Guild Wars 2

The Fan Blade

My name is Flaux Terrahaven. I am a researcher and a professional mesmer. This document contains information on a peculiar weapon that I have found interest in, and hereby present my findings for others to read.

Description

The Fan Blade is essentially an arrangement of seven daggers that are all fused together at the base. Simply speaking, it is a single dagger when closed, and has a mechanical trigger at the base which springs the blades out in a fan shape, opening the weapon’s functioning potential.

History

Hydroine Fan, an asuran and mechanical engineer, had a lot of experience working with golems, but was having trouble generating funds to help sustain his passion with Golem battles, so he resulted to becoming a merchant as a trade. On one of his stops to trade in Lion’s Arch, he came across a stall that had an impressive display on weapons. He approached the crafter and introduced himself to Frayja, a master weaponsmith. One of his other hobbies was his obsession with collecting items that portray everything about him, so it didn’t come as a surprise that the conversation struck lead to a request for a commission of a weapon in his image.

Actually, the conversation between the two became heated, And after the Lion Guard detained Frayja for assaulting the asura as well as calling him a narcissistic rat, she found a spark inspiration from her temporary imprisonment, apologized to the asuran, and took up the commission: The schematics for the Fan Blade.

(I still have more history to write up, which I will cover later in the design section. Thanks for reading!)

Warrior
Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to work with a hybrid weapon, professional warriors took the cane into practice, and likened its use in a similar way to how they would wield a mace, but with range!

The warrior’s cane is a main-hand only weapon, and specializes in mid-range combat.

Skill slot 1
>Cannon
Chain skill. The warrior kneels and shoots a beam at target foe, dealing damage and evading ranged attacks (0.5s)

>Du-Cannon
Chain skill. The warrior stands and shoots a second beam at target foe.

>Tri-Cannon
Chain skill. The warrior shoots a final beam that explodes on impact, weakening target foe and damaging nearby foes.

Skill slot 2
>Smackdown
Strike target foe in melee. If that target was attacking the warrior, knock them down and deal more damage.

Skill slot 3
>Stand and Deliver
Shout. The warrior strikes the cane into the ground, immobilizing him for a short time. While immobilized, their attack range with the cane increases. When this skill ends, they gain swiftness for 10 seconds. (The range of the chain skills increase to casting range while the range of Smackdown is increased to half range.)

Burst skill
>Pulse cannon
Fire a charged shot that knocks back enemies at a distance depending on adrenaline level.

Ranger
It didn’t take much for professional rangers to master this weapon, after all, it fit with their idea of travelling easily throughout the world. Once the masters were able to refine their usage techniques, their effectiveness improved nicely.

Skill slot 1
>Backflip swing
Chain skill. The ranger backflips out of the way, striking the target initially while evading melee attacks (0.5s)

>Somersault swing
Chain skill. The ranger rolls forward towards the enemy, evading an attack (0.5s) and strikes the target when they stand up.

>Frontflip Smash
Chain skill. The ranger leaps towards the enemy in a forward flip, and smashes the enemy’s head, dazing them. (1s)

Skill slot 2
>Dismantle
Shoot a quick beam at target foe, interrupting them and causing weakness if they were attacking. Your pet gains swiftness.

Skill slot 3
>Cheetah’s Takedown
This skill can be activated twice before going into recharge. The first time this skill is activated, the ranger will leap to a location and gain swiftness. If this skill is used again within 5 seconds, the ranger will leap onto target foe and deal damage. (otherwise it will go into recharge)

Skills
Mesmer
The first profession to make use of the cane is the Mesmer. Being appealed to the idea that the weapon has it’s own power supply, master mesmers were able to develop their martial practices while fusing their ability to misdirect and control.

