Summary of Warclaw Requirements, Abilities, & Other Notes from the Livestream

Please use @Danikat.8537's excellent guide to acquiring the warclaw:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/70454/guide-to-getting-the-warclaw-for-wvw-newbies#latest

(I've hidden the original text accordingly, since the main value of this post was to preview the requirements and get ready. Now that it's available, attention should be directed to other threads, including @Danikat.8537's acquisition, discussions of whether it is OP or not, and how to make the best use of it.)

! Summary posted on Reddit by @"Ojimaru.8970"! (Please send thanks to Ojimaru; I just copied from their summary in that other forum.)! > https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/aw94aa/warclaw_livestream_up/ehkv5ep/! (edited for presentation only)!! See also:! http://dulfy.net/2019/03/02/gw2-warclaw-preview-livestream-summary/ (present same information in a different format)!! ##### Requirements! > You need to own Path of Fire to unlock the Warclaw! > Warclaw mastery requires 126 [WvW ability] points to be completed! Clarifications based on comments:! Yes, the WvW ability points are those you gain from ranking up in WvW! No, you don't need all 125 to get started, just one (and that first rank is very easy to obtain).!! ###### Collection! (including details from u/PotentiallySaracastic)!! > You acquire the Warclaw by putting 1 point into the Warclaw Mastery to start a Collection and Reward Track, which all need to be completed in WvW or Edge of the Mist.! > capture a keep, camp, tower,! > complete WvW track,! > buy something with 50 Skirmish tickets,! > [buy] something with 250 Badges,! > [drop from] guards (10% drop chance random, less rare [than] the Legendary spike).!! ###### Durability! > Warclaw has about 12k health, and will dismount the mounted character when it dies! > HOWEVER, should the Warclaw take enough fall damage to kill it, the mounted character will be full dead! > Warclaws are immune to CC!! ###### Abilities! > Warclaw Skill 1 is the Engage ability, which deals some damage, applies 4 stacks of bleed, and most significantly, finishes any downed enemies within a radius with the appropriate Mastery.! > Warclaw Skill 2 is Sniff, which Marks enemies within a 5,000 unit-radius. It does not mark stealthed characters.! > Warclaw Skill 3 is Chain. It attaches a chain to an enemy gate and deals 2,000 damage per pull. Each pull expends 1 supply. You can have up to 3 Warclaws pulling at the gate.! > You do not get access to the new LWS4 Mount Masteries for the Warclaw (e.g. Bond of Vigor) while in WvW/EotM!! ###### Other WvW Notes!! > Warclaws can be stealthed by outside sources! > Warclaws have three Endurance bars, and the movement abilities have evade frames.! > The Warclaw can be mounted in enemy territory! > The Warclaw runs at a faster speed while in friendly territory. In PVE, it runs approximately as fast as a Griffon on land.! Added:! Speed: "As fast as a Griffon on land" has been measured to be 12.5 "m/s" compared to a running baseline of 7.5 m/s, i.e. not quite 70% faster. It's also 30% faster than a guardian-staff-swiftness-boosted zerg.!! ###### Miscellaneous! > Warclaw will be available in PVE once unlocked! > * The Warclaw was created in addition to the existing mounts because this would allow the WvW team better flexibility in tweaking its stats and functionality without affecting PVE.!

Cool one less problem, 126 in wvw I'll have about....never.

@"phs.6089" said:Cool one less problem, 126 in wvw I'll have about....never.

Of course, if you primarily want it for completeness/to use un PvE, you likely won't need more than the first single point and then completing the collection. The other abilities will likely only have an effect in WvW.

For players unfamiliar with WvW - the two things in the collection that will take some time to get is:

• Complete the reward track
• 50 WvW Skirmish Claim Ticketsneither of these will be hard or take very long but you won't get them from one or two short sessions.

The collection is meant to be a "tour of WvW" - veterans will get most of it just from regular play, those new to the mode can use it to see the various kinds of objectives there are.

It’s worth noting now, you can’t earn Skirmish tickets in EoTM, they are earned through the pip system in WvW only.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:It’s worth noting now, you can’t earn Skirmish tickets in EoTM, they are earned through the pip system in WvW only.

Good point!Two things can not be gained in Edge of the Mists:

• Skirmish Tickets
• Capture a CampThese two will need the 4 actual WvW maps.

All the other items can be gained in EotM, so you can work on them even if there are massive queues!

