Janthir Wilds Unleashed: The Enhanced Warclaw Mount

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Travel through the wilds of Janthir with the updated warclaw mount. Janthir Wilds makes the warclaw available to acquire in PvE and completely redefines its skills—read on to learn more!

[Donari.5237]

Has the warclaw received a speed boost in PvE?  It made sense for it to be useless in PvE before due to its glacial speed, but now it needs to pick up its pace 🙂

[H K.4057]

The WvW changes sound good. Only having 1 lance charge vs 2 dodge charges made it much harder to dismount people than necessary. Chain pull being better is always good, and I like sniff highlighting damaged walls even though it's not something I thought I needed.

The PvE changes are . . . ok? I really don't like the "mounted combat" direction we are moving towards, mostly mount abilities are invariably clunkier and less interesting than what my character can do dismounted. I think the mastery and changes look fine in PvE, but I'm not seeing why I'd use it over Skyscale unless sniff is absolutely needed to find resources in JW.

[Sobx.1758]

So looks like pve abilities aren't dismounting the user? Overally considering the cc (springer), extended/double jump (raptor? Although skyscale basically already does that as well), dodging through enemies giving back endurance (instead of jackal's 3 dodges?) it seems like an attempt to get around the utility dragon saga expansions provided, which sort of makes sense as catch-up mechanic for new players to easoer jump into more recent expansions, but still kind of feels bad when it's done by probably overloading single mount with utility. Also not a fan of a mounted combat in general, but I guess it depends how all of it will be balanced.

Changes to wvw skills seem decent -they provide some additional utility to underused skills while not being over the top. Didn't expect 2 lance charges, but it means less running away and more fighting so I'm fine with that.

Edited July 17 by Sobx.1758

[Luthan.5236]

Not caring about the Warclaw much. But the infos about the first map ... sound good. Seems like it is going to be a bit in the style of the Grothmar map. (That also did not have 1 big meta.)

[Randulf.7614]

Love it. So happy to see the warclaw get some boosts and the leap and spear attacks sound great fun

[Omega.6801]

Cool. Now people can camp three useless mounts while doing 1k DPS. Please start dismounting players again when using abilities, combat mounts are a bad idea.

[H K.4057]

Just now, Omega.6801 said:

Cool. Now people can camp three useless mounts while doing 1k DPS. Please start dismounting players again when using abilities, combat mounts are a bad idea.

As opposed to dying instantly and sitting dead while other people try to res their corpse and also die.

[ShatteredStars.6548]

Ill take some credit for the new sniff ability, since i did suggest last year or sometime around there, that i wish we could see damaged walls on the map, i didn't think of it at the time, but sniff is a good way to do it.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

wait: bloodstone crater... location of the fourth bloodstone revealed? (in GW1 :Prophecies, it was assumed it was in southern Shiverpeaks, somewhere, due to Evennia's capture by the Mursaat and subsequent travel. Granted, we found out about one bloodstone in EotN, which could have been the one they were taking her to.) to quote the Pink Ladies: "Tell me more. tell me more. tell me more. tell me more."

[Manpag.6421]

I'm very hyped for Well Rested! A baseline increase to endurance regen will give turtle more innate flight without needing to run Jade Bot modules, and with the modules, it's going to be able to fly much further than skyscale.

Definitely one of the best shared masteries I could have hoped for.

[QueenKeriti.5176]

1 hour ago, Omega.6801 said:

Cool. Now people can camp three useless mounts while doing 1k DPS. Please start dismounting players again when using abilities, combat mounts are a bad idea.

This. 😕 

[Agrotera.1254]

2 hours ago, Omega.6801 said:

Cool. Now people can camp three useless mounts while doing 1k DPS. Please start dismounting players again when using abilities, combat mounts are a bad idea.

The only place that I have a problem with the mounted combats is the players that take their Skyscale into low level areas and one shot the mobs. They need to ban mounted combat in the low level beginning zones.

[Linken.6345]

Seems like alot of cc is packed into the pve warclaw.

[Palador.2170]

8 hours ago, H K.4057 said:

I think the mastery and changes look fine in PvE, but I'm not seeing why I'd use it over Skyscale unless sniff is absolutely needed to find resources in JW.

