one for Core too :p

I really feel like Tempest is getting a bit of a free pass here. It’s always struck me as a thematic mess like they couldn’t really figure out what they wanted to do with it.

Great content WP! While I am disappointed with how low Scrapper was, I agree with the majority of your comments. It’s funny, in hindsight looking back at a batch of Elite Specs, I don’t feel nearly as bad about the new ones for EOD. I even rewatched some of the reveal videos for HoT and I think with todays current audience there would roughly the same amount of disparity.

IMO, the EOD elite specs concepts really pale in comparison to the previous elite specs

As an Engineer main, I've been meh on the Scrapper since HoT dropped, until I found the quickness/healer scrapper. I've been having so much fun playing support scrapper in Fractals.

Reaper #1, no doubt. Everything about the design is awesome, and you can build it as a sturdy plexiglass cannon or as an indestructible bruiser. Good stuff!

These videos are really fun, love this content wp

To be fair to Herald it had the most clear lore inspiration for it with the skills coming from the facet bosses of Glint's mission in prophecies. Something which was still fresh in our minds after LW S2 had beat us over the head with references several times prior to HoT.

I would love it if you added the core professions as actual specs next to the elite spec in your final vid in the series. Would be cool to see what they bring to the table

It put a smile on my face to see that your Top 3 order is basically the order of time I spent playing those classes. HoT made me swap my main (which was a Mesmer from GW2 core game) to play a lot more Necro (which was my 2nd most played core spec), and I spent countless hours using it to solo stuff, especially after they nerfed some of the way mesmer works as a class. I still loved chrono and played it a lot. Maybe equal time to my Reaper. I also really enjoyed Daredevil and started to play thief a lot more (mainly in WvW stuff) up until I stopped playing the game just before PoF was released. I remember playing the PoF Beta and not really liking the feel of the Mirage or the Scourge. Even though I made and levelled up the other HoT Specialisations and geared them out I never really got into them all as much. Yesterday I looked at some of the old builds I had been making and tweaking for solo gameplay (in 2015/16) on my Reaper and Chrono and was quite shocked to see how much they have changed the traits and even how some of the weapon skills work. Reaper Greatsword 3 50% Health spam was fun. I see that is gone now amongst many other things. If I was to rejoin the game I'd have to start again from scratch almost. I had a chill based solo build, a condi build, a minion build, and I doubt they would work any more in the current game. It is fun to reminisce

Scrapper was low for me for a long time, but in the last year, year and a half, it's become my favorite spec full stop (I made a combo field based build that I find a lot of fun to play.) I do expect mechanist to replace it though.

S - Reaper A - Tempest, Daredevil B - Scrapper, Berserker C - Druid, Chronomancer D - Herald, Dragonhunter Reaper Minion Master has been overpowered ever since it was released. I literally didn't pick up Scourge because Reaper was just so much stronger. Tempest is fantastic because it does everything all at once with Celestial stats. Its great especially in WvW imo. Daredevil has always been the best specialization for Thief. It just takes what made the thief good, and makes it even better. Scrapper was my go-to PvP character because it was so good at doing everything. Cavalier stats made Scrapper super overpowered. I didn't have any "bad matchups" when it came to playing Scrapper. But for the rest of the game, it wasn't all that great. I have stuck with Berserker since it's release just because I love the burst it provides. Spellbreaker was fun, but not as much as using the burst skills from Berserker and just melting an opponent. Druid was stupid when it was first released. It was so overtuned I couldn't die with Cleric stats. I was able to solo entire teams in PvP and just endlessly hold points. But its been nerfed really hard and it just feels like there isn't much left for it. Chronomancer was never really my cup of tea, but it felt really strong when I played it and fought against it. Herald is a biased opinion because Ive never liked Revenant. Every Revenant I played with was just bad and the support they offered just didnt feel great. It also felt like Revenant wasn't great in any situation where there was more than 1 enemy because everyone ran the sword and relied on the 3 skill to do damage. Dragonhunter is by far my least favorite. I was hoping for something that made Guardian super support. Everyone had seemingly always played Guardian with damage and I hated that. I always played Guardian as support and Dragonhunter was just even more frustrating.

