Let's discuss this dog. Summary: 5/10 - Overall, I like and dislike it, and how it has been implemented. I feel it can do better, but could do worse. I am pretty on the fence about it. Design: 6/10 - Pretty bog standard, nothing particularly interesting. Skins are not taken into the equation, as I am judging the vanilla. Its simplicity could be complimented, for its minimalist approach can lessen server stress, which we suffer from in this game mode, though skins could counteract this in future. Speed: 5/10 - This is a personal gripe I have: the Warclaw feels underwhelmingly slow in areas owned by the enemy, and overly fast in areas owned by yourself. This leads to you being outran by enemy mounts, and unable to catch anyone else fleeing. The same applies in reverse. Application: 4/10 - Again, this is a solid split down the middle, but leans toward the negative.The Warclaw is fantastic for catching up to a tag. This is a big quality of life change for slow raid classes.If you are roaming in a small group, and require further supply for two catapults, let's say, it is perfect. It allows two to quickly return to the adjacent camp and resupply; this is good. However, there are heavy flaws.If you are fighting a defending group that do not have a tag, they tend to cloud. There are people running everywhere, and if your zerg loses so much as one or two people, it can lead to an eventual wipe.This is a war of attrition; it always has been. The Warclaw has created a clear issue here in that you are fighting masses of people clouding around; when you are capping the ring, they flood one by one attempting to stop the cap. They die, they run back.In owned territory, the Warclaw is so fast that they are back within a minute or two. Their death hardly matters.There was a case on reset night where SFR were fighting Piken for their Garrison on the Desert Borderland for about fifteen to twenty minutes; they failed to cap it.Sure, it was a farm, many bags were received. But still losing the cap felt somewhat devastating after so much work. And this was because Piken's players were back almost as quickly as they died.This is one example, there are many more similar circumstances I am sure others could give. As for its gimmick, the chain that latches onto doors, it is somewhat useless. Commanders actively ask on my server that you simply use the siege they throw down and save any supply to build.And rightfully so, the chain does not deal much damage and it ends up more cost effective to throw siege.This was always a difficult one - how do you balance it without making it blatantly better or worse than a ram? What kind of backlash would it produce from older, stoic players, who were alienated a couple of years back by the introduction of tactivators (admittedly you cannot please everyone with anything you do), if rams were made obsolete by such a gimmick? There is a lot to consider. If anything I would consider removing the necessary supply to pull the door, as only three can latch (if I'm not mistaken), and I personally think it makes no sense to spend supply on such a feature. What, do you feed the Warclaw your supply and it becomes Popeye? This would even enable players to take down objectives quicker in smaller groups. As a final note here, many commanders do not use the mount, as it causes those who do not own it to fall behind and complain. Personally, I do not think this affects anything, as people often jump off cliffs to their deaths while mounted as it stands.People have complained that forcing people to pay for the Warclaw through an expansion purchase is bad, but I do not think failing to own a Warclaw omits you from World vs World. I do, however, sympathise with those left behind by commanders who use it all the time. Roaming: 2/10: One could argue roaming is a niche compared with blobbing at this point, but regardless it is still sought by many. This is particularly apparent in off hours, when people have nothing to follow. And, oh, boy. We've all heard this before - this mount is so divisive when it comes to roaming. I will be giving my personal reasons why I think it is objectively bad, and suggest things that can help the stagnant block in the stream. There are many issues, and not all need toned down or the dog will become useless. Be that as it may, I will list all of the issues I know of that have amalgamated into the mount being a massive menace. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is its ability to create stalemates. You see a Ranger in the distance; you know they can burst you really hard if you aren't careful. You wish to get an opening strike on them.They see you; they mount. What do you do? You have two clear choices.You similarly mount up, and stare them down, and hope they dismount to attack you first, or you attempt to not waste half of your cooldowns dismounting them while they dodge you with the evasive jump.If you are not careful, they will easily just escape, or be ready to burst you down when you have little left. If you are unfortunate, you will have to waste a dodge to avoid the 4-5k dismount damage, or face tank it, giving them momentum behind their burst. It gives roaming a sour taste. Whoever attacks the mount rather than staying mounted, is at an immediate