[Bersiwald_renamed_596767_04022021]

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Episode 5
All leather recipes have been altered to require 33% less leather. Nothing has been changed about the drop rate nor any other acquisition method.
Sawgill mushrooms will be used in extremely high quantities to create a new type of food that will become BiS for condition damage.
The new map takes place between Rata Sum and Dragon's Stand. It has verticality akin to Bloodstone Fen.
Story wise we'll get confirmation that we'll go to the Crystal Desert, due to Lazarus' identity (spoiler, it's not a human or a god)
Harvestable will be Glowing Bark, used for rewards.
There's going to be a spot in the very north of the map that gives major clues on the next raid location.
There will be no repeatable heart quests, but instead we'll see a new adventure and a big meta-event that leads to a boss. This meta-event has been balanced for a minimum of 5 people, because they'll expect the map to be a lot less populated in the future.
There is a new achievement which takes 10 different days to complete and requires you to kill primordus minions to receive "Burned Rock". It's a hidden achievement so be sure to keep on eye when getting the item.
Current events will be picked up 1 month after this patch and will include the sequel to the portals. Its conclusion brings us to a new, extremely small map in the crystal desert that is the entrance for the expansion. This small area is a small part of the episode 6 map, so we'll be able to explore the full map when that releases.

Episode 6
Takes place south of Ebonhawk.
Will include a new stat-combo, but the exact one hasn't been decided yet.
Currently in it's penultimate stage of development. A lot is still being added content-wise.
Harvestable seems to be a white lotus.
The method of acquisition will not be like winterberries, since that caused many issues. It will rather be like the other 4 maps.
They're preparing themselves in case the leather change doesn't go well. Therefore they're sparing enough time to allow even more changes.
A new monster is going to appear, and it looks like the wurm that got leaked a few months ago.

