Good news everyone! Celeste and Allona moved the live show by one day to be able to talk AAAAAALLLL about specializations (or at least about what everyone thinks they mean prior to Friday's official Ready Up)!
Audio Version

What We Did This Week
 

Allona

Been doing my homework!
Tried TA Aetherpath for fungeons. Gave up. Then Fractaled!
Did a BUNCH of personal story over a few alts. Finally joined the Vigil!
Made another part of my medium ascended armour: the leggings!
Guild missions with Maven!
Fractals instead of a show!
Popped into GW1. Got a ton of minis as charity from Spirit, Hunter, and Celeste!
(totally forgetting stuff)

Celeste

Made Frenzy - still trying to decide if I want to sell it in order to have assets to work on mawdrey and whatever else I set as my goal afterwards.
Did Triple Wurm with an invite from Black Lion Chest on a TTS map. The pro groups really make it super simple and they were surprisingly friendly and helpful.
My thief is now level 80 and I’m nearing Rank 30 in PvP.
Tried to get my dailies settled up as often as possible.
Fractal’d with Hunter, Inks, M, and Allona

 

Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm ET/6:30pm PT at twitch.tv/mmoreporter.

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Report from Lion’s Arch
 
We’re Special Snow(Charr)flakes
https://twitter.com/Shinryuku_ku/status/591260345752137729 - And today was the day when the entire GW2 community was hit with 25 stacks of Confusion. Duration: 24 hours.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-one-a-primer/

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/9624/Guild-Wars-2-Specializations-Define-Roles-in-Heart-of-Thorns.html
http://www.tentonhammer.com/news/guild-wars-2/guild-wars-2-heart-thorns-specializations-and-jon-peters-qa

tl;dr! (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/33mhdg/specializations_tldr/)

C: I also feel like the Mighty Teapot’s video was really easy to follow for me https://youtu.be/8YDVAK5hYmo

Specializations (hereafter referred to as specs bc i’m a lazy typist) are NOT just the different lines that the presentation at pax south had us believe. All the traits, lines and everything is being thrown into upheaval with HoT.
TenTon: Why create traits like this? Why specs?

Jon Peters: We put out this new trait system last year… “In retrospect seeing it in the wild, we felt like the system wasn’t in the game’s best interest” We’re also trying to build in future-proofing so we don’t make you learn a new system every year.

C: This is as close to a backpedal as we’ll ever see. I’m pretty sure of it but for long time players this is unmistakably what’s happened.
A: I get why it needs to change but I still really like the premise of the current system. It really didn’t pan out well though.

MMORPG: “Specializations seem like a way for roles to be further defined in party situations. Will we be seeing support, crowd control, healing, and all those traditional roles with each different specialization?”

Jon Peters: “Yes, specializations tend to fill a specific role.  However, part of us realigning the skill and trait system is that we’re trying to make sure the normal professions—not just with specs—have more specific roles for players to play, and more distinct playstyles to fulfill those roles. ... Specializations are a way for characters to still do this, but to go a bit deeper into the control and support roles in particular to reinforce more of that kind of gameplay with this system, and with the types of new creatures and content that we’re building into the game.”

Specs are for people who are just starting a character and elite specs are available at some point on the road to or at 80.