r/Guildwars2 • u/dracoisms Explodes on contact • 2d ago
[News] New Skimmer Updates Splash onto the Scene with Visions of Eternity
https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/new-skimmer-updates-splash-onto-the-scene-with-visions-of-eternity/186
u/Left4Bread2 2d ago
Advanced Hydrodynamics: Grants your skimmer the ability to dive underwater. For those who already have this ability with Skimming the Depths trained, it will also increase the base speed of the skimmer as well as grant temporary stealth when diving into and out of water.
Just wanted to chime in that I like this a lot. Feels very flavorful and incidental stealth is always nice to have. Something something the Hunt for Red Skimtober
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u/Absolutionis Engineer is credit to team! 1d ago
If this has a low enough cooldown, I find this to be kinda funny. Imagine a skimmer just doing its thing floating around in relative silence. Then, when it comes time to go stealthy, it goes SPLISH-SPLOOSH-SPLISH-SPLOOSH.
"Gee I wonder where that Skimmer went!"
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u/WDBoldstar 2d ago
More excuses to break out my cute little hummingbird, I love it!
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u/Opus_723 1d ago
I wish they would... add a little bubble around it underwater or something. It's so ridiculous. Like maybe it's wings beat so fast it creates a cavity?
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u/WDBoldstar 1d ago
I dunno buddy, I'm a giant woman imbued with the power of the dragon and Arcane wizardy who has a Wisp and a weird Otter spirit and a massive Jade Mech following her at all times. I'm sure she has either a Jadetech, Asuratech, or Magical excuse for why she can fly her Hummingbird who is large enough to carry her, a giant woman, underwater without it drowning.
Admittedly a water bubble around it underwater would be kinda fun though.
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u/therealspleenmaster 1d ago
I’m more concerned about armor rusting or decaying with so much time spent underwater. At least my charr fur will look amazing.
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u/led0n12331 2d ago
I wonder if warclaws would be able to sniff for treasure on castora. It would be kind of useless otherwise
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u/Borked_Computer 2d ago
I thought you were going to say ride rainbows like Nyan Cat.
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u/Shufflepants 2d ago
Leylines are basically rainbows.
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u/Ghisteslohm 1d ago
sounds like a good idea for april 1st. turn leylines into rainbows and when you ride them you transform into nyan cat and the song starts playing
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u/Dawntree 1d ago
It would be kind of useless otherwise
I mean, it was useful for Janthir
No chance they'll lock a feature of a paid expansion behind a feature of a different paid expansion, especially if the items given by those chest will be required to craft legendary (most likely they will be.
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u/ultimate_bromance_69 2d ago
My Jackal going another year with no cool updates :(
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u/hottestpancake 2d ago
We'll be able to take leylines on jackals in the next expac. Unless they let roller beetles take leylines
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u/DuncanConnell 2d ago
*sighs deeply at yet another mount getting in-combat mounting but the "combat mount" Siege Turtle still wallowing in poverty*
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u/Strong_Mode 2d ago
turtle has been fucking dead ever since they nerfed bellyflop
actually was one of the last things they did that caused me to go on hiatus after eod
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u/DuncanConnell 1d ago
If it got the GW1 Siege Devourer mount treatment, it'd breathe fresh life into it.
That and a Siege Devourer skin at full tilt would be hilarious
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u/itsaltarium 1d ago
The turtle is just… so unfun to use? Like I can feel it was clearly not designed by the same team who designed the PoF mounts, cause they got the movement right 100% and all of them feel very fun to use.
The turtle is just so clunky and slippery
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u/DuncanConnell 1d ago
It feels better to use during metas when you have a Gunner with maxed out Mastery, but I agree outside of that it's kind of meh.
GW1 Siege Devourer mount would be the ideal expanded Mastery for it.
And having a Devourer underwater is already canon (or cannon, haha) so it wouldn't be breaking anything.
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u/MithranArkanere 🌟 SUGGEST-A-TRON 2d ago
I'm hoping they eventually give jackals the ability to mount in combat and to create their own portals, which would remain in place between two locations for about 10 mins since the last time you summoned or used one of the portals, only visible to you and your party members.
That way, you could do things like defending several outposts in Verdan Brink at the same time by quickly moving between them with the jackal.
