Guild Wars 2

Greetings,

about 3 months ago i finished crafting a legendary rifle (The Predator).
After using it for a while and observing other players with legendaries I
noticed some things that i want to share and bring some attention to.

Let me start with all the positive aspects about it before we go into the the problems the weapon has. Note that i play an Engineer and do not know how the weapon changes things for Warriors.

• New sound-effects:
  Auto-attacks and Skill 5 with The Predator sound awesome and are the most noticeable change that come with the use of the weapon.
• New visual-effects:
  The auto-attack and Downed 1 shoot orange glowing balls that have an orange trail and enemies you kill with the weapon use the fire-death animation that happens when you kill someone with fire damage.

Now i want to point to the problems The Predator has in regards to its effects when used on an Engineer.

1. Footfalls:

• The Footfalls are very small and have a very short duration. Compared to other 2 Hand Legendaries (Longbow, 2H Sword) the footfalls are really small and disappear very fast. They last about 1 second while the flower-garden footfalls you get from using the Longbow stay for 5 or 6 seconds.
• The Footfalls disappear completely when using an Engineer Kit.
• The Footfalls usually disappear when running up inclines.

2. Aura:

• The Aura you get from using the Predator is only visible when you have the Weapon ready and not if you have it “sheathed” on the back. I have not seen this behaviour on any other legendary that gives an aura. I am pretty sure this is a bug. (see below)
• Compared to other legendaries that give an aura the aura-effects you get from The Predator is very subtle and is mostly located very close to the “skin” of the Character. Sword or Staff give you very big/visible auras in comparison.
• The Aura disappears completely when equipping an Engineer Kit.
• The Aura is only around the body meaning that, when you use an armor skin that has a skirt (so about 90% of medium armor skins) the skirt will cover up the effect that is around your legs and you will only see the aura around your torso.
• The Aura is almost invisible for Charr and Asura. By speaking to other players who have the weapon and by playing the fractals where you get transformed into charr/asura i have noticed that the aura effect is only slightly visible when using the weapon on these 2 races.
• BUG: When you go underwater and re-equip The Predator there you get an aura that stays when you sheathe your underwater-weapon and it also stays when equipping an Engineer Kit. (So underwater it’s basically how it should be)

3. Skill-effect changes: (Engineer)

• Only a small number of skills get changed.
  2 skills gets visual and audio changes (auto-attack and the Grenade Kit’s Toolbelt)
  1 skill gets only a visual change (downed skill 1)
  1 skill gets only an audio change (Rifle Skill 5)
• Rifle skills 2-4 are completely unaffected and behave the same way they would with any rifle.
• As far as i know “Throw Wrench” (Toolkit Toolbelt skill) used to have a special effect with The Preadtor but this was removed before i completed mine so i am not sure this is correct
• Skill-effect changes are sometimes not applied for asura characters. (Namely the Grenade Kit Toolbelt skill.)
  Though i can not reproduce this bug in the fractal where you get transformed into an asura, i have seen and spoken to an asuran engineer that did not get the changed visuals for this particular skill.

Dear ArenaNet, I would really like to know if all this is “by design” or if you might consider looking at some of the things i listed and maybe change them.
I know its a long list but i would really appreciate if you would at least take notice of some of these problems. (Especially the ones with the Engineer Kit interaction and the issues when sheathing the weapon)

I know the Predator is not the only legendary that could use some love and it’s also not the most popular Legendary (probably because only 2 classes can use it and one of them is the least played class). But i bet there are more people who have noticed these things and want them fixed.

To all my fellow Tyrians:
Do you have anything to add?
What are your experiences with your (2nd Class) Legendary?
And to all the Warriors that use The Predator:
How does this relate to you? Do you have something to add that affects only Warriors?

Tl;dr: The Predator’s effects could use some bugfixing and effect-increasing love.

