Guild Wars 2

Scorpion wire is a really neat skill and a cool concept. Indeed, it can be quite powerful in world v. world when applied correctly… assuming it actually does what it’s supposed to do. It’s even documented on the GW2 Wiki that this skill is bugged, as “In addition to its intended functionality, Scorpion Wire can also simply knock your foe down without pulling, pull you to your foe instead, or a mix of these effects.” I’m a bit dubious on the reverse pull ‘bug’ as I can only recollect that happening when using scorpion wire on a target with stability, so that may be working as intended, but the odd tripping bug is maddening and I’ve found the ability often fails to even connect despite an enemy being in range and not evading (will just go off without a pull but no ‘miss’ alert pops).

Considering scorpion wire takes up a utility slot, it would be wonderful to see it made more reliable, at least. It’s painful to see engineers get an incredible pull like Magnet (that not only works consistently but is even unbloackable AND is a channeled skill, allowing it to yank people through obstructions and stealth) while thieves, who lack any other pull skills (and no knockbacks) are stuck with a pull that has none of these things and doesn’t even work correctly half the time.

Please, please please please Anet, at least take a little time to sit down an reevaluate this skill and it’s functionality for better, more consistent play. The struggle is real.

The “reverse pull” occurs if an opponent is using a skill that reflects projectiles. For instance, if an engineer activates magnetic shield just before the scorpion wire hits them, it will “reflect” it and pull you instead. As such, I don’t believe that’s part of the bug.

As for the pull not pulling, that’s a bug with virtually all pull/push skills. The thought it that it’s somehow linked to some interaction with the terrain, whereby they “bump” into it or something and it stops the pull.

In some cases, it’s just a latency issue, as the opponent will actually be pulled, but the visual representation does not show the pull occurring properly. Then, once the opponent recovers from being pulled, they “blink” on your screen to the position they were actually at. This is also similar to when it looks like someone falls off a ledge, but then they magically appear back on the surface they fell off of.

As for the obstruction and out of range cases, those affect a lot of different projectile skills as well.

So it’s not a bug concerning scorpion wire itself, but just general bugs that affect system mechanics as a whole. They’ve been around for a long time, but I imagine the cause of the bugs is deeply rooted in the game engine and are thus not easily fixable. Hopefully we will see them properly fixed at some point though.

What troubles me is that this never seems to be a problem for magnet. Maybe its just because its a channeled skill..?