I don’t fully buy the “Well, making armor is too hard because of all the races” excuse. Back around launch they didn’t seem to have any trouble cranking out 3 new sets of armor (one per weight class) every couple months for the gem store. I’m not saying they could necessarily keep up with that pace nowadays since they probably have less people working on the game now than they did at that point, but I really don’t think it should be such a huge problem if they chose to focus on armor sets.
Rather, the greater cause of the issue is that they’ve chosen to focus more resources on outfit creation than on armor. I mean, fair enough, I can see making that decision since a single outfit can appeal to every player with any type of character whereas armor sets have to be released in groups of 3 with one per weight class. I’m not saying its the wrong choice. Its certainly not the one I’d personally prefer, but there are undoubtedly those who prefer it this way as well, and in a vacuum its a better “bang” for the development buck.
To relate that to the topic at hand… I don’t feel that the races are the main cause of the cosmetic issues. The issue of outfits vs armor would exist exactly how it does today even if humans were the only race. There might be less work involved in creating armor AND outfits, but outfits would still be the more overall efficient development choice.
As for the general question of whether I’d trade every other race for more armor choices… no. Not even a little bit. The races provide FAR more variety than armor sets ever could, in my eyes. Even aside from the obvious different aesthetics of the different races which humans could never duplicate (you’re never having furry humans with horns or tiny humans with big ears and crazy techno hairstyles) there’s also different voices, different mannerisms, different animations, different cultures. Being able to slap a few dozen more armor sets on humans doesn’t even compare.
And as someone who always plays non-human races in any game where its an option… well, I’m not going to claim I would have NEVER picked up GW2 if it hadn’t offered me options. But I may not have picked it up as quickly or stuck with it as long.
Bloodstone Fen itself is the change.
Granted, we never saw it before the explosion. But guaranteed it didn’t involve red energy waves in the skies, rocks floating in the sky, a giant cavern covered in bloodstone crystals, ect. It would have looked like a normal area of the Maguuma Jungle.
Also, you have to remember that the whole point of the storyline is that the explosion was subverted and drawn in / absorbed by Lazarus. So it didn't reach nearly the destructive potential it could have. If that hadn't happened then there would have been a lot more fallout from the blast and it would have reached much further. In fact, I think I remember during the instance showing the explosion or right after that it would have even hit Lion's Arch, which I personally find a tad ridiculous given how far away Bloodstone Fen is from LA on the map, but... yeah. The lack of impact on other parts of the world beyond the random bloodstone shards is part of the story.
You’ve never been able to catch them from behind. They’ve always turned to face you as they fired.
Changes in terrain still completely nullify them. If you’re even a little bit above them, their attacks will just hit the ground.
Retaliation also does wonders if you can tank the damage for a bit, since they hit a huge number of times.
I’ve never done the multi-map nonsense as I personally consider it an exploit and won’t abuse something like that (personal morals and all that). But I could totally see that being at least part of the cause for a couple of reasons, if I understand the way the method works.
People leaving right at the start could be the multi-map squad consolidating their forces into one instance in order to finish that one as fast as possible. Of course, one person from each other instance needs to stay behind to keep the way open for others, but everyone else could just cram into one for maximum speed.
And even if they don’t cram into one instance initially to finish one map ASAP and just stay spread out, as soon as one instance finishes everyone would flock to that instance to gather the chests, so that could lead to people disappearing mid-Octovine (especially if it looks like its already going to succeed).
It could also just be basic taxiing to other instances and not necessarily related to the multi-map, though. If people don’t see a lot of planning or a lot of people at the Tarir entrances, they might just go to LFG to find a “better” instance.
I really don’t see why so many people are on this “Storm Bow was supposed to be a legendary!” train. Its a nice skin, sure. And sure, it has a unique sound effect. Which can also be said about a number of other Gem Store weapons. Its a tribute weapon to GW1, and I actually think if it actually WERE a legendary many people would be kittened off that its just a redesign of an old skin and not a new concept.
Disregarding that whole thing, though… Even though I’m one with absolutely zero interest in ever creating a legendary, I agree with this. If the precursor journey is what takes so much development time (which is almost certainly is) then I’d be just fine with them writing the idea off as too time consuming / unrealistic and returning to the random drop precursors in order to introduce more legendaries. At the very least finishing the “set” that HoT started.
On some level it’d be disappointing since the precursor journey / crafting was a much requested feature. And its hard to admit something was overambitious and ultimately unsustainable. But there’s a point when its too costly to “stick to your guns” and I think just shutting down legendary development altogether passes that threshold.