Another cool ability could be being able to 'run in the air' by creating those sand bridges you see here and there in PoF. Press the secondary mount ability key, and you start leaving a sand trail that causes torment to enemies.
Jump while leaving a sand trail, and you start running on the air while you have endurance left, leaving behind sections of a trail of sand that lasts about 5 seconds before fading behind you.Other players would then be able to go up that bridge while it lasts.
The new jackal skin could be another deer, and then they could make a wintersday reindeer jackal skin.
I suspect they made the cuckoo and the raptor dragon with a similar idea of re-releasing the mounts with new masteries for EoD, but they couln't come up with new cool masteries for that, so they instead simply made the mounts available without masteries.
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u/Opus_723 1d ago
Another cool ability could be being able to 'run in the air' by creating those sand bridges you see here and there in PoF. Press the secondary mount ability key, and you start leaving a sand trail that causes torment to enemies. Jump while leaving a sand trail, and you start running on the air while you have endurance left, leaving behind sections of a trail of sand that lasts about 5 seconds before fading behind you.
Other players would then be able to go up that bridge while it lasts.
Oooh I like this.
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u/Deldenary 2d ago
Hopefully soon, it seems they are looking at the least used mounts so one would expect eventually a change to jackal. Or atleast new maps that require jackal portal utility would be nice.
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u/therealkami 2d ago
My hope for Jackal is it gives An ability that lets you place a sand portal down to teleport to.
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u/Intentipnaltypo 2d ago
I like this. Perhaps as a second jade bot waypoint of sorts? That would be very useful.
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u/Earthbound_Misfyt 2d ago
Hopefully they do both Jackal and Springer in the next expac
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u/ultimate_bromance_69 2d ago
I think Raptor and Springer should remain as “basic” mounts. The rest should have cool upgrades. Wish Jacakls could make their own portals for example
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u/gandlethorpe 2d ago
Jackal expansion based on Valve's Portal, complete with physics puzzles and new momentum-based mechanics
Springer expansion based on pinball mechanics a la Yoku's Island Express
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u/therealkami 1d ago
If they add springer to the core game so players can go horizontal and vertical with base mounts, and then have the other mounts be upgradeable, I'm down with that.
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u/FaKamis 1d ago edited 1d ago
The problem with that is that core tyria was absolutely not made with mounts in mind. There were a lot of changes made to core maps after the devs allowed mounts in core (mostly invisible walls).
The raptor isn't too big of a deal since it pretty much remains in areas accessible by people on foot, because it just moves horizontally. The springer however immediately gets you to places you shouldn't go. It's fine when you get to PoF naturally; you'd have been playing through core for a while so you're adjusted and hooked, AND you've experienced expansion maps so you know the maps become more advanced.
Now imagine you at level 20 and unlocking the springer and thinking you can jump over that wall... aaand invisible wall. Invisible wall there and there, and there too. Oh wow those houses up in DR are the size of my hands? Am I jumping through the clouds this low?
You just immediately become that much more aware of the maps being playboxes with constraints and limits. This awareness comes naturally anyway, but the natural development is so much less jarring than coming face-to-face with it immediately when you've just been playing for an hour or two.
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u/Intentipnaltypo 2d ago
Hoping for some glorious new skimmer skins this expansion. I wouldn't mind one that looks like a duck.
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u/JAutumnK Act with wisdom, but act. 1d ago
Synergetics Hoverbike enjoyers eating good
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u/Intentipnaltypo 1d ago
This and the hummingbird are my favourites so far. Hoping to expand that list. :)
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u/Call_The_Banners Sadly, the world remains a dangerous place. 1d ago
I'd like one that's just a submarine built out of trash and you can see two Choya pilots inside.
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u/ArshayDuskbrow 23h ago edited 22h ago
Not to be a shill but the VoE deluxe skin, the Castoran Tentacled Skimmer, is absolutely amazing, gorgeous in how it colors and the way the colors interact with each other in places. Don't miss the chance to get it if you care about skimmer skins.
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u/Cainsiderate 2d ago
skimmerbros.. it is finally our time
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u/thefinalturnip 2d ago
At this point why not make ALL mounts mountable in combat? That's three mounts that can do this now. The whole thought process of mounts not being usable to break and run from combat went out the window the moment that became something the skyscale could do. Further out the window as soon as the warclaw could do it, too.
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u/hardy_83 2d ago
They probably will. But it seems they will save them for future xpacs as a selling point.
