This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/guildwars2 by /u/Euphoric-Sea4248 on 2025-07-28 18:31:29+00:00.
Apparently, people quite enjoyed having a write up of the Luminary based on the recent spec stream and asked me to make one for all specs... so here’s my earlier Luminary write-up as well as the Troubadour and Galeshot.
In general I put my personal musings in the bottom part of each write up with the "how does it play probably" - in some cases I add my own thoughts when I feel it adds to the write up such as explaining certain mechanics. Please take these personal musings with a grain of salt. I'm definitely not a player at the level of Snow Crows and often go by my personal feelings or limited understanding of these classes.
I'm feeling rather negative about Luminary for instance, but cautiously optimistic about heal troubadour.
DPS troubadour leaves me baffled as to how it would function. Galeshot I'm incredibly optimistic about, both from a theme and gameplay proposition perspective.
In both Troubadour (healing) and dps/boondps Galeshot I can see the specs performing well.
Thanks to all the hard working screenshotters from the spec stream!
Luminary: https://i.imgur.com/jGTG3i6.jpeg
Troubadour: https://imgur.com/ZUkJK8m
Galeshot: https://imgur.com/Snl7gcD
Luminary
1. Class mechanic
A: Shroud
Shroud has a 20s cd that gets reduced by 5sec for every skill unused.
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Hammer does big damage, damage boons and more damage on mobs with cc
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Staff does damage, healing, condi removal and protective boons
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Sword does a leap with cripple and immobilize
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Shield does block and group aegis and a daze
Using a skill switches to a flipover that does more of the same.
B: Blessing
A buff you put on allies with shroud skills that gives them -10% damage taken and heals them when it expires.
2. Utilities affect you and others
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heal stance
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defence stance
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stab stance
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take damage for others stance
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bonus damage on cc'ed mobs stance
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ELITE: leap and bind enemies to you that stuns if they run
3. Traits
A. Stances give protection
B. Light aura on heal
C. Blessing triggers its heal and gets refreshed duration when leaving shroud
Minor - Blessing trait (gives access to it)
A. Protection and resolution heal you (stacks)
B. Light aura on you = remove ally conditions
C. Use forge skill = six seconds of +15%dmg for you. (Stacks to 20sec)
Minor - Bonus buff based on forge weapon you use (DMG done+/extra healing/movement/DMG taken-)
A. Virtues (F1-3) give alac. Using a Shroud skill reduces virtue cd.
B. Shroud skills explode light aura on you for damage and healing AOE.
C. Using a virtue recharged a Shroud skill so you can use them twice without adding extra shroud CD time. Justice for hammer / Resolve for staff / Courage for sword and shield
4. How do I think it will probably be played / personal musings
A. Go full power damage and bonk enemies with the shroud hammer. Recharge hammer with F1 and bonk them again. Use greatsword and whatever else to do damage while you wait for the shroud/hammer cd.
B. Go diviner / power and bonk enemies with shroud hammer and great sword out of shroud while using your virtues to give aoe alac DPS. Depending on duration you might want to use more shroud skills to reduce virtue CDs for alac uptime.
C. Go some scuffed version of base heal guardian with staff, mace and shield maybe. Use a variation of empower, stances, blink heal and signet of Mercy to heal allies and use virtues + shroud staff to heal and give alac.
But it is probably way worse than HFB because their kit is much better.
What luminary DOES have going for it is a combination of protection, restorative glow, luminary blessing and the "I take damage for you stance", allowing for a roughly 53%? reduction in damage taken by the party while you are around. That's absolutely incredibly strong.
I personally, still, don’t think this is a well designed or attractive elite spec.
While some people might feel its too early to ask for a redesign without having tested it I feel the spec as a proposition is… uninteresting and offers nothing that is truly valuable compared to Willbender and Firebrand.
There’s not enough going on, there’s no interesting choices and there’s a complete lack of mobility. As far as I can see the class will feel largely like a vanilla guardian with a blinding effect that reaches the person in front of the screen every five seconds.
I do hope to be proven wrong.
Troubadour
1. Class mechanic
A: Notes as clone replacement
A replacement for the usual mesmer “pips” that correspond to clones.
