Guild Wars 2 Revitalizes Underwater Combat
I’m not gonna lie: I’ve always hated underwater combat in video games. While Guild Wars 2 implemented and attempted some innovative stuff regarding their underwater combat system, it has still never been something I’ve been overly fond of. Well, it looks like I’m getting another opportunity to change my mind on all that, as Arenanet has implemented some major changes to that system in the latest game patch.
When revisiting the system, their design goals were the following: Underwater combat should not be any less effective than its on-land counterpart. Underwater movement can be significantly more effective. Underwater skills should have combat-flow parallels to on-land weapons.
I can certainly get behind all three of these sentiments, as they tackle my three main gripes with underwater combat in general. The way they tackled these goals was overhauled many individual weapon skills of the game’s various professions. For some skills this meant increasing damage or lowering cooldowns, but for others it meant a complete rework of the skill. For example, the guardian’s trident auto-attack is now a ranged three-part combo and the Mesmer’s trident skill Spinning Revenge has been replaced with a new skill (Imminent Voyage) that now grants surrounding allies chaos armor and creates a clone at the player’s position. In addition to all of that, many non-weapon skills that were previously unavailable underwater are now usable.
I haven’t yet had the chance to dive into these changes, but from the sounds of everything, they can only be improvements. I always love seeing developers going back and revitalizing systems they feel could be improved upon, so a big kudos to Arenanet for that.
Black Desert Mobile Release Date Windows Unveiled
Black Desert Mobile (the mobile sister to Black Desert Online) is already out in South Korea, but release plans for other regions have been unknown. Up until now. Developer Pearl Abyss revealed their regional launch plans in a quarterly financial report:
Taiwan version: Q3 2018 SEA version: the same time as Taiwan or shortly after NA / EU version: Q1 2019
The launch characters for the game are Warrior, Range, Giant, Witch, and Valkyrie, each with a mixture of skills similar to those classes in the PC version and skills the are more attuned to a mobile setup. Since Black Desert Online and Black Desert Mobile are two distinct games (despite having a wealth of similarities), there is no sort of cross-play between PC and mobile systems.
You can check out the trailer for the game’s launch characters below:
That wraps it up for this month. Are you looking forward to ESO: Summerset or your region’s release of Black Desert Mobile? Have you had an opportunity to check out the changes to underwater combat in Guild Wars 2? Let us know in the comments below!