You acquire the Warclaw by putting 1 point into the Warclaw Mastery to start a Collection and Reward Track,

Just one point to start, doesn’t say you need to finish the Track. That’s easy enough for PvE only players. Just doing WvW dailies will get you there if you really dislike PvP.

Edit: information given is too unclear

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

Durability

• Warclaw has about 12k health, and will dismount the mounted character when it dies
• HOWEVER, should the Warclaw take enough fall damage to kill it, the mounted character will be full dead
• Warclaws are immune to CC

I don't do much in WvW except roam and this is pretty scary to me. A 12k buffer in health plus immunity to CCs and movement impairing effect is a lot to have to punch through as a roamer just as step one in initiating a fight with someone, not to mention movement skills like the Mount leap while your hunting them. And not to mention you'll always by definition be on the back foot due to having to blow one or multiple damage cooldowns already giving the mounted player more of an advantage.

I was personally really hoping for something like the mount engagement ability would autodismount players you hit with it so that while players can enjoy the convenience and speed of the mount in WvW while not giving a huge barrier in actually roamer's ability to initiate fights.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

Durability

• Warclaw has about 12k health, and will dismount the mounted character when it dies
• HOWEVER, should the Warclaw take enough fall damage to kill it, the mounted character will be full dead
• Warclaws are immune to CC

Thing is, if the need for 'autodismount a riding player on engage' shows up, it might very well get retrofitted into the Engage.

Already have 65.... but that's cool confirmed to be available in PvE, a reasonable unlock cost for me.

Thanks for the update! I really love the idea of skill 2! I think that'll feel amazing.

Thanks for the update! I'm actually impressed by the requirements to unlock it - for WvW players it will be fairly easy but it sounds like you will have to actually play WvW to do it, especially capturing a keep and a tower. There's a chance you'll be able to do those without PvP - if it's undefended you'll only have to fight the NPC guards, but it still counts as playing WvW, there's no work-around like with the Gift of Battle. It seems like this could be an effective way to give potential new WvW players a very quick overview of everything the game mode has to offer.

BTW once the Warclaw is released (so I can make sure we know all the details) I'm planning to post a guide on how to unlock it, aimed at PvE players who have never tried WvW before, but hopefully formatted so other people can skip to the bits they need to know.

For now here's a short summary of things you can do now which will make getting the Warclaw a bit quicker once it's released:Try WvW, if you haven't already. Even if you just look through the menus and wander around the map a bit it will help make it more familiar.Gain some world ranks so you have points to put into the ability track when it's released.Collect/save badges of honour and skirmish claim tickets. Both are earned simply by playing WvW (you have to be on the main maps, not Edge of the Mists to get Skirmish tickets).

However the reward track is the bit which is likely to take the most time, and a lot of the simple things like capturing camps and towers won't count until you unlock the collection, so it's probably not worth starting early unless you either play WvW anyway or you're brand new to it and don't have a clue what to do.

Incidentally if you are brand new to WvW my guide to getting the Gift of Battle might be helpful, because it covers a lot of the basics of getting started: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/25167/guide-to-getting-the-gift-of-battle-for-wvw-newbies

So the 126 points, is that the points you get from gaining ranks?

@"Gehenna.3625" said:So the 126 points, is that the points you get from gaining ranks?

Yup I suppose it's that. I'm knight 65.Will spam "sniff".

Heh, that means that once again I won't have every ability maxed out. Just realized.

I really hope I can manage to get into WvW at reasonable times during the event week, because I really want my next bonus pip, so around 200 levels to go lol

I honestly wouldnt care if the mount would have had some harder wvw requirements.

Its a WvW mount, thus to unlock its full potential, I expect to need to at least play some WvW.

@hugo.4705 said:

@"Gehenna.3625" said:So the 126 points, is that the points you get from gaining ranks?

Well I'm at 116 so I guess I'm getting there.

@"FrizzFreston.5290" said:I honestly wouldnt care if the mount would have had some harder wvw requirements.

Its a WvW mount, thus to unlock its full potential, I expect to need to at least play some WvW.

Well to unlock it's full potential you need 126 WvW ranks. Not a lot on it's own (even I'm rank 149) but if you're playing WvW enough to worry about maxing out the Warclaw you'll almost certainly want more abilities too.