They mentioned magical storms in the area. I suspect that they're going to add in a "Violent Winds" type of effect that keeps you from flying/gliding in the area. It'll probably make it impossible to use gliding, griffon, and skyscale in that area. Or it will take control away from you, like accidentally gliding into a leyline if you have that mastery unlocked.

They could then add in the same violent wind effect in other areas in other maps, including central Tyria, so people can't fly there but can still use other mounts.

Finally, I think the AoE pounce will be a dismounting skill, so you only get to use it once. The CC skills do NOT sound like they dismount you, but that means that they can put in world bosses that require CC to deal with and not have it turn into the huge mess of "Most of these people don't seem to know/have ready any CC skills!" they've seen on previous attempts. Finally, I think they'll add treasures for the warclaw to sniff out into core maps, too.

[LichOverlord.6329]

7 hours ago, Agrotera.1254 said:

The only place that I have a problem with the mounted combats is the players that take their Skyscale into low level areas and one shot the mobs. They need to ban mounted combat in the low level beginning zones.

I think the scaling just sucks for mounts

Turtles and skyscales do INSANE damage in low-level areas because it seems like whatever scaling they do to bring you down to level 10 or 26 doesn't work as well when you're mounted

If they fixed the scaling of mount damage and health at low levels I don't see this being an issue - with a full combat mount like warclaw coming into the mix, now would be the time to do it

[LichOverlord.6329]

2 hours ago, Palador.2170 said:

They mentioned magical storms in the area. I suspect that they're going to add in a "Violent Winds" type of effect that keeps you from flying/gliding in the area. It'll probably make it impossible to use gliding, griffon, and skyscale in that area. Or it will take control away from you, like accidentally gliding into a leyline if you have that mastery unlocked.

They could then add in the same violent wind effect in other areas in other maps, including central Tyria, so people can't fly there but can still use other mounts.

Finally, I think the AoE pounce will be a dismounting skill, so you only get to use it once. The CC skills do NOT sound like they dismount you, but that means that they can put in world bosses that require CC to deal with and not have it turn into the huge mess of "Most of these people don't seem to know/have ready any CC skills!" they've seen on previous attempts. Finally, I think they'll add treasures for the warclaw to sniff out into core maps, too.

When they had mentioned storms in an earlier post I had theorized that to combat the "skyscale meta" they would add in more obstacles to make flight more interesting and skill-based like it is with griffon

The example I used was the brand storms from jahai that suck you up - perhaps these storms will function something like that, where you can either choose to avoid them by sticking to the ground, or if you use a little skill you can be launched farther to where you wanted to go?

If said storms will impact flight I would rather they be mechanically interesting and provide skill expression for players, rather than just being annoying or feel needlessly punishing

 

Edited July 18 by LichOverlord.6329

[quake.9023]

11 hours ago, H K.4057 said:

The WvW changes sound good. Only having 1 lance charge vs 2 dodge charges made it much harder to dismount people than necessary. Chain pull being better is always good, and I like sniff highlighting damaged walls even though it's not something I thought I needed.

The PvE changes are . . . ok? I really don't like the "mounted combat" direction we are moving towards, mostly mount abilities are invariably clunkier and less interesting than what my character can do dismounted. I think the mastery and changes look fine in PvE, but I'm not seeing why I'd use it over Skyscale unless sniff is absolutely needed to find resources in JW.

totally agree. the pve seems too much mounted attack. 

[Ashen.2907]

I am not particularly interested in mounted combat or its like but as long as we don't see the Warclaw get a treatment similar to the Skyscale in SotO where it becomes necessary or close to it I can ignore it.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

• Quote

  Sniff: Enhances nearby allies while detecting nearby enemies. With Mastery training, Sniff also detects nearby treasure, which your warclaw can help you dig up.

  ooo.... does this mean that Warclaws will be useful for treasure hunts in old maps, too? (like PoF treasure hunts, or Silverwaste buried treasure chests)

[Pifil.5193]

3 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

• ooo.... does this mean that Warclaws will be useful for treasure hunts in old maps, too? (like PoF treasure hunts, or Silverwaste buried treasure chests)

I don't think so. Those already have their own mechanics; the shovels to dig up the chests in silverwastes and the treasure hunting kits in PoF. I can't see them invalidating those old mechanics with a new mount ability.