Love these types of videos WP ❤️👏

Really loving these videos! Can’t wait till POF.

Love these videos. I think the only swap I would make in my tier list would be DH up to A and Beserker down to B

All HoT especs are really solid.

I've still got such limited experience with the x-pacs, that I've only really experienced half of the chrono tree so far. The dragonhunter might actually make me interested in picking up guardian.

Really interested to see the PoF tier list and the grand finale tier list. Anyway, if anyone was interested, here's my personal tier list (from an almost pure PvE player) Berserker: S rank. Berserker feels really good to play, running either power or condition DPS builds. The theme is really cool as well, using fire as a literal weapon, smashing the ground with such force that you raise burning rocks. I have no complaints about it. Dragonhunter: A rank. It's okay? The longbow feels nice to use, the traps are fairly iconic, but it's pretty simple. I have a lot of memories of my mind defaulting to Dragonhunter as core guardian when playing before Path of FIre as announced. It's not the greatest but it's certainly good. Herald: A rank. I really like Herald, I do. Splashing boons for my allies feels great and it offers a relatively simple playstyle compared to something more advanced like Renegade these days. I actually really love the block on Shield 5, becoming immobile but literally blocking everything and healing yourself. Daredevil: A rank. I have the same issues with Daredevil that I do with Dragonhunter; it feels very... core. My mind defaults to daredevil as core guardian. The dodges are really cool but that's really all it's got going for it. No new steal skill like Deadeyes Mark or the new Specters Siphon (and no Swipe doesn't count it's virtually the same skill). I really do like the condition variants, spamming Impaling Lotus dodge and Dual Dagger 3 to splash around heaps of conditions on enemies, but it still feels pretty vanilla. Reaper: S rank. Reaper is just utterly awesome. I loved the idea of turning my character from a skulkier, dual dagger killer into a marauding, tenacious, bringer of death. Wading through hordes of enemies with a greatsword still feels awesome to this day, and shouting things at them like "You are all weaklings!" just fulfills the fantasy even more. Unranked: Chronomancer, scrapper, druid, tempest. I've never really sat down and played any of these. I do have a fully leveled and geared druid but I hardly use it. I do like its F5 mechanic, it's pretty interesting on paper, but I just don't have the hours on my belt to give a proper opinion on it. For chronomancer, I did recently max out a build but I just haven't had the time to mess around with it in higher-end PvE like Strikes.

Man, I remember in early HoT development when Rebound was a cd reduction effect instead of its current state. It was a really interesting mechanic, but I can also see exactly why they changed it (imagine trying to coordinate with people to have everyone use their long cooldowns at the same time). Being able to take Rebound as some amount of support on top of a DPS Tempest build was a lot of fun, though. Of course I will admit that the high point of Tempest to me was always the overloads.

After my long hiatus I started playing Daredevil on a whim. The mobility stuff they built with that spec are so fun and perfect, that I honestly can't see other professions being superior. One of the reasons I really don't like these EoD specs. They're gonna have to try really really hard to break me from my DD. So far, not doin so hot.

If it wasn't for the pvp Chrono bunker meta at HoT launch, I'd put Chrono at S. Unfortunately, I was traumatized by Chrono bunkers to the point that I have to place it in the "delete pls" section lol. It's been so long, but idk if I'll ever recover

I love today scrapper support for open world metas with escosts, i alwayes run it in DS and speed up the line massivly plus it is great at circle runing in the tower boss fight, superspeed + quickness + condi cleanse + antiprojectile bauble + cc + range rez capacity, it is really fun to play.

I used to main dps tempest, in solo play I always get 25 stacks of might with hardly any boom duration which makes me question how is the other spec better? I mean I suppose if you have a group and you’re getting might from other things then overlap would be bad but at the same time… if you think about it.. I’m a high dmg class that can also support my allies? A button that literally says you can’t die for the next 10 secs? Too me that’s insanely good.

I love flamethrower scrapper. So much. With all the barrier and stuff added too, it's one of my favorites to this day. As far as a specific theme is concerned? I think all of engineer kind of struggles with that.

