Guild Wars 2

Grasping Darkness (GS5) has a strange quirk to it.

When having no target, it shoots out straight in the direction facing, pulling those in that wake.

But, when having a target, it will only allow you to activate it if the target is in a 45 degree cone in front of you, or else it’ll give a “No line of sight” and not activate at all.

Why?

I think it should do one of two things:

1. Either shoot it out in front of your character just like having no target; i.e. miss your target, but could still pull in enemies in that cone, or
2. Increase the cone to 90 degrees, i.e. track your target better.

(There also seems to be an occasional problem of it activating at all when in battle with opponents properly in front of the character. My guildies say the same thing, though we failed when trying to reproduce it outside of wvw.)

They are more important issues with that skill.

I think it comes down to how it worked in beta. Back then it wouldn’t cast in the direction of your target but where the camera was facing. So to fix this they just disabled it from casting unless you were facing your foe.

This skill is coded in a really weird way. A friend of mine and me tested it some day and did find out that it actually uses a projectile!

If you use the skill, you are shooting a invisible, not damaging projectile. If the enemy is reflecting, this projectile will be reflected (still no damage). Then the animation of the skill will show like it worked normally, the only difference is that it will not pull your foe to you! Test it for yourself, don’t know if they patched it meanwhile, but it was hilarious.

ANet fixed it that way after the second beta test.
During a fight if players activated that skills and was not facing the enemy they pulled the wrong enemy or simply missed the enemy, losing the skill.
Then ANet made that skill to grab in front of you when don’t haveing a enemy or grab in the direction of the enemy you’re fighting.

More or less only in www zergs you have so many enemies to pull that you don’t need a precise direction to grab someone. But if you move and you miss your GS5 attack in spvp just why the attack don’t follow the target but your own direction is a big problem.
Is better a “not line of sight” than totally miss the enemy you want to hit.

As my friend likes to explain things, “becouse **** you, that’s why”.

On a serious note, the skill looks and works like huge coding mess. It probably faced the same issues as death charge in beta, and was band-aided untill it became dependant on moon’s phase to work.

Kodama.6453:

This skill is coded in a really weird way. A friend of mine and me tested it some day and did find out that it actually uses a projectile!

If you use the skill, you are shooting a invisible, not damaging projectile. If the enemy is reflecting, this projectile will be reflected (still no damage). Then the animation of the skill will show like it worked normally, the only difference is that it will not pull your foe to you! Test it for yourself, don’t know if they patched it meanwhile, but it was hilarious.

I did notice it when the Caster in Foefire map had swirling winds up; thought that was odd. Does rev hammer 2 also get reflected?

Wintermute.5408:

As my friend likes to explain things, “becouse **** you, that’s why”.

I almost want a dev to reply with that….it would be strangely satisfying…

Kodama.6453:

This skill is coded in a really weird way. A friend of mine and me tested it some day and did find out that it actually uses a projectile!

If you use the skill, you are shooting a invisible, not damaging projectile. If the enemy is reflecting, this projectile will be reflected (still no damage). Then the animation of the skill will show like it worked normally, the only difference is that it will not pull your foe to you! Test it for yourself, don’t know if they patched it meanwhile, but it was hilarious.

If you equip Sunrise/Twilight/Eternity they turn into flying greatswords.