3510 hours, 1429 days. Never had a precursor drop from random mobs or any other drop source. I don’t do random Forging so no chance of getting one there either. No interest in making legendaries myself, so I’ve actually never owned a precursor in any form.
Off the top of my head, the best drop I’ve ever gotten in my entire playtime in this game was one of the exclusive Toxic dyes which I got from a dye pack which dropped from a Black Lion chest (the key came from a story mission IIRC).
I wish it had Celestial. Since that’s what I have my Revenant using it would have been nice. But as said, no.
The Herald shoulder armor does have Celestial as an option I believe, so maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.
Hmm. Dunno if its fixed or just a sporadic issue, but now I’ve been on for about 40 minutes with no issue.
Had 3 in the last 15 minutes probably. I can always get right back into the game afterwards, but…
The salvage parts event is definitely off. Not only is the scaling atrociously overtuned to the point where it requires every player to turn in a dozen or more parts once you get beyond a very small number of players, but the parts themselves are also an issue.
Only being able to pick up one at a time sucks as it means players have to run back and forth a dozen times, taking pretty much the exact same path each time. Which is tedious as all heck.
Also, the parts on the ground are really poorly shown. Almost every other quest item will show up with a name over it (when holding CTRL or just having the “show item names” option checked) and clear sparkles around it from pretty long distances. But for the items for this particular event chain, the names don’t show up at all on the screen unless you hover your cursor over them, to the point where many people don’t realize there are parts on the ground at all (I know I personally didn’t until I had run the event a few times and just happened to be moving my mouse around the screen).
And then there’s the fact that the items seem to be global, which means one player picking up a piece means no one else gets it. So the parts that do spawn on the ground, assuming multiple players know about them and are looking for them, disappear rather quickly. And don’t respawn very fast.
And then there’s the scaling bow wielding frogs, which don’t have any parts to drop for the event, but will hinder progress by sniping players unless you take more time to kill them off.
I’m 95% sure the screaming is just a bug related to the Jade Constructs.
In the instance where you first encounter a Jade Construct down in the pit where the explosion occurred, your character always screams when you first encounter the Jade Construct and it starts debuffing you with the attack you’re supposed to counter-spell. Which is likely the intended response, given the whole thing where the Pact soldier apparently got their insides fried by a Construct (you can find her and a Priory Researcher in the Pact camp on the ground level). I assume its supposed to be your character reacting to getting hit by the same thing.
It happening in the open world in Bloodstone Fen is probably a bug. Its probably supposed to trigger during the Jade Construct event chain only specifically when you get hit by that attack, but something is making it trigger at other times. I have actually seen it trigger at the right time as well.
As for the Anomaly’s popping up in random spots… yeah, that seems like something intentional. Seems pretty eerie.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a new item based on Dragonite ore or Empyreal fragments for future episodes
maybe in future seasons, but bloodstone was this whole season’s thing, not until we move away to a different area will we stop using bloodstones. Since there was a red barrier at the north side of the map I predict that next (or 3rd) chapter will unlock the second half of the map with more bloodstone currencies
There won’t be another section in Bloodstone Fen. We can already get map completion for the zone. Dry Top was specifically left without a completion reward until it was “done”. Not the case here. It’ll be a second new map for future story stuff, if anything.
I would be all in favor of some of the symbols on older weapons getting re-evaluated and tweaked a bit, given a function of their own besides just putting down a symbol. Except for Hammer. Hammer being a permanent symbol and on the auto attack is already enough of a “gimmick” for that one.
I can’t say I’m all that fond of most of your suggestions specifically, though. Immobilize on Symbol of Wrath could be interesting and combo nicely with the offensive nature of the weapon, but the rest seem pretty “meh”. Personally, I’d say maybe something like this…
Symbol of Swiftness – Allies within the initial cast radius receive 5 seconds of Quickness (exact duration subject to balancing). Fits the overall theme of the weapon as a support weapon, fits the theme / name of the skill, while giving you some actual reason to use it on allies during combat since Swiftness isn’t exactly great in combat situations.
Symbol of Faith – The initial hit from the smash gets a power boost and now inflicts 3 seconds of Weakness and Cripple. Gives the mace a bit of CC / break bar utility, with the Cripple helping Mace’s lack of mobility and Weakness fitting with its defensive nature.
Even if they weren’t heavily restricted to the point where gold sellers wouldn’t want to use them much anyway, removing free-to-play is never going to go over well. Its pretty much a “Pandora’s box” situation, once you add it you can’t ever take it away without getting a huge backlash.