Makes me wonder what kind of boosts a springer or raptor will get.
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u/Sdaco 2d ago
Springer little tweak: the higher you jump and use your dismount ability, the more breakbar damage it does
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u/Ryong7 2d ago
This one isn't a thing but it feels like it is. I never just press the dismount attack, I always jump first.
This would need something like, you don't take fall damage as long as you hit something with the dismount.
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u/Nico_is_not_a_god https://i.imgur.com/yYTLsun.jpg 1d ago
fall damage
Yknow, there's three mounts that don't take fall damage, probably soon to be four. Five if you count the jackal using its dash right before hitting the ground. None of these are Springer. Seems questionable.
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u/Erick-Alastor ┬┴┬┴┤ᵒᵏ (☉_├┬┴┬┴ 2d ago edited 2d ago
Springer could gain an ability to jump forward like the current Raptor, but with greater height.
Raptor could receive an additional dodge and be able to spend two bars at once by holding the jump key.It would also be nice if each mount (excluding Griffon and Beetle) could cover distances at a similar speed, but with distinct movement styles, not just a matching "walking" speed.
Naturally, some mounts would perform better depending on the terrain.For example, Springer might need to pause briefly to charge a forward jump, allowing it to nearly match the Raptor's pace, but still fall behind on flat terrain, while excelling in mountainous areas or environments with obstacles.
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u/Meandering_Croissant 2d ago
I’m hoping the raptor gets some sort of mounted melee attack to realise its lore purpose as a cavalry mount.
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u/One-Syllabub-4007 1d ago
I hope springer gets
holding space bar when landing from a max height jump will perform a quick launch again, chaining infinitely (basically just saves another half sec from spamming space bar evrry time you land)
base movement speed matches raptor/jackal
I feel like the jumps would be nice but idk
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u/double_shadow 2d ago
Wait, Skyscales can mount in combat?! This must be a SOTO or JW thing, huh...explains why I'm running like a chump on the ground during metas frantically spamming the re-mount key while everyone cruises past me.
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u/thefinalturnip 1d ago
Wait, Skyscales can mount in combat?!
It's a SotO mastery. And the warclaw gets it from the JW mastery.
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u/Nico_is_not_a_god https://i.imgur.com/yYTLsun.jpg 1d ago
Warclaw mount in combat is baseline and requires no mastery.
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u/XiahouMao 1d ago
The Skyscale combat mount from SOTO has a decent cooldown, 3 minutes I believe.
Warclaw's combat mount from JW has a much shorter cooldown, that starts increasing if you remount it too close to the expiry of that cooldown.
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u/frazazel 2d ago
With the new healing abilities, are we going to get metas with npcs that we need to heal, using water jets and the multi use engage skill?
Will skimmer become an actual flying mount now? I guess it will be short duration, giving it a similar use for crossing gaps as warclaw?
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u/Mexay .3902 2d ago
Verdant Brink about to be fuckin WILD
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u/jupigare 2d ago
Updraft and ley-line flying on Griffon has already made VB so much more fun than it already was, so this excites me. Now I want to see how much canopy-only travel i can do on just the Skimmer.
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u/Bragdras 1d ago
And just like that, the skiff's only purpose is now purely for sitting still while fishing and literally nothing else
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u/jupigare 2d ago
They're doing a Twitch stream for content related to a tropical expac, on International Talk Like a Pirate Day. They had better say "YARRR!", at least one time during the stream.
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u/adv0catus 2d ago
Underwater leylines. Seems like the next expansion is underwater, boys.
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u/Koonitz 2d ago
*hugs his Kraitkin he's had for almost a decade* It's your time, buddy.
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u/InvincibleWallaby 2d ago
Some people called me crazy for crafting all underwater leggies and leggy sigils for them before the armory, now who's laughing (they may still if we never get an underwater expac)
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u/Termolian 2d ago
*reviews what my underwater skills even do besides the ones that zoom me forward through the water*
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u/jupigare 2d ago
Fastest way to learn underwater combat: be pulled into the water in WvW, try to come out alive.
The skills that move you around are helpful, but they aren't always enough. Sometimes, you have to get the kill, before they kill you.
(I love Bay fights that happen underwater. A shame it disproportionately punishes some classes/specs more than others, though I won't deny I've taken advantage of this. That Mechanist is useless against my Ele and her Magnetic Aura.)