This may sound like a bad argument, but I think the naming of the EoD Specs is something additional that holds back most of them. Chronomancer is a good example imo. The name fits the theme of a time mage perfectly and just when you here the name you are in on the fantasy an you know what its about, even tough the ingame mechanic was relatively simple - it was a complete package. If you have names that dont really say much or dont conjure a distinct fantasy in your mind - like Willbender, Untamed, Virtuoso, Harbinger etc. - then you only have the ingame mechanics to look at and fill your imagination. Imagine the Harbinger being called "Alchemist" for example. You would have a much clearer vision of what it wants to be. Of course the ingame mechanics have then to support this theme to make it complete. The really missed the mark for the EoD Specs in that regard.

Reaper IMO deservers S tier because it gave so much of what the Nerco was missing in the core game and at the time Nercomancer was the worst PvE spec and didn't have a viable Power spec (in an era where that was the only thing that mattered).

Wuzz Up WP! You gonna do any Monster hunter rise stuff in January? I wish GW2 did the cross over like ff14 amd witcher in world!

For me it is as follows: S: Reaper (my main ever since I joined game during the HOT era) A: Berzerker, Daredevil, Chronomancer B: Scrapper, Herald C: Dragonhunter, Tempest D: Druid I have a character for each core and for each elite and have 9 extra right now for EOD elites coming (I'm prepared!) but the exception is Ranger. I have 3 Soulbeasts are present and one Core, and NO Druid. I'm just can't get the hang of it, I'm not a purely support player, even when I play Alacrity or Barrier builds I'm still not satisfied unless I'm also doing my own decent damage. Druid, I just haven't found a build for it that worked that I couldn't do better on Core or SB. Also I think you put Scrapper too low, it is Engi+ and I have had a lot of fun swinging my hammer even when I don't use gyros.

I want to take this video as a chance to speak my mind about engi now that we had the mechanist, I know elites should be unique, but there is a bit of similarities between one elite and another or a core build, since mechanist felt a bit like ranger with the idea of a “pet” but keeping it unique with the defiance bar, and the trait line affecting the commands, I think they should rework scrapper in the same level the reworked thief traps, so the gyros feel like necromancer’s minions (like they used to, I dont remember them well, but I think the also expired back then), the idea of having permanent companions could make up for the inaccessibility of weapon swap while fighting; like tool kits and equipments, and summoning gyros the same way necrosis summon minions would be a good approach to scrapper and might give it a lot of roleplay and gameplay value, likehaving a trait line that improves gyros, like increased output healing to allies for the medic Gyro, increased damage for the shedder, increased barrier duration for the bulwark, regen for purge, instead of exploding blast gyro could pulse burning while in combat, and if it dies it could then explode and off course the gyro improvement would be to improve its burning or give it more burning stacks, the sneak could give quickness as well as the stealth and as flesh golem the stealth would be a follow up skill after being deployed, dunno that would make scrapper more interesting for me, feeling a bit like minions being always there but being a good mix on support with offensive uses.

As someone whose playtime in GW2 is 20% Open world metas, 20% Open world solo, 5% Fractals, 5% WvW and 50% of idling at Lion's Arch... I gotta say that the Druid is straight up F Tier for me. I tried it for a day and after that I haven't really seen a reason to even unlock it on my rangers. I know that it is "not made for me". I guess what I'm saying is, that I don't like the idea of super narrow designs on the elite specs. If I had been a "ranger main" during HOT when Druid was the only option, I would have felt betrayed. Based on my (admittedly limited) testing, I think the Spectre is going to go to end up in a similar place for me. AKA I'm never going to play it :(

Out of all classes and specs, I haven't had more fun with any class like I had with Scrapper.

Dragonhunter is such a weird spec but I really love parts of it. The upgraded Virtues are so fun to use, and the traps are satisfying seeing so many layers of damage pop up all at once.

I think I'd agree with this but I am surprised you ranked Herald so low - from a DESIGN perspective it's extremely well thought out, from the way the signets pulse the composition of Glint's Lair, the way the signets tie in with Glint's Lair's aesthetic and names, plus the way it can switch between intense and light energy management. I am a Druid main in raids but I definitely think it's more restrictive in playstyle and less inventive than Herald.

Woodenpotatoes tier list content is so good!

After PoF can you do core specializations next?