Expansion
They're purposely trying to make the season 3 maps low in terms of replayability, because they want to make sure these maps are ONLY used as a way to offer content to the current player base that is still playing. Real replayability should come from the new expansion and current vanilla maps (as those are where the new players are).
Everything for the next 4 years has been thoroughly thought out. The story has been created in 4 large arcs. The current, first large arc introduces the different story elements (season 3). The second arc focuses on the Mursaat and, Primordus and Kralkattorik (expansion 2). The third arc (season 4) deals with Jormag. The fourth arc (expansion 3) will deal with the north and the Charr. Janthir will become the main location of the expansion, together with the Woodland Cascades.
If Expansion 2 goes will, they will plan the next 2 story arcs (season 5 and expansion 4).
Mike wants to make sure that all hype is going to be justified, so we'll see a 3-month period of hyping, showing us new locations, monsters, elite specialisations, all the good stuff.
The elite specialisations are going to be radically more different this time. The icon for the spellbreaker was purposefully leaked in order to add subliminal hype (Mike is responsible for this.)
Spellbreakers only require 1 dagger in their main hand, but it will mechanically act like 2 daggers.
Collections are still going to be added for elite specs, but this time will offer a lot of lore on the specs.
Spellbreaker is the only one that is completely finished so far, with the others still being fine-tuned. The lore behind spellbreakers is that they absorb tha magic of the foes they slay, and thus they do not generate magic themselves. This allows them to conjure a second dagger in their hand, because the magic they absorb isn't held for long, thus they must constantly use it. This results in excess magic being transformed into a second dagger. Adrenaline changes into Sapped Essence, and completely changes the feel of the class. Sapped Essence offers your traditional burst attack, but now offers 2 more F-skills. The F2-skill can be used to empower your auto-attack, adding some of its burst power to the auto-attack. The F3-skill gives you a completely new set of utilities. F3 has a very long cool down of about 2 minutes and lasts for 15 seconds. F2 has about a minute cooldown and lasts for 30 seconds. The utilities that Spellbreakers get are glyphs. The F3-utilities that you can get are also glyphs, but have a completely different effect that are kind of overpowered for my feeling. They're categorised as Glyphs so that they give synergy with the traits. A new grandmaster trait for Spellbreaker allows them to remove profession-generated fuel (like clones for mesmers or life force for necromancers) or increase cooldown (F-skills engineer). It also has a PvE version that doubles all CC dealt to monsters.
The mesmer mirage completely changes the F-skills. All clones are changed into phantasms, so you'll never be able to distinguish the real mesmer from the fake ones. The lore behind the Mirage is that it fiddles with perception and reality by going inside your head. The original "mirage" was a mesmer that dwelt the crystal desert for 100 years before discovering its new powers by becoming enlightened (heavily hinted at this being ascension). It gets Deception utilities. Main-hand axe is very overpowered and it seems the Mirage is supposed to be a direct damage elite spec.
Necromancers were supposed to be called Scourges, but they changed this into Lich. Liches do not have a second health bar like vanilla necromancers, but instead have a Soul Jar. When using the F1-skill, they drop the Soul Jar which costs them 25% of their HP. When they generate Life Essence, this all goes into the Soul Jar. Using their F2-skill or by dying, they return to the location of their soul jar and receive all the life essence poured into it. Using their F3-skill will transform the life essence in the soul jar into a Beacon of Despair, which looks like a 2-handed torch. The amount of life essence in the soul jar translates in how long you can wield the beacon. This is a pure Condi spec, and when the expansion releases, the Reaper will get buffed to compensate. Reapers were supposed to be slow high-damage dealers, and this did not go over well. Deathly chill will change to not give any bleed stacks, but instead give an additional, delayed hit. Every time you apply chill, you'll deal additional direct damage instead.
It seems that they're aiming for every elite profession to deal at LEAST 25K DPS to make them viable.
Engineers get a lot of TLC. Scrappers get a real PvM use. Their Function gyro gets an F6, which can be used to detonate to the enemy in PvE alone. This detonation deals burn, bleed and a lot of direct damage. Watchful Eye, created by the bulwark gyro, now offers a 5% damage boost in PvE. Shredder gyro's now deal a lot more direct damage as well, giving damage akin to Warrior thousand blades. Trait wise, Perfectly weighted will give hammer even more damage. Mass momentum no longer gives power based on toughness, but instead doubles the effectiveness of Might applied to you. Applied force now additionally makes quickness more effective by increasing your attack speed by 50% when using auto-attacks only. The bomb-kit auto-attack will be adjusted to compensate this. The new elite spec by Engineers will now be focused to team support, and is called the Surveyor. It will receive shouts and mostly offers a lot of group support. Its weapon is main hand mace, and it is meant to be used with shield. Mace skills will offer light and water fields, with a blast finisher on the 3rd auto-attack. Traits will synergise well with kits like the med kit and elixir gun.
I haven't seen the rest of the elite specs that detailled, but I have seen the general direction they're heading to.
Elementalists will finally get main hand sword and will focus on offence. Utility skills will be Physical.
Rangers will get a offensive, direct damage elite spec. They'll get a medium-range hammer with stances.
Guardians will get a support-based specialisation. Short bow as a weapon, that mostly deploys AoE support. Utilities are spirits and it really gives me a very big Ritualist vibe.
Thieves will get rifle and get a 1500 range auto-attack. Utilities are Survival skills. A lot less will focus on stealthiness and a lot more on strategic positioning. They get a trait that stuns when you attack from behind.
Revenants will get Legendary Palawa Joko as their stance. This is the Palawa before he became an undead king, and they'll be called Preservers. They have a gigantic lore significance, and will tie in the story heavily. Their weapon is Short bow and their utilities focus on condition damage and poison. They get access to a new condition that deals additional damage if your target has more conditions on them.
Mounts will enter the game and are the main selling point. Mounts will offer many different utilities. There is one mount that offers a speed boost, another that climbs rocky environments, another that can fly over ravines, another one that can dig through area's and a final one that offers protection from the elements. They're already developing a lot of different skins for the gem shop and it will be the second feature they announce as a marketing ploy.
Masteries will be a lot more impactful. Besides mounts, we'll also see two new "race" specific masteries, like we saw with Nuhoch and Itzel. These will focus on Mursaat and Unseen ones. They'll be a lot more impactful, the Mursaat one will offer a story instance to be completed and will allow you to see Mursaat (so yes, we will ascend). Because it's a low entry one, it'll be the first mastery you can train in that tree. Ascension will happen fairly soon in the story as well, so that people still have the freedom to train whatever they like. A few mursaat bosses will be locked if you do not train in this mastery branch.
No mursaat will be allies, but we'll instead see vendors that offer mursaat related items. These vendors are explorers that have been researching the mursaat for a long period of time. It'll have to be unlocked by masteries as well.
The unseen mastery will offer a lot of different gameplay chances, including a new special key skill that allows you to survive a one-hit KO attack from the Mursaat.
The total amount of maps comes down to 9. I've seen the Kralkattorik model (which is still being finalised) and it looks even more impressive than Zhaitan's.
The final story instance is going to blow everyone's mind, especially if you're a big fan of Dwarf lore and Canthan lore.
Season 4 will start 3 months after the expansion, and offers a new map in the north of the Charr lands.
Another big selling point is the Crystal system, in which we get another axis of customisation. Crystals can be earned by doing various content, and will give us new, radical changes like changing a light field into a fire field, or changing bleed damage into torment, and other cool stuff.
Episode 6's final story instance hints at this by giving us a simple "Offensive Crystal", which allows the user to gain an additional might stack (totalling to 26 stacks) but people will not find this out until the expansion.
Player housing has been developed, but didn't make the cut this expansion. It's been postponed as the big selling point for the next possible expansion. This would've included us being able to customise a large plot of land, which acts a lot like current Guild Hall decoration. We could choose the spots of our resources, and it will make a lot of use of Scribing. You'd get a lot of basic decorations to start with, but if you want to spend a ton of money and resources on it, you can do it.

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От себя добавлю - это не может быть фейком, это альфа-тест нового дополнения про Элону. Слава богу, что не про Канту!

Маунты - отлично, новые специализации - отлично. Молодцы. Главное, цену дополнения пусть не слишком задирают.