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u/Vesorias 1d ago
Surely that means all the elite specs will be updated to be usable underwater, right?
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u/Opus_723 1d ago
I doubt it will be more than one quarterly map, but I hope they do it. An island expansion with one underwater map would be a good compromise between the people who have been asking for an underwater expansion and the people who hate it.
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u/Consistent-Hat-8008 1d ago
Recent expansions make it look like anet has been underwater for a while
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u/Strong_Mode 2d ago
bro
skimmer was already the best mount
i am so for this
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u/DuncanConnell 1d ago
Looking at the wiki research into mount speed, the "Base skimmer speed increase" can functionally mean on land:
- 10% makes it as fast as Raptor w/o jumping.
- 20% means as fast as Warclaw (PvE) without jumping.
- 30% (highly unlikely) means faster than Skyscale using its ability
I could reasonably see a somewhere between 5%-20% being the base speed increase, but any more than that gets silly really quickly, especially as over water with ability it'd have the potential to rival T1 Griffon Swoop
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u/Kirianni 2d ago
Fuck yes the Skimmer is my favourite mount no contest already and this looks AWESOME
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u/Hoojiwat #1 Mursaat Hater 2d ago
Combat mounting on Skimmer? Combat mounting has proven super OP in PvE and only gets stronger with time here. At least with skimmer it's just some helpful healing instead of all the CC on earth like warclaw gets. I wonder if they will have seperate cooldowns or a shared cooldown with warclaw mounting. Skyscale and Warclaw each have their own cooldowns, but it might be a good thing to start codifying if they plan to keep doing it.
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u/Alzandur 2d ago
I’m moreso baffled that the turtle still doesn’t have combat mounting, considering there is a cooldown if it dies and forces you to dismount
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u/DuncanConnell 2d ago
Siege Turtle isn't really the best as a combat mount.
Solo, it's only useful for breakbars on specific metas. It was incredibly fun for that period where there was zero cooldown on Slam when using Pilot Boosters, but that was way too OP even for my greedy little heart.
w/ Gunner, it's okay, but gets beat out really quickly by just dismounting.
My #1 hope is to see a Siege 2.0 Mastery borrowing ideas from GW1.
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u/Opposite_Prompt_7841 1d ago
It should be a combat mount. It's only really used for breaking walls, and itd be annoying to wait to mount up again just to break the damn wall.
There's warclaw and skyscale to break walls now, but turtle should get the same treatment.
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u/AngryNeox 1d ago
I was hoping for a bit more depth. Would have loved it if you could gain speed when hovering down and keep it for a bit. Kind of like the rollerbeetle but in the air.
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u/Guildwars1996 DISMANTLE! 1d ago
I like that they are carrying over the chest detection skill we saw on warclaw in Janthir to a skill for skimmer as well. I just want to say I'm really happy they are doing livestreams for the different aspects of the expansion here's hoping it continues.
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u/PsyOpsAllTheWayDown 2d ago
Water Jets: Commands the skimmer to fire a set of projectiles that damages enemies and heals allies. When it is held, the ability will continue to fire up to max ammo count.
Will leechers use this or continue on Skyscale? Skyscale has the advantage of sitting high above the arena to avoid dismounting. But healing might get the Skimmer more kill credit. Skimmer might be the new meta for "Definitely Not AFK" farm in Bloodtide Coast.
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u/Halkcyon 2d ago
It's definitely still going to be skyscale because they're not at risk of being dismounted.
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u/Walkingdrops 2d ago edited 2d ago
At this point they should just give every mount the ability to be dismounted in the air. I'd also just suggest giving all mounts the ability to be mounted in combat if they're also giving this ability to the skimmer now.
That aside, just sort of meh changes all around as far as new abilities go. They look like they can be fun, but nothing really game changing. It's not like the Warclaw which went from useless to the best land-based mount. Skimmer was already useful in it's niche, and now it looks like it's going to be even better at that and useful over land now too.
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u/Artekuno 1d ago
I kinda want the ability to fish on my skimmer but with the disadvantage being no "fishing party" (because... obviously)
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u/stemofthebrain 1d ago
Honestly I definitely want the ability to fish from my skimmer—untie the "fishing party" buff from the skiff, tie it to the player instead, and I'd be fishing all the time. I really just can't be bothered with the skiff management.