Excited for PoF one and the Ultimate one with all Elite Specs

I remember being disappointed with druid in part because the staff was another ranged weapon, and chak were annoying. I suppose in hindsight they just made things more interesting as you swapped focus off the guys actively shielding, but sometimes it was hard to stop in time and at the time I wanted a melee weapon that wasn't greatsword (it felt too slow) or sword (felt too chaotic). However it offered at least some interesting condi-play and the enhanced walk speed so I did enjoy that, but I'll admit I didn't make much use of avatar form, which felt like a waste. I was able to better support my pets when they sometimes tanked for me though so that helped some with overworld in a funny way and probably helped me a bit more in terms of exploration and getting some rhythms down. For tempest I still enjoy it and I like the overloads, but encasing yourself in a bubble and floating around will never stop amusing me XD I think reaper's my overall favorite though since it did give us a shout to further capitalize on minions so that really helped create extra survivability for me as someone who enjoys minion mancing. I also liked the chill-to-bleed synergy in it, but also the greatsword just feels so fun in general on it.

I think you are spot on with ranger specs and hammers. However, I do feel differently about current scrapper. I love it for open world almost as much as the reaper. The scrapper hammer and Guardian hammer are my favorite hammer stuff. I love the tempest, but the chrono (I like the idea) and the dragon hunter never feel fun for me to play. I feel crazy for saying it, because I feel most people would feel the opposite.

As a casual player, I've only really played 3 out of 9 (druid, chronomancer, scrapper). Chronomancer is a fantastic idea. I wished they implemented that in GW1 because playing around time is fascinating. GW2 can't give that much space to chronomancer, there are too many good ideas to bring around that spec. Too bad that it's uniqueness with alacrity created a chronoprison for a long time. Druid has cool animations and the theme is great, it fits well with HoT. But playing as a healer wasn't something I enjoyed much. Scrapper at first I didn't like at all the idea. But I must say, it feels good in WvW: some mobilty, some barrier, superspeed, quickness, and still powerful.

Interesting. I adore Herald personally, and it has been one of my most consistently successful characters (with Scrapper not far behind), while I cannot play Chronomancer for the life of me. Then again, I am the kind of player who rejoiced at Mechanist getting passive abilities and losing the toolbelt, so I imagine my playstyle is quite different. I agree with Reaper though. My friend nicknamed my Reaper character 'Blender'.

As a reaper main from the second it came out I agree with this very much :)

I play codi power crit Reaper, and I do use chill with damage!

The strangest thing with a melee staff (DD) is how a lot of staff art at high (if not most) tiers typically cater towards magic looking. Perfect example is Nevermore. Like, I'm going to somersault into combat and smack a dragon with a bough of branches? Come onnnnn!! Yes there are a select few skins that make it more feasible BUT, for the most part, it kind of pulls me out of the feeling of playing the class for what it is. Thoughts WP?

I've started recently running Druid for open world and I'd like to disagree with your ranking of it- the fantasy it feeds for me is that true support for my pet. The "Go get 'em Spot, I'm right behind you" augmented by the ability to quickly jump out of danger with the staff. I'll admit the Celestial stuff always felt a bit strange, but there is still a very good core concept there, where Ranged Support feels VERY good.

To this day I still run reaper and DD. The rest I have reverted to core or moved on to their PoF elite spec.

Make that like, sub, bell animation bigger! You definitely deserve more subs.

Daredevil is absolutely S-tier for me as a Thief main ! The fact that you not only have a triple dodge but also 2 viable dodge-modifications *and* a really strong and cool weapon with great animations is just perfect. Just a shame that Deadeye was completely awful.

I loved druid in HoT just for bringing an actual "role" to gw2 even though it wasn't gw2s vision. The holy trinity in gw2 was better because of it imo

I am surprised you put Herald as the worst. For me it was definitely one of the best. I get the micro part, but that system of facets in itself added another layer of gameplay no other build had. Having to anticipate when you would need the stun break vs. buffing yourself before the event occurred is very good design. The animations are pretty and Herald was also really flexible. It had many places in any game mode and the trait/legend combinations actually benefited Herald whist keeping the playstyle you wanted. Herald had defense and very good offensive capabilities. It really spoke to the nature of Glint herself. Tactical and always planning ahead of time before you act. That is what made Herald A-tier in my opinion. The theme was on point.

