Guild Wars 2

I like the thief class overall, but it really annoys me that shadowstep abilities will not cross gaps. By that I mean things you would have to jump across. Classes can pull me across the gaps, I think warrior can leap to you across a gap, I get knocked towards people across gaps when they have no LOS, yet if someone is in range of shadowstep, but across a gap, I will not cross to them. Why?

Obviously there could be some balance issues with any ground target shadowstep, so I would be fine if those stayed the way they are, but I should be able to shadow step across a gap to an enemy target. Also Shadow Return should send me back, even if I jumped across a gap or jumped down off a wall.

Just my opinion of course.

There are certain gaps you can shadowstep across, and others you can’t.

My guess is that Anet fully intended shadowstep to work across gaps you can jump across, but the pathing ai that determines whether a gap is “jumpable” is a bit screwy atm.

Hoping they look into it in the future.

I could see abusing the heck out of this with my shortbow…. Especially in Eternal BG jumping puzzle. It would make it extremely easy to kite enemies throughout the entire puzzle, or even on castle wall corners.

You cant blink across gaps as a mesmer either

MrPicklez.6473:

I could see abusing the heck out of this with my shortbow…. Especially in Eternal BG jumping puzzle. It would make it extremely easy to kite enemies throughout the entire puzzle, or even on castle wall corners.

Obviously gaps across jumping puzzles would be unshadowstepable.

DangerMonkey.3158:

You cant blink across gaps as a mesmer either

You can leap across as a Warrior, blast across as an Engineer, and zoom across as an Elementalist, though.

Also don’t forget that Guardian sword skill #2 will literally teleport them to their target regardless of any gaps in terrain, even if the target is out of LOS.

Sixpax.8360:

Also don’t forget that Guardian sword skill #2 will literally teleport them to their target regardless of any gaps in terrain, even if the target is out of LOS.

This is my point. Other classes can cross those gaps, yet shadowstep cannot. I repeat, I do not want the ground target shadowstep to cross gaps, but the ‘to a target’ ones should disregard pathing entirely and just take you there if you have LOS and within range.

Thieves and Mesmers have to deal with this because apparently jumping puzzles are a serious part of game balance.

jumping puzzels would be too easy with shadowstep. For small cracks and jumps I imagine its just a little bugged atm but sometimes I make it through them np.

Yeah, it would not be balanced to let people teleport across jumps. That’s not the point of the abilities.

Here is why shadowstep/blink does not work over gaps. Currently, the shadowstepping is done in a similar way to shadowstepping in GW1. Essentially, shadowstepping isn’t a true teleport but a “run me here really really fast”. True teleportaion is when the game sets your character’s coordinates to the destination instantly and only certain skills, like the mesmer portal, do this. Shadowstep meanwhile finds a path your character can use to get to the location and then follows that path at incredibly high speeds so it seems instantaneous.

So where’s the problem with this? Well, this method worked out well for GW1 because it didn’t have a true Z axis. The maps were flat so you’d never encounter a place you could get to that you couldn’t shadowstep to. GW2 however does have a Z axis and also encourages people to jump. Well, the shadowstep code only runs you to the end location, so if there is no way to run to the location (because there is no land connection to that location) you won’t shadowstep all the way there. The pathing AI doesn’t include jumping into it’s equation so if there is a gap between the places it will consider it unreachable and drop you off at the nearest point is can reach (usually the edge of the platform).

This explains any “glitches” you may encounter using shadowstep. For example, shadowstepping up the ramp in the Battle of Khylo map is possible only if you do it close enough to the ramp up so that the AI can find a path to the location. Shadowstepping from the bottom of the keep point to the ramparts in the Forest PvP map is impossible because there is no direct path there. Sometimes shadowstepping from the ground onto a bridge will only take you to the edge of the bridge because the AI senses a gap between the bridge and the ground so it deems there is no path there, etc.

Now they could fix this by making shadowstep a true teleport, that would make it work in 3 dimensions easily but likely open up a ton of exploits for the skill. Alternatively, they can rewrite the pathfinding code for shadowstepping to include jumping and finding a path over gaps. This is a better solution but will likely take time to implement as it likely involves rewriting a lot of the pathfinding code and reoptimizing it so there is no lag while using the skill.

Actually you used to be able to shadowstep over gaps. It’s not a technical limitation but an artificially implemented one. In BWE1 you could shadowstep on top of keep walls and they nerfed that by BWE2 along with the ability to hop gaps.

Frankly, I don’t see any balance reason for this thing. They should allow teleporting moves to go over gaps, just as leap moves can. I can’t count the number of times I used the Greatsword #4 on my Guardian to help me leap across a gap more easily. I should be able to do the same with a 60-second cooldown Shadowstep. Or with Infiltrator’s Arrow, which costs initiative.