It’s been a little while since we’ve provided you with an update about the current state of Guild Wars 2,
so today I thought I’d share some of the things we’ve been working on
these past few months. We are heads down, hard at work on the continued
development of the game, and I’m happy to report that things are
progressing very nicely on all fronts. From art and sound to filling out
and polishing all of the content in the game, we’re making great
strides toward completing Guild Wars 2.

Read on for some details about what we’ve been up to!

When we revealed the engineer earlier this year, we introduced the
tool belt, a profession mechanic that fills the engineer’s F1-F4 keys
with skills that tie into some of the heal and utility skills in slots
6-9.

When we initially talked about the engineer, only some of
the heal and utility skills had corresponding tool belt skills, but as
we spent more time with this profession—especially testing for the
gamescom demo—we started imagining a much cooler version of the
engineer’s tool belt, where every slotted heal/utility skill had a tool
belt counterpart.

This improved tool belt system meant that we had to design
twenty-three new skills. Since this is ArenaNet, that meant a bunch of
meetings, some yelling, a whiteboard, and a lot of sticky notes. After
all was said and done, we ended up with a matching tool belt skill for
every heal and utility skill—this was how the engineer was always
supposed to play!

To give some examples, an engineer that equips slots 6-9 with Elixir
H, Flamethrower, Slick Shoes, and Rocket Boots would now have the
following skills in their tool belt:

• F1 - Throw Elixir H: A
  ground-targeted skill that throws Elixir H at the target area, randomly
  granting vigor, protection, or regeneration to allies in the area.
  
• F2 - Incendiary Ammo: Your next three attacks cause burning.
  
• F3 – Super Speed: A very short but powerful speed boost.
  
• F4 – Rocket Kick: A kick that causes AoE fire damage.
  

I personally love popping Incendiary Ammo, firing off a few rounds,
swapping to my flamethrower, chasing the enemy with Super Speed, and
finishing them off with a Rocket Kick.

We’ve had a lot of internal discussions about improving ranger pets
for a while. The difficult question wasn’t what was wrong with ranger
pets, it was how to fix them. Well, that answer is finally here.

Slotting and Swapping Pets

Rangers now have a total of two terrestrial and two aquatic pet
slots. Amphibious pets are able to occupy either terrestrial or aquatic
slots. Rangers can now use F4 to swap between the two valid pet slots
during combat. This mechanic works even when your current active pet is
defeated, allowing a ranger to quickly adapt when a pet is downed or
when a situation arises that calls for a new pet. Swapping pets has a
cooldown associated with it, and this cooldown is longer if the active
pet was downed when the swap took place. A downed pet that was swapped
out will be at full health when he is swapped back in. We’ve done a lot
of work to make each ranger pet more unique and fill a particular role,
which fits perfectly with the fluid, adaptable nature of combat in Guild Wars 2.

Pet Controls

Pets now have two stances: active and passive. In the active stance,
if your pet is doing nothing and you engage in combat, your pet will
attack your opponent. In the passive stance, your pet will follow you
and not to attack unless explicitly ordered to do so. You’ll be able to
toggle between these stances by pressing F3.

Ranger pets can be ordered to attack a specific enemy by selecting a
target and hitting F1. This action will temporarily overwrite your pet’s
current behavior, giving you more direct control over your pet’s
actions in complicated combat situations.


Species and Families

Pets no longer evolve. Instead, they are set to the level of the
ranger, and their stats and abilities are determined by their species.
Each pet belongs to a species and each species belongs to a family. For
example, a snow leopard is a species belonging to the feline family of
pets. Charming a species unlocks that species for you, allowing you to
equip that species into any pet slot whenever you are out of combat. In Guild Wars 2,
a single ranger can collect and use every type of pet in the game
without having to worry about stables or leveling the pets from scratch.

Each family has three basic skills that define that family. For
example, bears are hard to kill, drakes do AoE damage, devourers use
ranged attacks, etc. These skills are automatically used by the pet.
Each species within a family has a unique skill. For example, polar
bears have an icy roar that freezes enemies, while brown bears have a
roar that removes conditions. This family skill has a cooldown and is
activated by the ranger by hitting F2.

In the past, we’ve talked about one of the more explicit ways in which Guild Wars 2
characters can interact: cross-profession combos. This system has been
in development for some time. We knew it had a lot of potential, but we
also knew we couldn’t flesh it out until more of the game was developed.
Now that seven of our eight professions have been revealed (and the
last one is undergoing testing), we have started to flesh out this
system and create the building blocks that make it work.
Cross-profession combo is the term we use, but these combos can also be
created by two of the same profession and, in many cases, by a single
character.

A cross-profession combo has two important elements; the initiator
and the finisher. Think of it like a set and spike in volleyball. One
action sets up the combo, and another finishes it.

Initiators

All combos are initiated by creating an area in the world that
changes some skills performed within it. We call these areas “fields”
and they come in various flavors. They range from elemental effects—such
as fire, ice, and lightning—to other effects like poison, light, dark,
and smoke. All fields persist in the world for a time and can be taken
advantage of by any number of finishers.

Finishers

All combos are completed using finishers. There are categories of
finishers, and when a finisher category interacts with a field type it
creates a combination. All finishers are actions of some kind, including
firing projectiles, leaping, and blasting an area. Every finisher can
only be modified once, to avoid confusion and stacking. (Stacking was in
at one time and was incredibly overpowered.)

Combos

So what happens when a finisher meets an initiator? Here are some
examples to get you excited. Use Ricochet through a Firewall to get a
bouncing axe that has a chance to burn the targets it hits. Leaping
Death Blossom through a Symbol of Faith will remove conditions from
allies near your target. Stomp inside a Smoke Screen to cloak nearby
allies. This is just a small sampling of what you can do with combos,
and we leave it to you to find them all and combo to your heart’s
delight.

Combo UI

When two players create a combo, we create a floating notification
for each player that shows that they did a combo and which skills were
involved. Skills also display their field type or finisher type in their
description, to help players experiment.

Guild Wars 2 combat is all about dynamic teamwork. We want
to make sure that players are working together, and cross-profession
combos are another way we encourage this. Almost every weapon has some
sort of initiator or finisher which leaves two players ample
opportunities to find and capitalize on combos, regardless of profession
or other skill choices. All that is left now is for you to find and
master them.