The mesmer’s cane is a main-hand only weapon, that specializes in movement and limited-range combat:

Skill slot 1
>Spacial Dive
Chain skill. The mesmer leaps onto the target, bashing it with their cane and dealing damage
>Trick Spin
Chain skill. The mesmer dodges the next attack by ducking, and hits the enemy for damage.
>Spacial Decoy
Chain skill. The mesmer leaps away, fires a short beam at the target, and leaves a clone at its location. (The leap effect triggers where the mesmer lands, not where it is activated)

Skill slot 2
>Illusion of Haste
Toggle skill. The mesmer becomes crippled for 10 seconds. All attacks made with the cane in that time, cause 2 seconds of cripple to anyone it hits. If this skill is deactivated, all cripple is removed from the mesmer, and then gains 10 seconds of swiftness.

Skill slot 3
>Mental Tremor
Channeled skill. The mesmer pounds the cane into the ground once per second for three seconds. Each time the mesmer does this, all nearby foes take damage, and receive one stack of confusion.

Kia Ora! This is just something random that I wrote up, thought it would be good to share with you guys. It’s for a fictional ‘new weapon’ design. Enjoy!

Cane

Description
The cane is a dual-purpose magically-imbued weapon that was designed by Sylvari and Asura. Most designs incorporate a sturdy cylindrical length that extends one meter, with an alternating form of intricacy on the head of the cane. This weapon is sometimes disguised as a walking aid by its wielder, often causing others to underestimate its potential use, while some are vehemently decorated for combat, and are unashamedly used as such. Professionals today are able to use the cane much in the same way as they would a sceptre. The main difference is that the sceptre is generally more magically powerful, as it draws its strength inherently from the user, while the cane is a hybrid, hosting its own inherent power, and requires a martial style from the user to be effective.

Origin
The cane was designed as a symbol representing some of the shared ideals that both the Sylvari and Asura held, and was a joint commission by the Engineers T-Vaxx and Sylindra. Traditionally, the unified design consisted of a hard material length, imbued and charged with particles of light. An orb would rest at the head of the cane where the battery would be fitted within, and then encompassed with gnarled branches to ensure that the energy could be contained for manipulation. Later designs include a grip just below the head of the cane for easily interchangeable wielding, and a sharpened blade at the base to aid in close combat. Once the factions separated, the designs diverged as well. The traditional design however, is still maintained in production and is commonly used between both factions.

Sylvari Design
Because the Sylvari literally draws power from the earth, the battery orb from the traditional design was discarded and a handle was crafted to the top of the cane instead. As a result, the weapon spends much of the time grounded to ensure that the charge is maintained. The other change in design uses a much harder material, usually onyx or granite, and then fortified with enchantments to improve strength and durability. While this does increase the amount of energy that can be stored into the cane, it also charges at a much slower rate than the original design. Because of this, cane fighters have incorporated new techniques where the weapon includes grounding in many of its moves. The overall design is simple and slender, heavy and wielding, and more deceptive in potential.

Asura Design
The cane was often used by fighters who needed to travel distances to combat their enemies. Because the traditional design felt too heavy, engineers had to remove some of the components to make it lighter. The main obstacle was to remove the gnarled encasing and replace it with an ethereal and electrical field that surrounds and protects the orb. The problem was that having that encasing required more energy to maintain it. To combat this, a generator was installed through the length of the weapon to help power the field. This made the weapon a lot more fragile overall, but the generator was lighter, and could capacitate a reserve of energy into the orb, allowing for added functionality, such as delayed and charged manoeuvres. The overall design is complex and intricate, light and delicate, and more spectacular in potential.

Hey guys, just letting you know that we’ve got a lot of changes coming for sPvP for the upcoming patch!

Paid tournaments are now free.

That is all.

We are also excited to share our upcoming changes to qualifying points in our next blog post!

(translation: “The changes that we are talking about wont happen in this patch, but will come out sometime in the future”)

…

Was it me, or was everyone actually excited when they read the title of the blog post…and only the title of the blog post?

The fact that they said that they would release this game “when it’s ready” was a complete lie. We knew based on an NCSoft financial report from like 2 years ago that Guild Wars 2 was expected by the third quarter of 2012. They shouldn’t have released the game, it was obviously ‘not’ ready. That was their whole drive for calming down eager fans that wanted to play the game.