I have one single Maguuma Lily in my collection and I’ve been playing HoT since launch. Granted, I’m not nearly as hardcore as some players, not by a long shot, but something that’s just a crafting material (and one that you need potentially dozens of if you want to use it) has no business being that rare unless it makes something really awesome and impressive. Not an item that just makes a random stat combination of dozens.
You can use a single weapon for both weapon swaps if you have it in the same hand. For example, you could use Sword / Pistol and Sword / Torch with a single sword, just by equipping the sword in one set and leaving your main hand slot empty in the other.
If you’re putting the weapon in the other hand, though, there’s no way to use one weapon. You’ll need two in those cases.
The only issue I had with the end of S3 was the “reveal” of Primordous being active. I know they kind of hinted at something going on with ley energy during the lab instance, but then it was quickly swept away and the entire rest of the episode was focused on the White Mantle and Bloodstone Fen. Heck, one could almost argue that the entire lab instance was hinting at the Bloodstone and not even Primordous at all, since all it really said was that something was up and Taimi couldn’t pinpoint what. So it wasn’t COMPLETELY out of left field if the lab dialogue was pointing towards dragon stuff, but it was so close to out of left field that it pretty much felt that way.
Like, basically the entire LS episode was dediced to tying up loose points from HoT and the White Mantle. It was a cohesive whole for the most part. We even got a cliffhanger for that plot point with Lazarus’ appearance and Caudecus’ escape.
The mention of Primordous being active seemed so tacked-on, like the developers suddenly realized after developing the whole thing that the Current Events stuff involved the White Mantle AND dragon minions and said “Oh bugger, we need to tie into that somehow!”. I’m sure that’s not what happened at all, but that’s almost what it seems like. And it just doesn’t seem necessary at all to me. We had one cliffhanger, we didn’t need another. I’m sure Primordous would have waited to get a better buildup to his activity than 1 line of dialogue at the very end of the story.
Its something that a LOT of games nowadays that utilize friendly AI / parties do, actually. Scale the damage your companions do to trivial levels so that the players have to handle the game rather than just letting the AI beat it for them.
Its not something I’ve ever been a fan of personally, but I can see the reasoning for it to an extent. Actually making your allies useful is a fine line between making them too good so the player feels uneccessary and having them be just useful enough to help but not carry. Its a difficult balance to achieve I imagine, and so many developers just throw up their hands and say “Whatever, better to have useless allies than ones that are too good and make the player feel unimportant”.
If they aren’t fighting at all, then that might be a bug. I’ve noticed them standing around doing nothing once or twice, but most of the time they’re at least attacking stuff (albeit doing pitiful damage, since they want you the player to handle the enemies and not just let your allies do everything).
I have a feeling the Bloodstone Rubies aren’t going to be used for the next set(s) of Ascended jewelry simply because it would mean that anyone who farms a whole bunch right now could just buy them instantly day 1 of the next release. Which isn’t good for keeping people playing the new content.
But I’m assuming they’ll be used for something, since the devs also said during the AMA that they didn’t feel they fit as currency and that’s why they’re items and not in the wallet. Right now they are just currency, so I’m thinking they’re going to be used for other things at some point. Unless all they meant by that comment is something along the lines of “We already have Unbound Magic as a map currency and we didn’t want 2 different currencies for the same map”. Which is possible, but I still think they have something else up their sleeve for Rubies personally.
There’s no direct way to correlate a skin to a TP entry, no. Wiki is probably your best bet, it’ll generally tell you what the items are named if you search a wardrobe entry.
She doesn’t start the event, though. She’s just a “herald” character, an NPC who calls your attention to an event already in-progress elsewhere.
I don’t think there’s a single item they could give for the birthday gift that would be universally useful to EVERYONE.
I mean, it’d have to be a brand new item, because per the argument in this thread there’s going to be at least a handful of players who have maxed any existing item they could pick. Free Black Lion weapon? Someone out there has them all. Free Legendary? Someone has ’em all. Free mini-pet of your choice? Someone has ’em all.
But even for new items, not everything is going to be useful to every player. An outfit? Some players hate outfits. An armor set? Someone’s not going to like the way it looks. Exclusive new dye? Some don’t care about new dyes or aren’t going to like the color. Exclusive weapon? Not all professions can use all weapons. Exclusive full weapon set to avoid the previous issue? People will complain they can only get 1 and not the full set (unless they go crazy and give the entire set out). Exclusive mini? We’ve seen how THAT one goes. Boost-based item like the Birthday Blaster? Plenty of people aren’t going to bother with it.
