From Colin Johanson, GW2 Game Director,

"We’re going to update the elite specialization unlock to find a better middle ground by reducing the cost of unlocking every possible ability for an elite specialization from 400 hero points to 250 hero points total. This means you will be able to access them much earlier in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns PvE or World vs. World and fully unlock them much earlier as well. This also means you’ll be able to experience more of the expansion story as your elite specialization earlier on while still maintaining some of our core goal. This should also help players with lots of alts try out more of the elite specializations. If you’ve already put more than 250 points into your elite specialization, surplus hero points will be refunded to your character for future use.

Finally, we’ve discovered a setting that was creating some lower populations in maps in the Heart of Maguuma than we’d ideally been looking for with our megaserver system. So we’ll make sure you’re always in maps with numerous friends (and soon-to-be friends) to play with."
Read More:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/heads-up-iteration-incoming/