disadvantage; therefore, there is no incentive to get off it at all. Ready a stunbreak, allow them to waste their burst, and off you go. No one wants this, so people end up just staring each other down. It discourages fighting in a PvP game mode; that is awful design. This could be potentially improved upon by adding a dismount feature to the dismount skill. That here means if you land the dismount skill it automatically dismounts the opponent. But this would require certain other changes to be made. For example, I don't think it would be particularly fair if a player is chased down by enemy Warclaws in an unowned area, and forcefully dismounted so easily. But this depends how you look at it, because would a player about to be ganked by three have a chance before the mount's introduction? Probably not unless a fast class with innate escapism. Also, if this were to be implemented, the consequential CC should be removed, to stop the player who got dismounted from immediately dying. This is simply an attempt at incentivising dismounts, so people are eager to get into the fray, rather than this extremely passive gameplay. Another idea if things were left as they are right now, particularly with how hard it can be to kill the mount, is to cause the dismount to impact the opposing player's max HP. Somewhere between 25 and 50% HP loss might be acceptable to make things balanced, though this may require extensive testing. This is to combat the amount of unearned momentum a player can gain simply by refusing to dismount until it suits them, while the opposition wastes necessary damaging abilities to take it down. Next, along with its speed in owned areas, as mentioned: the mount is too tanky. With the ability to dodge attacks three times whilst gaining substantial distance and an extremely lenient endurance refill rate, it can be almost impossible for a melee class to take it down alone.Or, you must expend half of your cooldowns. Not only that, but classes like Guardian, who have random Aegis procs, are allowed to keep these passive benefits on the mount. This should be addressed.Also, I am not sure if this is still the case, but Ranger could / can use 'Sic 'em' and Attack of Opportunity, and it allows the dismount skill to hit up to three targets like a truck (upwards of 20k).While we're on the subject, I might also add that runes giving "+10% max HP" such as Balthazar, or Durability, also give the mount increased health.I assume this is an oversight, as it does not stack with the Herald's increased HP passive. The standard health of the mount is 10,972, but with these runes you can increase it to 12,069. From the standpoint of an expedient player, this mount is a god-send. It allows you to manipulate circumstances to favour you without any effort. But to those who just want an honest fight, perhaps roaming is no longer for you. Come to think of it, with the recent state of balance, was it in the first place? To sum up, I believe one or more changes are required:Normalise speed. It makes little sense from an immersion stand point that the Warclaw can hit its stride only in owned portions of the map, and it can tell whenever this is not the case, causing it to slow down;Reduce its HP;Reduce its endurance regeneration (though this would impact its speed overall, also, making it less favourable than other options), or remove / nerf the combined evasion;Add an enemy dismount feature to our own dismount skill. Similarly remove the CC caused by mount loss only in these circumstances. This would need to go hand-in-hand with the speed noramlisation to be favourable;Decrease a player's starting HP upon being forcefully dismounted by a player's skills. This could advocate ganking even further, but it is already out of control. Still, I would call this a less than ideal solution, especially with the player's ability to time their dismount; it's just an idea. Another, potentially better option, is to give the mount the player's stats and HP pool, and if the mount dies, then the player is downed. I do not agree with the Warclaw's ability to instantly finish those who are downed. This allows people to sit behind and wait for someone to get downed before finishing them in team fights, making classes that are based around small-scale resurrection (Necromancer, Druid, or just support in general) feel way less useful. I am aware some would compliment the Warclaw's ability to allow them avoidance of combat with these bloated abilities when they simply wish to roam and perform PvE-esque tasks. But for many of us, WvW is and will always be a PvP game-mode. Asking that you never die in such a mode is facile. As people have stated in the past, MMOs are becoming a hand-held business, and the Warclaw is no exception. To conclude, I think there are advantages and disadvantages to the Warclaw, but overall it has had a negative impact on the game-mode. This may change over time, but while I can think of few negatives to the implementation of gliding, there certainly are many here. Many may disagree with the points I have made, and that is fine. I would encourage anyone to leave their thoughts, experiences, and suggestions either in this thread or in one of their own. That is the cornerstone of potential improvement, after all.
