Bird Merge Swoop: Clunky

First off, I want to thank you ANet for finally fixing the travel distance for the birds' merged Swoop for Soulbeast. I have been asking for that since the PoF test weekend, and I have been happily running with my owl since the patch that fixed it. However, the current version of Swoop still feels quite clunky. It seems like the skill has 3 "segments" to it: the first two being the leaps and then the last one being the attack. Unfortunately the attack portion of the skill, however cool it may look, messes up. Very frequently, it will actually change direction from the leap portions of the skill, even backwards. The character usually realigns to the proper direction after the animation completes, but it makes this skill awkward to use and has screwed me over many times. I thought at first it had to do with me changing my camera angle while using the skill, but it is independent of that; it happens just the same even when I don't change angle.

Is this nothing more than a connection issue? I am very used to having leap skills--this one included--not actually travel their intended distance, but I have always assumed that is just due to my connection. This feels a little different because of the directional change, although it could very well be due to my connection. Anybody else have this experience with it too? From what I can remember, this hasn't happened to me with any other skill. The GS3 Swoop, for example, is much much more reliable for me, and even that skill has its issues in travelling the full distance.

Same. This has really screwed me in WvW when trying to get away and using Swoop followed immediately by GS3 Swoop.End up doing one Swoop forward one Swoop back, or some other random direction :# .

Yeah, I've had it happen. Usually when I have nothing targeted. Not only does that last bit sometimes cause the character to look like they're swiping at the air behind them, it causes the character to be stuck in place for a brief moment killing the flow (and sometimes getting them into trouble, if in a fight).

I haven't had this problem with Greatsword, which I assume is intended to work similarly.

~ kovu

Yeah it is a huge detriment when in a fight. It seems like aside from the spirit bird, the animations for both Swoop skills were intended to be different, but I would much prefer the GS Swoop animation if it meant it functioned more smoothly.

They should just make it exactly like GS 3. Same targeting behavior included.Quickening screech isnt my cup if tea either. A better skill would be nice. Something like a hunters call on birds would be sweet. Would bump up their dps (better trade iff with low survivability) and would give some more offensive use in beastform which reflects birds in general behaviour.

and for the love of god swap the keys on both merged F1 and F2 skills. Charge on most other pets (pigs / dogs / gazelle etc) is F2.

Just not on birds... it offends both my OCD and my muscle memory.

That’s a new bug from the last/two old update. Before it used to work fine but now it seems to change the direction even if we don’t have a selected target and no auto target.

So we should ask for a big(and bug) fix.

As starting point: the attack part seems to target random enemies when you are not using auto targeting. Please fix that.