Warclaw Sniff - what good is it?

[Guest]

So I'm enjoying the warkitty so far, but for the life of me I can't figure out what the useful purpose of the second skill is supposed to be. It only marks for you, so it doesn't give you a sort of more limited version of the painter trap/trick to alert others on the map of enemies. It doesn't see through stealth, so you can't uncover gankers (the only potential use I can see). The 5000 range is well within your visual range so you'd see anything you could potentially "sniff" anyway, and the marks fade from the minimap almost immediately.

I guess they just needed some kind of filler skill to put there but as far as I can tell this skill does absolutely nothing useful. Anybody figure out a situation it is beneficial in?

[coro.3176]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:So I'm enjoying the warkitty so far, but for the life of me I can't figure out what the useful purpose of the second skill is supposed to be. It only marks for you, so it doesn't give you a sort of more limited version of the painter trap/trick to alert others on the map of enemies. It doesn't see through stealth, so you can't uncover gankers (the only potential use I can see). The 5000 range is well within your visual range so you'd see anything you could potentially "sniff" anyway, and the marks fade from the minimap almost immediately.

I guess they just needed some kind of filler skill to put there but as far as I can tell this skill does absolutely nothing useful. Anybody figure out a situation it is beneficial in?

• Check for players behind obstacles you can't see through, like walls, or in deep valleys (eg. EBG near Durios)?
• Get an easier count of enemies?
• Spot the paths of multiple fleeing enemies even if you can only be looking at one at a time?

[Celsith.2753]

@coro.3176 said:

• Check for players behind obstacles you can't see through, like walls, or in deep valleys (eg. EBG near Durios)?
• Get an easier count of enemies?
• Spot the paths of multiple fleeing enemies even if you can only be looking at one at a time?

I tried it by a tower wall and it didn't show me the people I knew to be inside it.

[coro.3176]

@Celsith.2753 said:

@coro.3176 said:

• Check for players behind obstacles you can't see through, like walls, or in deep valleys (eg. EBG near Durios)?
• Get an easier count of enemies?
• Spot the paths of multiple fleeing enemies even if you can only be looking at one at a time?

I tried it by a tower wall and it didn't show me the people I knew to be inside it.

ugh. If it's LoS, then that'll be pretty useless. If it just requires a valid path though, it could still be helpful.

[DaFishBob.6518]

@coro.3176 said:

@Celsith.2753 said:

@coro.3176 said:

• Check for players behind obstacles you can't see through, like walls, or in deep valleys (eg. EBG near Durios)?
• Get an easier count of enemies?
• Spot the paths of multiple fleeing enemies even if you can only be looking at one at a time?

I tried it by a tower wall and it didn't show me the people I knew to be inside it.

ugh. If it's LoS, then that'll be pretty useless. If it just requires a valid path though, it could still be helpful.

I lol'd. Sniff - now more useless than shadow trap!

[Laureh.2097]

I can see with my eyes a group of enemy on the other side of the bridge but nothing shows up with sniff but an empty ping circle.It's either useless or broken.

[Aeolus.3615]

@Celsith.2753 said:

@coro.3176 said:

• Check for players behind obstacles you can't see through, like walls, or in deep valleys (eg. EBG near Durios)?
• Get an easier count of enemies?
• Spot the paths of multiple fleeing enemies even if you can only be looking at one at a time?

I tried it by a tower wall and it didn't show me the people I knew to be inside it.

the skil really .... is used for that???... seriously?

[Hackuuna.4085]

It's to prepare for the eventuality of new skills added.

Burrow: You and your mount burrow -- become invisible and lose access to all skills except un-burrow. You cannot see anything while burrowed.Bowel Movement: You leave behind a loot bag that prevents sniffing until collected.Sniff: Reveal any burrowed enemies.

New trick: Collect bowel movement. Costs 25 supply and removes one bowel movement within 1200 range. Bowel movements can be returned to the trick vendor for a refund of 25 supply.

[Dawdler.8521]

@coro.3176 said:

@Celsith.2753 said:

@coro.3176 said:

• Check for players behind obstacles you can't see through, like walls, or in deep valleys (eg. EBG near Durios)?
• Get an easier count of enemies?
• Spot the paths of multiple fleeing enemies even if you can only be looking at one at a time?

I tried it by a tower wall and it didn't show me the people I knew to be inside it.

ugh. If it's LoS, then that'll be pretty useless. If it just requires a valid path though, it could still be helpful.Cant be LoS, I did a ping just south of the west camp below sunny and saw a dot running by the tower wall (about middle so far from the cliffside)

[Kovu.7560]

Guys. Guys. Sniff is useful for scouting information for the rest of your team.-- Especially if you run headlong into an enemy group -- now your team knows exactly where they are and where they're going without you having to type out details. I don't think the skill has a casttime either, as long as you press the button it should go off before you're dismounted.

I had previously been using the throwable detection trap for that purpose. Now I've got a version with larger range and no supply cost. IMO Sniff is the most useful skill on the bar.

~ Kovu

[Guest]

@Kovu.7560 said:Guys. Guys. Sniff is useful for scouting information for the rest of your team.

Except the minimap pings on use of the skill only appear for the user. And even if they did appear for others they disappear so fast (like 1 second) that no one would even realize something had appeared on their map, let alone be able to scroll it to see numbers and direction.

[Kovu.7560]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:

@"Kovu.7560" said:Guys. Guys. Sniff is useful for scouting information for the rest of your team.

Except the minimap pings on use of the skill only appear for the user. And even if they did appear for others they disappear so fast (like 1 second) that no one would even realize something had appeared on their map, let alone be able to scroll it to see numbers and direction.

It only appears for the user? Well damn and here I thought I had been useful to my team for the past week. Its certainly misleading that it "marks" an enemy.Disregard my previous post, then. Its pretty useless.

