ArenaNet has a new Guild Wars 2 development update on their blog today from Game Designer Jon Peters. The update touches up on three changes to the games including the engineer’s tool belt, the Ranger’s pet system and cross professions combos.
To begin the engineer class now has a complete list of tool belt skills, 23 skills in all, which correspond to class heal and utility skills. When a class skill is added to the designated slot, a corresponding tool belt skill will appear, with engineers being able to have up to 4 tool belt skills. Players can of course swap skills in an out to receive different tool belt skills.
Up next are Ranger’s and their updated pet system. Rangers can have up to four pets, two terrestrial and two aquatic, with Amphibious pets being able to take up either slot. Rangers will be able to switch between two pets during combat and call for a 2nd pet if the first one happens to be downed.
Ranges will have two modes to control their pets, passive and active. In active mode, pets will automatically attack a target if you begin to and in passive mode, they will not until explicitly told to.
Pets will no longer evolve, instead they are set to the level of the ranger, with their stats and abilities being determined by their species. Each pet will belong to a specie and each specie will belong to a family, with each family having three basic skills that define it. Each specie will have an additional unique skill.
Finally we come to Cross Profession Combos, which are basically two skills used together to produce an addition effect. Combos can be performed by two players or in many cases by a single player and have two phases, Initiator and Finisher. The initiator is the skill that begins the combo with the Finisher being exactly that, the skill that finishes it.
Jon provide a few example of what type of combos players can expect.
Use Ricochet through a Firewall to get a bouncing axe that has a chance to burn the targets it hits. Leaping Death Blossom through a Symbol of Faith will remove conditions from allies near your target. Stomp inside a Smoke Screen to cloak nearby allies.