It has certainly has been unsurprising silent on the Guild Wars 2 front, though some may have not been noticed due to all the juicy games coming out in October and November. Also the damage from the snow storm isn’t helping. Thankfully, Jon Peter lit the beacon today at ArenaNet with a blog post describing some major changes to the Guild Wars 2 formula. The Engineer gets an upgraded Tool Belt, they also pull the white sheet off the new Pet system for Rangers as well as, detailing cross-profession combos a bit more with new visual and text flare.

When we first saw the tool belt in the demo used at Gamescom and Pax, it was very limited and those who tried it verfied the fact that it left people with something to be desired. Jon writes that they added 23 new skills to make use of the tool belt, every utility skill associated with the Engineer has a unique tool belt skill attached to it. For example, if you have Flamethrower set, you gain access to Incendiary Ammo which allows your next three attacks to cause burning. Another example would be if you equipped Rocket Boots, you would have access to Rocket Kick, a close-range AoE fire ability. An example he used while using the new and improved tool belt was to pop Incendiary Ammo and use it to knockdown the health of the enemy and use Super Speed, a skill granted by equipping Slick Shoes to catch up to the enemy while utilizing the flamethrower when it all comes to a climax as he finishes off the enemy with a Rocket Kick.

Though they haven’t revealed the other skills, having choices is what makes the Engineer really stand out. When I played the Engineer at Pax Prime, I saw all the possibilities of different playstyles from Turret Defense a la Team Fortress 2, to using mines and grenades to play a support/CC role. By having extra skills opened up to you depending on your utility skills will add some more wrinkles your build.

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Firefall made a major showing at Pax Prime this year, from banners on the escalators, the giant statue just outside the entrance to the Exhibitor Hall to the sheer amount of square feet they hogged on the show floor. Created by the up and coming Red 5 Studios, who house veteran developers who have worked on World of Warcraft and Tribes, FireFall is free-to-play massive online cooperative shooter and I had the opportunity to experience the PvE portion of the game.

Firefall takes place in a beautiful post apocalyptic world where mankind has discovered a new all-purpose resource called Crystite. As they mined this new resource, it consequently leads to the arrival of the Melding, a hostile energy storm that starts to engulf the planet. From that storm a new bred of species emerges, The Chosen, a bloodthirsty race hell-bent of destroying the human race.

As you combat the Chosen and find an answer to the Melding, you’ll have the option of choosing various battleframes – classes – on one character. So far, we have the Assault battleframe, an offensive juggernaut that has the ability to cause massive AoE damage, the Recon battleframe, specializes in long-range attacks as well as utilizes mines and special ammo. The Medic battleframe, the healer of the bunch, no slouch on their own, they have the ability to drain other players health as well as, excess to a grenade launcher, and lastly we have the Engineer battleframe, the mechanical genius, they can deploy turrets and energy shield that they can upgrade and repair on the fly. For my demo, I started out using a Recon Battleframe.

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Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 combat is about being visually impressive, dynamic and visceral. Similar to Tera its about positioning and tactics that will win you the day. You see a centaur preparing to fire an arrow at you. You can freely dodge out of the way before the arrow reaches you. Work with allies to perform combos such as a fire wall created by Elementalist and a Engineer deploying a turret on one side of the wall and projectiles will do additional fire damage. Due the aesthetics of Guild Wars 2 everything has a visual impact. Glue Shot from a Engineer will leave a sticky brownish-white puddle, an Elementalist using one of their elite skills literally turns them into a tornado or Ranger visually letting loose a valley of arrows. With the unique mechanic of positioning and tactics the professions I want to play address this is a very interesting way.

Thief

The capstone of what a thief should be; a very agile and effective when getting the drop on someone at the expense of less protection and lower health. The Thief in Guild Wars 2 embraces this. They have the ability stealth which allows them to steal useful items from various enemies and use them against them as well the ability to shadow step which allows them to get in and out of combat with relative ease. Possessing the unique energy system called Initiative, which is similar to the energy bar most people are accustomed to with rogues except here in GW2 and their style of combat it more about a risk and reward then learning how to weave your attacks to maintain a constant source of energy. With the more powerful skills costing more initiative you have the make wise choices when playing the Thief. After getting some hands on time at Pax East 2011 with the Thief I look forward to playing it again.

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