But I think it makes sense. Mounts are utilities, they're supposed to be something you get along the way to help you play that area of the game, not the ultimate reward you get for "finishing" it. Except perhaps the griffon.

whats is this "ability points"? the ones we spend to "upgrade" our siege skills?

So now we know the details and we can finally discuss the ramifications with more than just a trailer.

For roaming the effect is about as bad as people thought it was going to be. Defence got a huge boost, and I would like to see an increase in the time between a objective being attacked and white swords. With the mount I suspect a player can go back to spawn and run to a camp way before the objective is taken, which mean you don't need to position defenders at camps.

The "mark" skill is worryingly similar named as the marked debuff which impact stealth. I really hope this won't become a counter to veil/mass invis play.

The chain skill is one of the highlights as it mostly a worthless skill. 2k per 1 supply is not that great, and it doesn't replace mass alpha golems or rams since you can only use 3 mounts per gate. It does however mean that defenders must fully repair gates as leaving a gate at single digit is now the same as having it broken.

For some numbers, a basic gate has 373,500 hp. 2,000 damage with 25 supply is 50,000. You need like 8 players, and in that case it is more supply effective to just make a ram. Alternative you could run back and forth to a camp but again the siege is faster done with a ram.

If you already have some ability points tied to a wvw mastery, you can always just reset it and get your points back and reallocate it. First time is free. Second time costs a little bit of spirit shards.

Edit spelling

@"Belorn.2659" said:So now we know the details and we can finally discuss the ramifications with more than just a trailer.

For roaming the effect is about as bad as people thought it was going to be. Defence got a huge boost, and I would like to see an increase in the time between a objective being attacked and white swords. With the mount I suspect a player can go back to spawn and run to a camp way before the objective is taken, which mean you don't need to position defenders at camps.Why is it bad for roaming? I hear people say that more often but they never explain why exactly. I do not think that you can move quite as quickly as you say.The "mark" skill is worryingly similar named as the marked debuff which impact stealth. I really hope this won't become a counter to veil/mass invis play.Well they said it doesn't affect stealth, but to be honest the veil/mass invis play is really lame in my view so I personally wouldn't mind if they did screw that up.The chain skill is one of the highlights as it mostly a worthless skill. 2k per 1 supply is not that great, and it doesn't replace mass alpha golems or rams since you can only use 3 mounts per gate. It does however mean that defenders must fully repair gates as leaving a gate at single digit is now the same as having it broken.

For some numbers, a basic gate has 373,500 hp. 2,000 damage with 25 supply is 50,000. You need like 8 players, and in that case it is more supply effective to just make a ram. Alternative you could run back and forth to a camp but again the siege is faster done with a ram.It seems logical that they don't want the mounts to be too good and replace other elements of WvW. A ram should be faster but it can also be destroyed. If the mount did more damage it would devaluate siege weapons and I don't think that's what's needed. So I think this balances well. I don't think they want to make one-man capping too easy and with the added speed getting more supplies is a viable solution. I find this all rather balanced actually.

Mouef.. will see I say, everytime I join it's the same thing:Follow commander-> start capturing something -> get rekt by blobs of scourges with their red circle of death (fix that seriously) -> retp back to border -> retry -> killed again -> changetarget -> ok continue conquering.

I have no idea if the mount will change anything, but you will be able to move fastly from a point to another avoiding death from a random wandering mirage or anything. About endurance bar, I hope you can sprint to consume it.

From watching the vid for just a bit, anybody else noted that this looks like just a reskinned raptor from the animations with just the added skills? Not really a "New" mount...

@"Loosmaster.8263" said:From watching the vid for just a bit, anybody else noted that this looks like just a reskinned raptor from the animations with just the added skills? Not really a "New" mount...

Well it doesn't need to have unique abilities, since no other mount can be used in WvW. In the livestream they said they decided on a new mount because then they can adjust it's abilities based on what WvW needs without affecting PvE. They couldn't do that if they'd just enabled the raptor there.

@Danikat.8537 said:

@"Loosmaster.8263" said:From watching the vid for just a bit, anybody else noted that this looks like just a reskinned raptor from the animations with just the added skills? Not really a "New" mount...

It does have to have unique abilities due to it being in WvW. Pointless to have the PvE ones there. That was one of the biggest fears was the "Tail Spin" damage and it's speed. But like I said, it just looks like a reskinned Raptor with unique WvW skills, not a "New" mount!!! (something entirely different that what we already have).