I want to play GW2!
“when it’s ready”
But I want to play it noowwwwww!
“when it’s ready”
But I saw the previews and the game is so awesome….o plz o plz o plz!
“when it’s ready”

Once people got used to the idea that Anet really did want their game to be perfect “at launch”, well, we gave mad props to Anet for the dedication that they put into the game.

I’m not saying that they haven’t worked their assess off. I’ve seen interviews of some of the developers who looked so pale and tired but were also very honest and excited about their progress with the game. I’m just kitten off that they gave in to a deadline, when they should have stuck to their initial guns, and released the bloody game when everything was finished.

sPvP is a joke. You players out there that are still trying to defend anet. Stop it. Serious. They know it wasn’t ready, they should have hired more people or delayed the release. That’s all they needed to do. They’re making a killing in sales, it’s not like they would have been stretched thin on funding beforehand.

Make sure to +1 this post. Cheers.

I have bad experiences with glass cannon builds, mainly because I like to play my mesmer in the front-lines instead of the back, so having a solid defence/health is really useful to me. Glass cannon is a good build, but you have a shorter time frame to take out your target, if you keep your illusions up and your distance far, it will help you out in the long run. Also remember that because you have low investment into the Illusion line, you have to use your shatter skills sparingly.

As far as condition-based builds go, the confusion should be considered supplementary – I personally wouldn’t rely on it as a primary source. It’s excessively useful against special monsters/bosses that strike multiple times in a short span. If you try and maintain confusion on a target, you’re just going to cripple your effectiveness by a mile. As Davy said, it’s 2-3k per skill use in its prime, and monsters in PvE don’t attack often enough for it to be useful.

If anyone cares, I solo legendary bosses in events by myself as a mesmer. And I personally don’t have trouble getting loot at all. Seriously, it all comes down to how you play the class. If you are struggling, then you need to refine your skills, come onto these forums and ask the right questions. Don’t pack a kitten and cry.

Anyway, this thread doesn’t even have a point, can we close it so that the regulars can get back to playing and not get a headache because of some random dude moaning please?

I thought you could just run there, can’t you make it safely?

If you’re going to wait until you upgrade your PC, you may as well hold onto your GW2 game, since it will still be there when you’re ready to play it again.

Not even sure on the point of having those slots open…

I only play a mesmer, but one of my favourite professions to team up with is a warrior. Their banners and shouts are really helpful for me and they cross-combo really well with my own skills. It’s awesome teaming up with them in a group. If I’m competing against a warrior in PvP, I am usually successful in defeating them, though it’s always a close call once they figure out that they can pommel illusions quite easily.

Though I do prefer the warrior, I have success running around with the thief in WvW. Their party invisibility skills are really useful for setting up an ambush, or trying to escape. And they smack down foes real nice.

Assigning a button to weapon sheathing doesn’t really affect your gameplay. The only way to get out of combat is to physically be out of combat (run away from enemies or kill them.)

The server locations are based on what place you came in in that tier. 1st place is green, then blue and then red.

Ngamok.9568:

Bluebriar flipped Red but all our rams are still sitting on the front gate and no other siege to be found. Hmmmmm. Wonder how that happened.

Did you check the back wall?

so… is anyone in SBI Borderlands? SoS got kicked out and it looks like the map hasn’t updated in terms of capturing, so I’m guessing all of the servers got kicked out?

Torafugu.1087:

There is a trait that cause shatter effect to be duplicated on yourself.
If you are dropped by a thief. activate the blurred frenzy. The skill that summon two clones can be cast during that. so could mind wrack.
This combination inflict ridiculous damage instantly. If the thief is the glass cannon sort, it will likely die.

My main tactic if I’m running around and get jumped on by a thief, especially if it is the kind that spikes, is to use blurred frenzy, throw down a veil and get him out of my face. Then I switch to staff and get my clones up as quickly as possible. I like the idea of using blurred frenzy then mirror images immediately after, I’ll try that out.