The devs already said during the AMA when Season 3 launched that they didn’t feel that Blood Rubies fit the role of a currency. Which is why they didn’t make them one.
They didn’t elaborate further on that point, but I’d say its quite possible the devs have further plans for them beyond just trading them to the vendor.
As Rose said, you can’t even buy the skill unless you actually have the Ley Line Gliding mastery. I can say this with absolute certainty as I don’t have it, and when I view the item on the vendor its greyed out with big red text telling me as such.
So no, it wasn’t a waste in the slightest.
I was shocked they didn’t change this when they introduced Concentration. Seemed like the perfect time to finally give this stat combo which has pretty much been useless since it was first added some love.
Not holding my breath for it now, but it’d be nice.
I don’t see any dragon fights being part of LW. I expect they’ll use LW to build up to the major portion of the dragon storylines which will then be released as expansions, pretty much like how they handled Mordremoth. LS2 handled the buildup, but then once it came time to venture into Mordremoth’s territory proper we got HoT. I expect they’ll follow that method pretty closely for future stuff.
I run a rather unique setup where I only use the right side of my keyboard along with my fairly basic 5-button mouse. During normal gameplay I’ll have my right hand on my mouse and my left hand on the right hand side of the keyboard, and I don’t really need to move my hands at all from those positions. Only to type in chat.
All my important keys are set up to the NumPad, arrow keys, and the 6 “command” keys (Ins/Home/End/Del/PageUp/PageDown). And a few on the far left side of the normal keyboard area.
Specifically, its…
Arrow Keys – Movement
1-9 = The normal attack / utilities assigned to those numbers
0 = Jump
Num* = Elite
/ = Weapon Swap
. = Dodge (mainly because its right next to 0 / Jump and makes it easy to dodge-jump)
- = Special Action
+ = Take Target
NumPad Enter = Auto-Run Toggle
Ins – Profession 1
Home – Profession 2
Del – Profession 3
End – Profession 4
PageUp – Profession 5
PageDown – Stow Weapon
Shift = Loot / Interact
] = Run / Walk Toggle
Mouse Wheel Button = Nearest Target
Mouse Button 4 = Hold to cast AoE on the enemy
Mouse 5 – Next Enemy
A level 80 character automatically has enough Hero Points to unlock every single one of the core specializations and every single utility tree. That’s nothing special to the level 80 boost, any character at level 80 period has enough no matter how they were levelled. They specifically designed it that way so that any level 80 could have everything available to the core class (though stuff like elite specializations are not included in that, because they’re considered above and beyond the core class).
I can’t say whether the boost automatically learns all the skills and specs for you or just gives you all the points and makes you spend them yourself. But considering you can mass spend hero points unlocking entire “chunks” / wheels of spec / utility trees, it would take a matter of a minute or two to learn everything manually. So there’s not much difference either way.
Thank you muchly. Here’s hoping for Tuesday.
I’m sad that this suggests we’ll be seeing new outfits on the others — though did Rox have new duds? — but have to wait months for them to appear.
Rox, Rytlock, and Taimi are all wearing the same stuff they were wearing during HoT.
Canach and Marjory got new outfits.
Braham and Kasmeer are still unseen for LS3 so far, so we’ll have to see if they get new clothing or not. I don’t expect Braham to, mostly because his armor was made specifically for him (I assume) and even named after him, but I suppose its possible he’d take on a new look to go along with his new hairstyle in light of the events that transpired during HoT. Kasmeer could go either way.
Sylvari – Cactus hairstyles. And no, I don’t just mean spikes / needles. We have a couple of those styles already. I mean, like, having actual cacti on their head as “hair”. There are tons of varieties of cacti that would make neat hair styles. Some of the longer, thinner varieties could serve as more traditional hair, while some of the more circular cacti could be buns, a Mohawk made out of paddle cactuses… plenty of unique possibilities there. I remember way back when there were still race-specific forums there was a thread about Sylvari hair where we actually got occasional replies from the primary design artist for Sylvari, and they said they didn’t feel cactuses “fit” Sylvari since they’re more forest / jungle like. But living in Colorado we have cactuses in forest areas, so I don’t really feel like that limitation needs to exist.
I’d also love to see a pine tree hairstyle, but I remember in that same thread them saying it wouldn’t be possible to make a pine tree style hair look good because it would be too many polygons for density of needles they’d need to make it look natural.
