Hi, folks. My name is Cal Cohen, and I’m the lead skills and balance designer at ArenaNet.
Expanded weapon proficiencies are coming in 2024 during the second major update for Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™, bringing a new weapon and skills for each profession. Today we’re taking a look at warrior’s new weapon proficiency: the staff. Warrior has been lacking a strong weapon to use in its support builds, and staff serves to fill out some of the tools that warriors need to support their allies. Staff will be playable alongside the new weapons for every profession as part of the Expanded Weapon Proficiency beta event starting on November 28 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8).
Jumping in to Help
One of the key goals for staff skills was granting warriors the ability to charge to the front lines of battle to empower and support their allies, and for that we have the slot 2 skill, Valiant Leap. Valiant Leap causes the warrior to leap to the target location, healing and granting offensive boons to nearby allies upon arrival.
As a frontline support, we also wanted staff warriors to bring some personal survivability to the table, which is found in slot 5 with Bullet Catcher. Bullet Catcher starts off as a channeled block skill but also grants access to a secondary skill, Defiant Roar. Defiant Roar heals nearby allies, with the amount increasing for each attack blocked by Bullet Catcher (up to a reasonable amount, of course).
We’re excited to see how warrior support builds come together with the introduction of staff. There are obviously a few more skills to cover, but we’ll hold on to those until our new Expanded Weapon Proficiency preview livestream on November 27 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-8), where we’ll give an in-depth introduction to each profession’s weapon.
The day after that, the new weapons will be usable during the beta event that runs from November 28 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8) through 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8) on December 3. Please keep in mind that during this beta test there will be temporary UI, art, and audio assets for some of the weapon skills.
We’ll see you in the Mists!