If you’re running a low toughness-traited mesmer, I don’t think youshould be running on your own. The best advice that I can give that hasn’t already been mentioned is that you shouldn’t run around with a greatsword. If you get jumped, your only skill is the no.5 and you’re shooting in the dark if you try and pull that one off. Staff and sword are fine, and you can always switch back to greatsword when you feel you can put some good damage in.

You’ve got some good input here, just work on your skills and you’ll come out of it better off. Once you work out how thieves play, they’re not as threatening as people make them out to be.

Uhm I’m pretty sure it doesn’t reset to 100 when it gets flipped over. You get whatever supply that’s in the camp at the time you cap it. I know plenty of times that we’ve engaged enemies at a supply and before they would lose it, they’d take supplies before being wiped, leaving the capping team with less than 100.

As far as building flame rams, they take time to build, and if they were doing it to cripple supply, they’d have to build them ‘while’ they were being assaulted by another server. If they’re built early and left there, it wont do anything to the supply by the time someone recaptures it.

IMO, whoever built those rams was trolling from another server by trying to siege cap, or cripple their allied team’s use of supply. Both of which are stupid and very ineffective.

I believe the rangers/eles have certain skills that have a wider AoE radius than other classes. That doesn’t mean they dont need LoS, it means that if they can get the centre of their AoE close enough, then that range gets extended to the skill’s radius, allowing to reach things further away than any other class. The problem with beserker is that they could lock on a target and continue to hit them until max range regardless of what was blocking them.

You just need to use Mirror Images while holding a trident and you’re asking to get nerfed. If you’re running a condition based build with all the good confusion/clone traits you’re going to hurt a lot of people out there.

You should read around the game updates, but basically there was a line of sight issue with the beserker which has been fixed.

If you’re running on your own and you get turned into a moa and you “don’t” run away, then you deserve to die. Mesmers aren’t the best at chasing down their targets.

Cover Girl.2580:

The second I saw ‘Daish Daish Daish’… I lost all desire to live, play, or fight. SOS should be brought up on serious charges and sanctions from the UN for violations of the Geneva Conventions. This sort of torture and warfare has for sure never been seen in T-1.. we asked for new strats and we got it…

You win SOS.. you win..well played.

The thing that disturbs me the most is that you knew who daish was even while he was on SoS servers. In our defense, we had him since the beginning. While I can honestlysay that we regret that you guys have him, we wont be making an effort to take him back.

I’m sorry this comes across as being harsh, but a lot of people dislike that guy. He was pretty knowledgeable about the game and had some very good ideas, but if people disagreed with him, he would just snap. Very little control.

Again. We’re very sorry you have him

We…can’t take Daish back, he seems to work on his own accord.

Kilerien.5190:

Anyway, props to everyone on SoS that were there from the get go and stuck to it rather than transferring away. You are the folks/guilds that deserve respect and admiration. Smart players too from what I’ve seen as a general rule. Keep up the good work and I love how responsive your players are to threats/situations.

I like a lot of the guys that play big on SoS, but whenever kitten hits the fan, we argue and we argue badly. There are a handful of commanders that will simply look the other way, rally up, and keep SoS fighting alive. And there are other commanders that will leave and go PvE as soon as they experience a wipe.

this is definitely not working like it is supposed to. If it is, then why aren’t all of the other phantasm skills working in the same manner? I know that if I use the warden on the gate, it will also hit any targets standing near the gate as it’s AoE, but it wont chase the gate down. If I try to use it on targets behind the gate, it will not work.

Yeah you have a low-end graphics card, it really depends on how much you want to spend on one.

See here for notes about it:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_6450/

Ugh that sucks, I thought the authenticator was good too. Will have to wait until they fix it before turning it back on.

The dialogue for that comes from one of the mini-games outside of Caudecus’ Mansion, where a woman disguises a man into a moa and you have to find out which one he is. But I don’t know why it’s popping up randomly on your screen

Oh righto, you guys moved it. Nevermind It’s on the top interface

I have to use use the portal to get out of the Heart of the Mists.

On another note, nice work on that place