Oh, and more mushrooms. Smaller clusters as opposed to one giant mushroom cap, perhaps.
Charr – More subdued, practical styles. Like, seriously, enough with the enourmous spiked hairstyles that look like you got your head stuck in a light socket. Functional, pulled-back hair with simple metal or bone adornments. Maybe a pulled-back and braided mane for males. Maybe a hairstyle where the hair is wrapped around the horns to keep it out of the way, though that may be difficult to design considering the different horn styles. Maybe a style using feathers as adornments, since it would still fit the tribal style. Heck, maybe they could use something like devourer tails as adornments as well.
Asura – Shorter styles. Not necessarily in “hanging down the back” length, but thinking more on the top. Asura seem to have a ton of hairstyles that are really big and puffy. Definitely keep making cool tech-looking adornments though, those are my favorite part of most Asura styles. One particular example I think would be really awesome would be some holographic adornments. Could do 2 separate styles, one in the style of the typical Asuran holograms and one specifically in the style of Moto’s “solid holography”. Oh, and more bandanas too, especially for the females. For females it might also be nice to see a beaded hairstyle, but with little asura baubles as the beads.
The story itself was the same size as previous LS updates. But we got a new zone to go along with it, and a zone that’s pretty well fleshed-out and better incorporated into the LS story. And mechanically, these story missions are more interesting than a lot of the previous ones as well. The fights are more involved, there’s far more dialogue and more involved scenes, and such. So I personally do feel like we’re getting more here than in Season 2.
Is it “more” to the point where it makes up for the 3 month time period as opposed to 2 weeks? Eh, probably not. But they’re working on a lot of other stuff as well (the next expansion, raids, WvW) whereas it seems like they pretty much had everyone working on Season 2 at that point (S2 was probably done months before it released, when they probably started working on HoT in earnest). So its to be expected that there’s going to be a slowing on overall progress.
As Bellatrixa said, I’d assume they’ll be coming at a later time, and the devs even hinted as such during the AMA yesterday. They chose those particular items because they felt like they were the ones “most lacking” at the moment.
I’m actually surprised they gave 3 of the 4 accessories right off the bat, honestly. I would have expected one per LS update.
Most of my QOL wants are related to account-bound systems.
~ A “keyring”. Commonly suggested, hugely wanted. It would be so amazing if I didn’t have to waste half a dozen inventory slots on every character carrying around various items to open chests on all the maps with map-specific chest types. And additionally, when I first bring a character to a zone it’d be nice if I could just start opening chests and not have to worry about either transferring items over from other characters or buying / earning them through events before I can start getting that loot.
~ A Tonic “wardrobe”. For both consumable and infinite tonics. Get them out of the bank and individual inventories and into a central system. They already have a system in place that can handle infinite and limited-use items together (Finishers) so it shouldn’t be farfetched to get something similar for tonics as well. Not only would it free up a metric ton of inventory and bank space, but it would also allow you to more effectively use the tonics as well. Like, right now if someone starts up an impromptu Quaggan parade or a snowball avalanche… well, chances are I’m probably not using the character who has the appropriate tonic available. So foo on me. But with a “wardrobe” I could have all my tonics at any given time ready to go.
~ A small selection of account-bound waypoints. Nothing major, map completion should still be largely character-based. But maybe have one or two basic waypoints at the starting point(s) of a zone unlocked for the account for each zone (once at least one character has been in that zone, of course), just enough to let you jump to whatever map you want without needing to potentially drudge through a half a dozen zones to get there on a new character.
I do have a few that aren’t related to account stuff as well, though.
~ Better manual targeting. It can be really hard to target specific things in the heat of a fight, especially in large groups of players. One of the key things I’d like improved is that enemies should get absolute preference over other players. If I’m clicking anywhere near an enemy, no matter how many allied players are around, I should end up targeting the enemy and not the random player / mini pet / minion in the zerg. There’s almost no reason to ever target players in this game as it is, so just let me target the enemy.
~ “Open All” functions for bags. I realize this is a potentially sticky addition since it could very easily lead to issues with filling up a players’ inventory, but it would still be extremely welcome.
~ “Use All” functions for every consumable (or at least every “reward” type consumable, EG karma potions, experience scrolls, ect). Its amazing on Essences of Luck, spread the love.
I don’t think you can hide individual story steps. The best you can do is collapse the whole category (for example, you can collapse Living Story Season 2) using the arrows to the left of each section.