WP, while you are at it we are still waiting for your Path of Fire overall story review (I couldn't find it if you already did it). Personally, both Chronomancer and Mirage are up there for me (other elites are catching up as well) for thematic reason. Mesmer, being an illusionist, goes further to distort Time (Chronomancer) and Space (Mirage, well sort of, with the evades and invuln). Virtuoso goes back to the actual reality by forgoing illusion and wields physical blades which is honestly refreshing. It's too early to rank Vrt since it's not quite finished yet.

I think the dragon hunter controversy for me was more about the fact that the core guardian didn't fulfil its thematic tropes very well, so I was hoping that the elite specs would redeem that to some degree (I was looking for something to fill the druid type void)

I think the elite specs at release of HoT were the best they ever were. I believe some of them were overtuned, sure, but there were some changes I felt were just unnecessary and just weighed them down over time. Changes like with Reaper no longer dealing ice damage with deathly chill. I felt that Reaper was a masterclass in class-design, having deeply compelling thematics that played directly in to it's gameplay, and even capitalized on it's weakness of not having many movement options, but then leaning in to this by making it into a horror movie monster. It was amazing! Easily my personal favorite elite specialization on release. Now? I still like to play it, but it doesn't feel nearly as good. I feel like instead of this slow-moving, hard-hitting, bursty but cumbersome horror, you just kinda spec into all the new shroud skills related to damage, and it feels very easy to land this sustained barrage of bursty damage.

My Favorite Elite specs for each class Ranger: Untamed Thief: Daredevil Engineer: Scrapper Necromancer: Harbinger Elementalist: Weaver Mesmer: Virtuoso Guardian: Dragonhunter Revenant: Vindicator Warrior: Berserker

Great video as always WP. Looking back on the elite specs really reinforces my dislike on offhand weapons as an elite spec weapon. Anet should avoid using them for elite specs as they offer little to no value in most gameplay for most classes. I mean it only give you two skills that are often lack lustered compared to other established offhand weapons, which is very lazy for a so called "elite" class. The weapon should always be synonymous with the elite spec not as an after thought or a niche option. The only class that I think it worked well with are classes that has different weapon mechanics, such as thief with its weapon 3 combination and elementalist with its 4 elemental attunements.

Reaper and DareDevil are my favorite Elite Spec and still played them .

Engi main here, Scrapper is one of the best well all around class. Yes it excell at all, master of none but you can achieve basically everything with it, from decent burst, sturdiness to perma quickness heal support with massive amount of sustain. Also it more flexible when comes go kits. None talking about it incredible good mobility. Holosmith in other hand is a big let down because the holoforge mechanics which is half baked due the fact you are forced to use fillers in between.

I think the biggest issue I've always had with Herald is that the boons became such an afterthought after HoT. That's a general issue for me with everything new that just brings boons, but it ultimately makes keeping up Facets kind of boring and they don't interact much with how you play. The end result is you think about them more as the actives, which are fun, but aside from maybe first few months of HoT that boon-centric part of Herald never existed.

I agree with most of these except for Scrapper. I'm a big fan of Scrapper and think the new way the utilities work are really good for the general bruiser theme. The utilities are also still fairly unique as far as how they work.

damn the elite spec and class showcase back in the days were really hype and well done, the current one seems to have dropped that wow factor! miss those old trailers

You can do core classes as well!!

Just the drop in quality of the elite spec trailers alone show how budgeted they are this expansion

I like how off-the-cuff this was where you leave yourself room to bounce back and forth between tier listings as you go and nothing is really set in stone.

Reaper for Life(Death)....Overhead Smash, Spin2Win, Ice-explosions....it's the BEST

I like the tier lists!!!

You should do one for core on it’s own too.

I used to drive a chrono in WvW it was so much fun.. boon share! 😆

HoT will always be special for me. My son was born three days before the release. Named my rev after him. Thought I didn't get to much time playing the game during the first few weeks haha

This is weird to me. I'm re-watching some of his old/older videos and he reviewed the new scrapper, after they changed gyros to wells, standing in Auric Basin and going over everything and he seemed to love it. He was so enthusiastic about it. Now all of a sudden "i don't know, I don't like the wells, i like the old gyros better". What happened? Where did this change come from?

