Guild Wars 2

After all the time I’ve spent in this game, I should know this. I’m trying to complete weapon mastery but one of them says about killing with a speargun. Can’t seem to find one – plenty of “harpoon guns” and “spears” though. Could anyone make me go “d’oh”?

Cheers.

They are the same thing as far as the game is concerned, just with inconsistent nomenclature. If it shoots at a distance underwater and isn’t a trident, it’s a speargun no matter what its tooltip says.

Thanks for that. I’ve now figured out what it is – it’s my pet stealing the kill. Guess I’ll do the harpoon thing on another character!

speargun = harpoon gun
spear = harpoon

I don’t know why they would do that… but yes.

Flatley.1620:

Thanks for that. I’ve now figured out what it is – it’s my pet stealing the kill. Guess I’ll do the harpoon thing on another character!

Hmm. I was under the impression pet kills still counted towards the weapon achieves. Maybe I was wrong or it changed, though.

However, I do know for sure that conditions DO mess it up. If an enemy dies by condition it won’t count towards any weapon achieve at all. And Ranger Harpoon Gun is partially condition-based, so… yah, that might be part of it too.

Unfortunately, linguistically speaking, the difference between a spear and a harpoon when it comes to fishing is strictly in its intended use – for smaller fish, you use a spear, but if it’s designed for larger fish or whales, it’s a harpoon. As there’s no “you can only use this weapon against these enemies” in GW2, the terms “spear” and “harpoon”, and thus following “speargun” and “harpoon gun”, are entirely interchangeable.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

speargun = harpoon gun
spear = harpoon
…..

I’m guessing that if the ever ADD an actual land based SPEAR weapon (wishful thinking), they will rename all the underwater weapons with the “harpoon” nomenclature.

The harpoon gun, also known as spear gun (not to be confused with spear)
Spear, also known as harpoon. :p