~ Kovu

[DemonSeed.3528]

Yeah it's only for the users own benefit to see the spread of enemies and where they can escape to, and it does not reveal stealthed players (just had to re-remind people about this). Basically you drop a kind of "beacon" which is marked on the map by a green dot that "pings" outwards and shows location of present enemies in the radius (most of the time, since it seems buggy for some).

[Aeolus.3615]

@DemonSeed.3528So basicly ... it's useless...

[DemonSeed.3528]

I'm not sure what their intention was, but I think possibly it was to help someone running back to their group to potentially avoid enemies ahead of them, but most of the time you will see them anyway unless you have an extremely small LOD in settings. Even then I think they would pop on screen, but I have not confirmed this.

[Queen Anastasia.7103]

SniffDetects the scent of nearby enemies and temporarily marks their location on the map.Radius: 5,000

When you in the camp, I'm gonna be there.You think I'm playin'?When you watching escorted dolyaks, I'll be there.You think I'm playin'?Even in yo keep, I'm gonna be there.You think I'm playin'?

Because believe me, we absolutely needed another big brother is watching you every baby step of the way skill to go along with our watch towers, stealth traps, sentry reveals, and target painter traps.

[Guest]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:I'm not sure what their intention was, but I think possibly it was to help someone running back to their group to potentially avoid enemies ahead of them, but most of the time you will see them anyway unless you have an extremely small LOD in settings. Even then I think they would pop on screen, but I have not confirmed this.

Even if that were the intent it would be both useless and terrible design. For one thing it has a very long cooldown (60 seconds). So you would have to pick just the right moment where you thought there might be someone up ahead to use it. Meantime you're still moving quite fast, so it's almost guaranteed you would be within sight range before the ping told you any useful information.

I really think it's just deliberately a terrible skill, so they could have something else in the mastery track that wouldn't dramatically alter WvW play. Even if it had no cooldown at all it would be basically useless. But as is - once every 60 seconds you can see a dot on your minimap for a fraction of a second at the location of all the enemies you can already see in your FoV - it's just never worth pressing.

[DemonSeed.3528]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:

@DemonSeed.3528 said:I'm not sure what their intention was, but I think possibly it was to help someone running back to their group to potentially avoid enemies ahead of them, but most of the time you will see them anyway unless you have an extremely small LOD in settings. Even then I think they would pop on screen, but I have not confirmed this.

Even if that were the intent it would be both useless and terrible design. For one thing it has a very long cooldown (60 seconds). So you would have to pick just the right moment where you thought there might be someone up ahead to use it. Meantime you're still moving quite fast, so it's almost guaranteed you would be within sight range before the ping told you any useful information.

I really think it's just deliberately a terrible skill, so they could have something else in the mastery track that wouldn't dramatically alter WvW play. Even if it had no cooldown at all it would be basically useless. But as is - once every 60 seconds you can see a dot on your minimap for a fraction of a second at the location of all the enemies you can already see in your FoV - it's just never worth pressing.

That's true, it could've been something acting as a filler for the mastery but also something additional that they didn't want to make the mount take away overly from how one normally plays.

[Djamonja.6453]

It doesn't get blocked by LoS, so you can use it check if someone is hiding inside a structure (or if they are outside and you don't want to get up on the wall). You need to zoom your mini-map in to see the dots.

[Guest]

@DemonSeed.3528 said:That's true, it could've been something acting as a filler for the mastery but also something additional that they didn't want to make the mount take away overly from how one normally plays.

What might be cool is if they changed it so the sniff detects enemy traps (the ones deployable for supply). Then the long cooldown is justified and it provides a real utility that doesn't completely break things. You wouldn't be able to disable the trap in any way other than to trigger it, but you could canary for a zerg or path around it. It might be a little powerful for zergs to use in coordination, but in reality commanders already know where traps are likely to be set - they either don't care much or they have a canary anyway.

[Eramonster.2718]

@"DemonSeed.3528" said:Yeah it's only for the users own benefit to see the spread of enemies and where they can escape to, and it does not reveal stealthed players(just had to re-remind people about this). Basically you drop a kind of "beacon" which is marked on the map by a green dot that "pings" outwards and shows location of present enemies in the radius (most of the time, since it seems buggy for some).

Thank you for the confirmation; it does not reveal stealthed players! It never did! :smile:

[Mogrey.3891]

the one guy said that he used on tower and didn't work maybe it was bugged? cause i used it on keep and definitely worked for me :/

[Gop.8713]

@Kovu.7560 said:

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:

@Kovu.7560 said:Guys. Guys. Sniff is useful for scouting information for the rest of your team.

Except the minimap pings on use of the skill only appear for the user. And even if they did appear for others they disappear so fast (like 1 second) that no one would even realize something had appeared on their map, let alone be able to scroll it to see numbers and direction.

It only appears for the user? Well kitten and here I thought I had been useful to my team for the past week. Its certainly misleading that it "marks" an enemy.Disregard my previous post, then. Its pretty useless.

~ Kovu

This is how I thought it was supposed to work from the tooltip, but sadly, no. I do think this is the way it should work, and it would be useful if it did . . .

[Celsith.2753]

@Mogrey.3891 said:the one guy said that he used on tower and didn't work maybe it was bugged? cause i used it on keep and definitely worked for me :/

Every time I've tried it it was on a tower that didn't yet have a door or wall down and I was outside it. Was the keep breached? Were you outside or inside it? I've had it work inside a keep which we already owned after enemy were repelled. Maybe that's what it's for.

[Justine.6351]

I was able to ping a zerg outside my keep's wall when I heard cata sounds. Is a pretty good skill. We just need to explore with it more.