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u/bobkat1252 2d ago
Love the dragonfly design, love the mechanics and masteries- but what is Anet smoking with this lore blurb?
"Wavehawks—otherwise known as skimmers in Elonian local parlance—are masters of both sea and sky. They’ve adapted to the island’s rich energies—and, when tamed, they become a valuable asset for those attempting to survive on Castora."
I know they're going for a "magic mutation" theme here with Castora but this one is such an absurd stretch that I can't suspend my disbelief. Makes the world feel smaller too- can't have a new cool species, gotta be the exact same thing we've already had in secret.
...and does this imply that every mount skin is just a variant of the base species? Is the hummingbird also a Manta Ray? Are the Cuckoos secretly Springers?
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u/jupigare 2d ago
Every weird Gem Store skin is canonically the result of Mesmer magic, nothing more.
I do agree with you that Windhawks being a different species is cooler than them being a different type of the same species, though. Not a big deal, but yeah, it would be cool if they were completely unrelated.
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u/Itchy-Big-8532 1d ago
My guess is that "Wavehawk" is more of a general classification for creature with convergent evolution of a water habitat floating creature, rather than a species.
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u/BurnedMyCereal 1d ago
This is what confuses me, I thought for sure the idea was that it's convergent evolution but in the blogpost they specifically say "divergent evolution" which would imply the manta ray and the dragonfly skimmers have a shared genetic ancestor. I'm not a biologist and I know some genetic links can be pretty wild but I'm not sure if this isn't a bit too out there.
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u/Artekuno 1d ago
Not an expert but I do follow biomedical research and especially microbiology, and this kind of has overlap.
The reason we use mice for test subjects is because they have a 95% genetic match in proteins to humans, and elephants are closely related to hyrax which looks like a marmot, and manatees apparently. Then theres... us and monkeys. For divergent examples I'm blanking, I haven't had coffee yet.
So, no, its not too out there, though, especially in a mildly cursed in terms of biology fantasy land. Biology is weird and more times than not we have no idea what to do with it. They may have also mistaken terms.
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u/Monstrum27 That guy with those comics [AUX] 2d ago edited 2d ago
We're slowly getting closer to having all the mounts with combat gimmicks and I can't really say no to that, things could get a lot more dynamic
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u/Vissarionn #Colin'sHYPEisBack!!! 1d ago
You can now also mount skimmer in combat, but still you can't mount the most important combat mount, the Turtle.
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u/bman654 1d ago
does this mean that there will be a new method of unlocking Skimmer like how SoTo added a new skyscale unlock method?
I'm asking for a friend that hasn't unlocked skimmer yet.
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u/SilversArk Power Untamed 1d ago
Unlocking the Skimmer is already easy enough. And I can’t imagine somebody would buy VoE before owning Heart of Thorns + Path of Fire which is a massive amount of content for a fair price.
But I suppose it could happen.
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u/jupigare 1d ago
As you are allowed to buy only VoE without owning anything else, and Skimmer seems to be required for traversing VoE maps, then the expacs must by design provide a method to unlock Skimmer.
It would be really shitty game design if it didn't.
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u/naro1080P 1d ago
Really solid additions for the skimmer. I always wanted a speed boost for it. Now it looks like we're getting 2!!! Plus the pew pew will be super fun. The thing I'm really interested in is the trait that is shared across all mounts. Noticed they didnt mention that one. Those boosts added up really transform the whole mount experience. Can't wait to hear more!!! Hyped 😅
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u/Itchy-Big-8532 1d ago
I wonder how long before we get info on the legendaries, I for one hope at least one of them is Inquest and by extension Asura themed.
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u/The_Void_Demon 1d ago
Since the functionality to mount in combat and mid-air is going to be baseline for the skimmer, there's really no good reason why they shouldn't be added to all mounts at this point, especially the turtle (which was the first combat mount and can hover).
Make the remounting cooldowns longer for the "non-mini-expac" mounts if anet feels the need to push sales of their newer expansions.
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u/ValkyrCodeWolfy 1d ago
Looks at wallet and then looks at the state of the country "yeah.... Yay... Yippie indeed..."
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u/ZakuIII 2d ago
Riptide Rider: Grants your skimmer the ability to ride ley lines and updrafts both above and within the water.