I have the legendary Sunrise and I only get the aura when I unsheathe the weapon. I think this is intended as unsheathing it is accompanied by a burst of light. Sometimes it bugs(?) and the aura stays on me when I switch weapons, though.

Predator’s effects are amazing. The only fault is that its on your Engineer – a problem with how Engineer works, not the weapon itself.

As for the aura, all Legendaries don’t have their aura unless they are equipped and wielded, as opposed to sheathed. It’s opinion based, but the aura from this weapon is my favourite and would hate to have it changed.

I have seen countless Bifrost users standing around without their weapon in hand and they still have the big ball of rainbow around them same goes for Quip and Bolt
was that just a visual bug on my side them?

I think it’s a bug in general, like I said sometimes the aura stays on me, sometimes it doesnt.

Yes, the same bugs can be seen on people with predator.

As an FYI, it’s possible to “bug out” auras so they are always on, even when the weapon isn’t equipped (see pic).

That’s a nice suggestion

I know the trick with the Watchknight tonic and stacking auras.
But even when i don’t use the trick my aura stays on when i’m underwater. Even if I equip a kit.

They should fix/change it so that auras are always visible – to everyone.

The Predator is my favorite legendary by far. I’ve coveted it since before release, but can never afford the precursor.

The aura on Predator is pretty spectacular, and footfalls can’t be much less noticeable than those of Incinerator.

I think the real shame of the updates to legendaries from months ago was that Kraitkin’s glow was dramatically reduced, remains only visible (a generous word) at night time, and still appears to have problems making the transition from day to night such that un-/reequipping the weapon is sometimes needed. It no longer has the appeal of the legendary I crafted.

the footfalls of incinerator and predator are actually very similar in duration, color and size

Brtwrst.9312:

1. Footfalls:

• The Footfalls are very small and have a very short duration. Compared to other 2 Hand Legendaries (Longbow, 2H Sword) the footfalls are really small and disappear very fast. They last about 1 second while the flower-garden footfalls you get from using the Longbow stay for 5 or 6 seconds.

Dear ArenaNet, I would really like to know if all this is “by design” or if you might consider looking at some of the things i listed and maybe change them.
I know its a long list but i would really appreciate if you would at least take notice of some of these problems. (Especially the ones with the Engineer Kit interaction and the issues when sheathing the weapon)

I know the Predator is not the only legendary that could use some love and it’s also not the most popular Legendary (probably because only 2 classes can use it and one of them is the least played class). But i bet there are more people who have noticed these things and want them fixed.

To all my fellow Tyrians:
Do you have anything to add?
What are your experiences with your (2nd Class) Legendary?
And to all the Warriors that use The Predator:
How does this relate to you? Do you have something to add that affects only Warriors?

Tl;dr: The Predator’s effects could use some bugfixing and effect-increasing love.

And Dreamer is once again forgotten as a 2h legendary weapon x_x

Problems with dreamer:
No Glow Aura when equipped at any point
Short Bow for Thief or Ranger just plain out sucks in comparison to other options….
Oh, Rangers only have two effects with this weapon, shoot 1 unicorn going —-—> or shoot 5 unicorns going —-—> in a cone fashion. Thieves Unicorns are Arched in movement.

I like predator when it had the purple projectiles.

I like that my footfalls and aura are subtle. I don’t want them made more obvious. I play wvw and I don’t want to be focused, I just want to make pew pew sounds.

I use predator on my warrior, and I get no extra special effects like engi. I would love it if killshot would send out a beam of light at the end or something. Rifle butt could do some kind of small explosion, I dunno.

Most of unpopular legendaries got updated in setemper when the second SAB came out. You know what? ArenaNet didn’t even say any comment about the predator while others got mentioned. The predator got thrown away completely lol

Here are some pictures for those who are not familiar with the footfalls so they get an idea.
Picture 1 shows the the Footfalls of the Legendary Rifle, Longbow and 2H Sword
Picture 2 shows the Predators Footfalls when running uphill.
Picture 3 shows the Predator Footfalls alone.