Edited July 18 by Pifil.5193

[Batalix.2873]

1. Combat mounts continue to be a bad idea, at least as implemented without restrictions in open world. They simply should not be allowed to participate in most events, which makes me believe maybe there could be a way to create mount-specific events/metas. Or otherwise a completely different mount-friendly mode (which, to my mind, is just WvW, which would be far more epic and less trudgy with more mounts and mount combat, among other things).

2. Reduced fall damage seems fine, but total immunity to fall damage and extra CC is just recklessly obviating Springer. I would love it if you guys had plans to bring up the rest of the game to match the OP-ness of EoD/SotO/JW, but so far you guys haven't been doing a particularly good job of that. So, more direct question is: what do you intend to do about Springer now that it has no niche?

3. What Warclaw really wanted was a slow surface swim speed mastery. Nothing to outclass Skimmer, but enough to make the already tedious WvW traversal just a little less tedious, mounting and dismounting across water.

Otherwise, everything else is...fine...I guess. At least it's not crippling player incentives to play LWS4 like Skyclaw did...just crippling players' incentives to play WvW which...slow clap guys.

 

Edited July 19 by Batalix.2873

[Manpag.6421]

14 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Combat mounts continue to be a bad idea, at least as implemented without restrictions in open world. They simply should not be allowed to participate in most events, which makes me believe maybe there could be a way to create mount-specific events/metas.

I think it is the implementation rather than the concept that needs changing. Given that at least a portion of the player base enjoys mounted combat, ANet probably needs to abandon the philosophy that a mounted player shouldn't be able to do as much damage as an unmounted player (which iirc has never been explicitly stated anywhere, it's just presumed from numbers, but I might be wrong), and give combat mounts at least the potential to deal similar damage to unmounted players. Not top-tier, meta raid rotation numbers, just an average amount that stops people resenting mounted players as leeching. And then to compensate, ensure that there's an element of risk to all mounted combat, like making skyscale do no damage outside a range in which it can also be damaged and dismounted.

Basically, at this point it's probably better to balance mounted combat than to try and remove it. As long as it's just a viable alternative rather than a giant win button, it'll still be optimal to dismount and use your regular skills.

[Toraseishin.1932]

On 7/18/2024 at 8:19 PM, Batalix.2873 said:

3. What Warclaw really wanted was a slow surface swim speed mastery. Nothing to outclass Skimmer, but enough to make the already tedious WvW traversal just a little less tedious, mounting and dismounting across water.

Otherwise, everything else is...fine...I guess. At least it's not crippling player incentives to play LWS4 like Skyclaw did...just crippling players' incentives to play WvW which...slow clap guys.

I second this. If any land mount should have the ability to tread water, it would be Warclaw, and being able to cross small bodies of water in WvW without dismounting would be a really nice QoL improvement.
As for the incentives, I would've thought they'd add a little bonus to PvE Warclaw abilities for those who have fully unlocked and upgraded Warclaw in WvW (like they did with LWS4 vs SotO Skyscale). That would incentivize WvW, and bridge the gap between the two versions of Warclaw a little better.

[Batalix.2873]

On 7/19/2024 at 8:17 AM, Manpag.6421 said:

I think it is the implementation rather than the concept that needs changing. Given that at least a portion of the player base enjoys mounted combat, ANet probably needs to abandon the philosophy that a mounted player shouldn't be able to do as much damage as an unmounted player (which iirc has never been explicitly stated anywhere, it's just presumed from numbers, but I might be wrong), and give combat mounts at least the potential to deal similar damage to unmounted players. Not top-tier, meta raid rotation numbers, just an average amount that stops people resenting mounted players as leeching. And then to compensate, ensure that there's an element of risk to all mounted combat, like making skyscale do no damage outside a range in which it can also be damaged and dismounted.

Basically, at this point it's probably better to balance mounted combat than to try and remove it. As long as it's just a viable alternative rather than a giant win button, it'll still be optimal to dismount and use your regular skills.

I really don't see this idea working. I think implementing "risk" is both too daunting and not something ANet has really been good at lately. And otherwise, PMech and Virt are lazy enough as it is, we don't need even easier sources of "middling" damage.