If there’s one area where I don’t think anyone can possibly argue against in terms of this patch, its definitely QOL stuff. They definitely did a great job adding a lot of that here, from shared recipes to mass salvaging. Obviously there’s still more stuff they could add and there always will be, but there’s a lot of positives here for sure.
Sylvari are all identical for both genders as well
Why do Veteran Bristlebacks have breakbars?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Electro.4173
I don’t really “get” why Bristlebacks have breakbars either. As you said, they don’t really seem super sturdy like some of the other dinosaurs with break bars, it just seems like they stuck it on there randomly.
They’re still really easy to deal with most of the time, though. Terrain height differences completely wreck their attacks. Just get a little higher or lower than the bristleback itself and 90% of its attacks will miss you.
I’m guessing they wanted to keep it toned-down and not super-rainbow bright and crazy both for the sake of reducing overall visual noise and possibility of negatively affecting performance.
Probably not going to happen. At this point I believe they’ve pretty much settled on the fact that all new skills going forward are going to be for Elite Specs, in order to make balancing easier by limiting the number of utilities which can be combined.
I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to it (though removing Mistfire Wolf would be bad even if it is “useless”) but I’m not holding my breath.
You can get some good stat combos off the Spinal Blades back items. Easier than many other exotic or ascended level backpieces. Most of the basic stat combos are on there, like Berserker, as well as Celestial. So if you aren’t pressed for room to the point where you need that room right now, you could always keep them around in case you need more back items for future characters.
Personally, its the female Norn I actually have a problem with. If they wanted huge gorilla men for the males, females should look similarly bulky instead of being slender and “sexy”.
Considering the backlash they got during the HoT launch for locking parts of the story behind late masteries (namely the sign-cutting step requiring itzel poison mastery) to the point that they eventually got removed, I doubt they’d make the same mistake again. Particularly since they’re clearly pushing for more HoT sales by putting it on sale and advertising that you need HoT to play it, which means they’re hoping for new HoT players. New players who wouldn’t have the required masteries as they will have just started with HoT, and then get angry about not being able to play LS3.
Its been quite a while since we got new hairstyles or faces. All the recent additions were just hair colors and eye colors, which aren’t nearly as interesting.
I wish the data-mined / leaked hairs meant something, but I believe there have been hairstyles and faces added that never amounted to anything before, so I’m not really using those as indicators of anything. I do hope there are some new customization options (beyond just colors) coming sometime in the near future, for sure, though.
I’ve never had much luck with the entry area of Verdant Brink. There’s usually one or two there, but not enough for the daily in my experience.
I usually go use the Eastern waypoint in Auric Basin. I’ve had a lot more luck in that area than anywhere else off the top of my head.
Eh. I give no craps about pocket raptors. I’d rather have a normal raptor.
Seeing beetles be planned but not released makes me super sad, though. I’ve wanted a beetle pet ever since they first showed up in the Silverwastes (and there’s even a tease in the Silverwastes near the “Mystery Cave” area where you can find baby beetles). We need more bug pets.
From a technical standpoint, I think its because back items are often coupled with weapons. A lot of skills in this game through the years which hid weapons would also hide back items at the same time. Usually skills that involved throwing a weapon, like Ranger’s axe. Shroud hides weapons for obvious reasons, so it hides backpieces along with them.
As for why this particular issue hasn’t been fixed when others have been… I actually think Steelstick may be onto something. Weapons (and back items) aren’t effected by particle effect modifiers. Possibly due to the way weapons and back items are created and not having the appropriate channels (same reason they’ve said dyable weapons would require reworking the entire system). Shroud makes your entire model turn all shadowy. If backpieces weren’t hidden they may not be able to go shadowy due to this limitation, which would clash with the Shroud aesthetic.
I’d be fine with either a long-range power weapon or a melee condition weapon. I think those two would give the best variety compared to current weapons.
As for which specific weapons… I’d probably go with Shortbow for the former and Mace for the latter, simply due to the fact that those two weapons are the least used ones in the game. Assuming we can actually get mainhand one-handed weapons, anyway. So far its either been offhands or two-handers for elite specs, but I don’t see why they couldn’t break that pattern.
Those two weapons would also mark the first time a light-armor / robe class could wield either, which would be nice.
High, highly subjective as to which ones look the best.
But my personal favorite staff skins are the Dragon’s Jade Staff and The Crossing, simply because they’re more then just a stick with a fancy head on them. There’s actual details and stuff on the shaft and not just the top. There are a couple other staffs with more to them as well, but those are the two I can think of off the top of my head.