Man, I remember the backlash there was when they showed the Tempest. People were generally pissed because Elementalist was all about constantly switching elements etc. While this spec focussed on staying in an element for quite some time. I think this is where the backlash from Mechanist currently also comes from. It doesn't resemble (from a gameplay standpoint) what Engineer originally did.

I'm a healer scraper(gun+shield) now and I would put scrapper on the top ;p 15:36 SAME! And rifle too. I really wish they can do some new stuff on these two weapons on the new elites but no ...

Herald has always been one of the most fun, skill-gated, and best specs in the game, for pve group content not so much I agree with that, but in every other game mode it has seen a lot of play and a LOT of nerfs to bring it down to the level of the other elite specs (even in difficulty) imo

I don't know why but after playing guardian since launch, dragon hunter forced me to play a different profession.. I think during HoT I was kinda swinging between engi and mesmer as mains and found them very fun

I wish arenanet would have waited at least until the first living story after HoT to introduce the Reveant's elite spec: Herald. So the devs could have a little more time to assess how to make the elite class stand out from the base profession.

As a player who started playing only beyond PoF (actually in reality, just before IceBrood Saga). From an open world perspective and some stuff like Strikes and early Fractals, Chronomancer just feels underwhelming versus Mirage mainly the movement, ambush, and clone generation potential just made it fun. Whereas by the time I got to Chrono, a lot of what made it special (Alac, Quickness) has been replicated, so the Time Continuum is the only interesting thing, and has such a big cool down which means you will not use it a lot. So there is really not a lot of time manipulation that made it unique. In terms of fun for Chrono, is mainly the DPS, the Split Second damage when pulling foes together is amusing, rather than the boon it generates; and thus it feels like a better core mesmer rather than a new class. The other class I spent a lot of time on is guardian. While I get the theme might be jarring to some, is quite a nobility thing to hunt game. The gameplay change from core does feel quite significant, traps and ranged is very interesting. The ability to keep enemies at range, or drag them in to traps gives the class a different dynamism. However, the effectiveness just pales in comparison to Firebrand, which I held off from using for a long time but just can't help it. The way it can be team changing when playing with (fellow) newbies in harder content is just too effective to ignore.

As a guardian mine, I would put DH lower. C. The mechanical disconnect between the longbow and the point blank melee trap is just too much. Thematically, they're linked through being "ranger-y", but mechanically, 1200 range and point blank melee is just a hard no. You never really get to bring the full kit to ebar at the same time.

I love DareDevil! The almost immortal build is fun and easy to use.

Pre rework Scraper suffer more or less from the same thing as Mechanist that is the AI. It isn't as bad as the Mech AI since the only thing it did was either following you, dropped on a point or rushing the enemy. As far as RP and fun goes I enjoyed pre rework Scraper more but as far as performances goes, reworked Scraper is better. But still, it's nice that Anet didn't just left HoT spec rot in favor of PoF and EoD spec. They're still relevant up to this day and I hope they'll remain in the futur

Just a suggestion: could you maybe delay the last battle royale ranking to after the last beta? That way you would have new information about the feel of each new spec

Generally agree with this list a lot. I'd just push scrapper up a bit to B Tier now that it is reworked with good quickness, superspeed and barrier application. It has made for a really fun spec to play. They are all really good quality of life buffs that I miss when playing other classes. However, won't get any futher up as Wells is an uninspired implementation of Gyros, the overall theme is lacking, and it has by far the worst class icon.

Herald was my favorite Elite spec at the beginning of HoT. Permanent buffs + quickness? Sign me the fuck up! Now, i think my favorite one is Tempest. I love everything about it. I just never play it because it's not meta and all i do is group content.

