The Scrying Pool begins its glorious return with general Specialization Speculation for Heart of Thorns.

As I look at specializations over the coming weeks, I am actually only going to be focusing on the right half of the bar for each. ArenaNet has commented that specializations are going to make the profession play very differently with new mechanics for the profession. A lot of speculation I have seen in this regard has players thinking this means the profession specific mechanics that exist above the weapon skills and, by default, use the F1-F4 skills.

I actually don’t think these are going to change much—if at all. In the trailer, we saw a glimpse of the Druid and it still had a pet, which is Ranger’s profession specific mechanic. There are very few things that I think truly separate a profession from a completely new profession, and the profession specific mechanic is the largest of those. Where things like weapons and utility types such as signets are used across multiple professions, the profession specific mechanic is the largest uniqueness to a profession. Since we know that specializations are changing and expanding a profession and not creating an entirely new one, I don’t think that we will see this mechanic changing.

Instead of the profession specific mechanic, I think the new mechanics lie more in the weapons and utilities that are used. Introducing melee options to an all ranged class or adding a brand new utility type is the direction of new mechanics that I see specializations going.

Other than the right half of the bar and weapons there are traits, but I imagine traits are one of the last things that ArenaNet looks to create when making professions and specializations. It would be a little odd, for example, to create a trait that reduces Staff cooldowns before you even know if the class is going to use a staff. Some of the traits probably naturally pop-up as creating the professions or specialization—and in fact, I have thought of a few that I will bring up when talking about specializations—but for the most part, traits are not something I will dive into.

With weapons I don’t think there is too much to discuss, plus we already know what half of the weapons are going to be. I might talk a little bit more about what I see a weapon doing for a profession when I get to it, but for the most part it will just be a list of this weapon with this general playstyle. You won’t have to wait for my list of which profession gets what weapon however, as below is the list of the profession, potential specialization name and the weapon I see them using.

• Guardian -- Cleric -- Longbow
• Warrior -- Musketeer -- Off-hand Pistol
• Engineer -- Mechanic -- Hammer
• Ranger -- Druid -- Staff
• Thief -- Mugger or Thug -- Off-hand Mace or Hammer
• Elementalist -- Mage -- Main-hand Sword
• Mesmer -- Chronomancer -- Off-hand Shield
• Necromancer -- Dreadknight -- Greatsword

You might be able to get a bit of a hint of where I am thinking these classes will go based off of their name and weapon choices. I didn’t list the Revenant as we don’t know everything the base class is doing, so even thinking about how that will be expanded is a bit of a stretch.

The last thing I wanted to speculate on with specializations as a whole is with classes that are only getting a one-handed weapon. This applies to Mesmer with gaining a shield as well as my speculations of Warrior, Elementalist and potentially the Thief. The other classes are getting two-handed weapons, which gives them more skills as that is a full set of fives skills whereas the others might only be getting two or three skills.

I think that the specializations that get a new weapon that is a one-hand only addition will also be getting a change to an existing weapon to compliment that. Something that I brought up in an old Scrying Pool was the idea of alternate weapon skills for existing weapons. The example I always think about is Mesmer sword and how I wished it was more of a rapier than the generic sword play it currently has. I think that when Mesmer’s specialization gets a shield, it will also get three new sword skills that will replace the existing sword skills while in that specialization.

With that in mind, I will leave you with the list of weapons that I believe will get different skills based on my list of professions that are getting a non-two-handed weapon.

• Warrior -- Main-hand Sword
• Thief (if Off-hand Mace) -- Main-hand Pistol
• Elementalist -- Off-hand Dagger
• Mesmer -- Main-hand Sword

Matt "Mattsta" Adams can't wait to learn more about Specializations.

I've been doing dungeons lately to try and complete some of those collections. Just finished my first dungeon collection (Arah) recently thanks to the PvP Reward tracks. Will be finishing up both Caudecus's Manor and Honor of the Waves soon. After that however, it will be a while before another is finished. What are you currently working on while we wait for Heart of Thorns?

If you have a question for me or a topic you would like to see talked about here, leave a comment below. You can also tweet your question and topics to me on twitter @MattstaNinja. Also, check out my site Mattsta.Ninja that focuses on guides and more for Guild Wars 2.