Instead of the usual 3 clones a Troubadour gets 3 notes.
Each summoned clone fills 1 note.
Every note adds 5 sec duration to an instrument summoned with shatters.
According to the stream the troubadour does not actually summon clones at all.
B: Instruments as shatter replacement
F1: Summons a Lute that does power damage
F2: Summons a Flute that does confusion and a daze
F3: Summons Drums that deal power damage and more daze
F4: Summons a Harp that pulses healing (No base distortion!)
F5: Deals power damage + barrier, increased by 25% for every summoned instrument
2. Utilities affect you and others. They have bonus effects based on summoned instruments:
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heal shout | more heal with 2 of ANY instruments up
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offensive boon shout | 2 free notes if Lute is up
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movement buff/cleanse shout | superspeed if Drums are up
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defensive shout | barrier if Harp is up
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damage/daze/debuff/boonrip shout | torment if Flute is up
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ELITE:
Base effect: Gives party chaos aura + Distortion (2s)
Enhance effect: Summons ALL instruments for 3 sec + 3 sec per summoned instrument.
3. Traits
A. Drum gets 1 extra hit after a delay (that also dazes), while drum is up you deal damage when you CC mobs.
B. Flute does torment and you heal when you apply torment (Its unclear if it does torment INSTEAD of confusion or confusion AND torment – I assume both)
C. F5 now extends boons (+3sec) regardless of notes/instruments.
Minor – 4% damage and 4% healing buff FOR YOU ONLY per instrument summoned (16% max for both)
A. Lute does more damage for each hit (power)
B. Shouts give 3 sec CD reduction for their matching instrument and give 1 note.
C. Harp gives YOU distortion and pulses alacrity and regen for allies while summoned
Minor – F5 gives Fury + 2 might per instrument playing (max 8)
A. F5 gives 1 note/sec for 5 seconds (5 total).
YOU gain 5% all attributes per instrument playing (20% max)
(Personal thoughts: the additional toughness is nice if you are tanking but annoying if you aren’t the tank in group content)
B. If you use 3 notes for an instrument the instrument will be summoned again after 1.5 seconds.
(Personal thoughts: I assume that can mean two things:
- The instrument that gets summoned just causes the initial shatter effect AGAIN and then gets unsummoned
- The instrument that gets summoned causes the initial shatter effect AGAIN and remains for base duration + 15 seconds (3 notes x 5 seconds) and now you have that instrument active twice?)
C. F5 is buffed depending on the last instrument you used. Reminder: F5 summons all instruments or extends their duration if they are already summoned.
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Lute before F5: +25% damage for the summoned Lute
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Flute before F5: 5 extra confusion caused by the summoned Flute (once?)
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Drums before F5: 3 seconds of extra daze caused by the summoned Drums
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Harp before F5: extra heal caused by the summoned Harp
4. How do I think it will probably be played / personal musings
A. Go harrier (healing+boon duration+power) and use Scepter+Shield / Rifle (or scepter / focus depending on the fight) as a heal alac with a fairly good kit.
You can give the party distortion to avoid deadly mechanics on a long cd or just ignore mechanics altogether.
Using scepter for clone generation, rifle for healing, mantras for healing and the wide array of great utility available to mesmer you should easily be able to upkeep 25 might, fury, alacrity, regeneration
You’ll likely need the chaos traitline to give 100% protection uptime without being forced to use the defensive shout and have no real access to swiftness without using a shout.
You also lose access to group aegis from well of precognition but you do get group stab through Bountiful disillusionment or Mantra of Concentration if you decide to not go with Chaos as a traitline.
You’ll likely end up summoning a variation of Harp + whatever else you need.
Likely drums or flute to assist with CC or empowering your shouts by summoning an instrument first.
For the traits I assume you’ll go with C > C > personal choice for the grandmaster.
Getting free notes for using F5 AND up to 20% bonus stats for having your instruments active is very good value and allows you to be a more effective tank. (option A)
Option (B) is also valuable because it gives you high value by gaining double shatter effect and maybe even double instruments. Having two harps spreading healing+alac around would be very good but I’m not sure that’s how the trait functions.
Option (C) is ...
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1mbo9oq/vod_elite_spec_writeup_luminary_galeshot/