Funny enough, I LOVE the new scrapper and when i rolled a necro, i dodged reaper cuz while it looked neat, it just felt like a melee necro and nothing more. Though in my mind, being an improvisionist making use of what scraps can cobble into makeshift armor and launching support drones to cover the team while they move in is one of my favourite fantasies. In the end, let’s be honest, mechanist took the show and no ones gonna scrap anymore lol

I used to be hardcore ranger main, I was so excited for Druid, raced to complete the spec, and then wound up being so disappointed by it I stopped playing my ranger almost completely. With my play style it's almost worse than useless and I did not enjoy staff. I play ranger to beat up the world with a cool animal friend, not to throw plant walls around and buffbot. I made a second ranger for POF so I could just delete the character if I hated this spec too and ended up absolutely loving poison Soulbeast, it reminds me of the A/R I used to run in Factions. I went back to my original ranger to get ready for EOD so maybe I can start playing her again because I had high hopes for the Untamed and the beta event confirmed for me that it's going to be much better than Druid. Daredevil and Reaper are the absolute best HOT specs, DD is so fun to play and Reaper is ridiculously powerful and such a great spec for soloing. I liked Chrono, Dragonhunter, and Tempest too, but it took me a while to really learn them. Never ended up getting super into Herald, Scrapper, or Firebrand, but I did have fun playing them.

It would be really cool if we could mix the elites or at the very least have permanet access to those weapons without having to select the corresponding spec...

Yeah you're nuts for putting druid so low. It's like the only reason I get to enjoy ranger in group content any more. Funnily enough, PoF specs had me rolling in old HoT specs much more quickly than I thought I would; they often just felt not as fun for me, so this tier list is much harder to rank anything in C or D tier personally.

i think u should do 2 tier list for for HoT Specs . One for Current and One for Chrono/Druid meta for 4+years before the many nerfs that made both of the specs average.

I hate to say it, but looking at the old specs kinda makes the EoD ones seem really lacking in creativity and almost like way less work went into them since most of them force you into a specific weapon or role, like they didn't want to add anything to other weapons or figure out how to make it synergize to allow different playstyles. Especially ones like Virtuoso, how do we go from time magic with Chrono and leaning hard into the house of mirrors, confusion aspect of clones with Mirage to Virtuoso and it just makes knives and that's it... I don't know how to feel.

Honestly WP I think you are also a bit sentimental about these :D. While most of the elite HoT specs are solid, I don't think that Daredevil deserves an A simply because it's practically just acrobatics thief before they shamelessly took away the third dodge. Similarly, Berserker is just warrior 1.5. Sure, it got new F1 skills for every weapon, but they did the way Virtuoso has new shatters, it really isn't functionally much different. Tempest on the other hand is a complete mess - it doesn't really have a proper theme, for many years it was shoehorned as a DPS simply because of one trait even though it was clearly designed to be DPS, it really remains a bit of a mess to this day. The overloads are very cool, but that is the only cool thing about it. This of course is my opinion though!

As a naturalist classes main in most of the RPGs I play, I was kinda disappointed by the druid as well. Mechanically clunky, fixed in a support role instead of having versatile trait lines, all that astral fantasy instead of planty nature stuff... Really sad. And even if I can see the reason in the Dragonhunter controversy, I can't stop loving this class. To me, the Guardian was a bit of a glass cannon because of low HP and reliance on healing and aegis and stuff, and adding a long-range DPS option to its mediocre core ranged caster options was absolutely awesome. The fantasy of using light magic as arrows, traps and virtues also clicked with me instantly, so the Dragonhunter remains my favorite and most-played spec to this day. Also, in addition to doing core guard stuff and fighting in melee, the ranged option definitely works in most game modes! And the Longbow is a beautiful versatile weapon with great damage, utility and visuals.

Feels like criticising Berserker torch for not being interesting is pretty harsh... Still the only mobile field on a weapon skill, I love that

for me Dragonhunter is S. its so fun and versatile to play. bit risky with his low life. Playing my DH since release of HoT. Tried Firebrand but imo its to much micromanagment. i want to play the game not my UI. 2nd, also S, is Reaper. its so brain afk class ^^ you can shred everything and dont have to worry about most/some mechanics. but i dont really like the dark and edgy classes. so i play mainly my Guardian as Dragonhunter. Last couple of weeks i felt in love with Soulbeast. but thats for the next video ;-)

The only controversy I remember about Dragonhunter leading up to HoT was its terrible name. I remember many players, like Matt Visual, begged for Longbow before Dragonhunter's reveal. Demonhunter or Valkyrie would have been a cooler name.