Ever since ArenaNet announced that fishing – and its companion fishing boats, skiffs – would be a major feature of End of Dragons, Guild Wars 2 players have been anxiously awaiting more information and speculating about how skiffs will be functionally different from the skimmer and what fishing will feel like. Yesterday, on its Guild Chat dev stream, ArenaNet gave us a sneak peek at these upcoming features.
Fishing will be unlocked during the early story instances of End of Dragons, similar to raptors in Path of Fire. Fishing comes with three new gathering tools: rods, lures, and bait. Rods won’t break over time like logging axes or mining picks, but lures and bait will. There will be a new button under the weapon swap button that will allow you to bring out your fishing rod or skiff. Once you hook a fish, there is a short minigame to keep the green fish marker inside the yellow sweet spot long enough to fill up the success bar, not unlike the fishing in games like Stardew Valley.
Fishing brings with it a mastery line that improves your fishing skills in various ways. Most interesting is one that buffs fishing power, a new stat that sounds like magic find for fish, across your whole party for each fish a member of your party catches, so the more fishers you have with you, the better you will all be at fishing.
Players will have to do a little more work to acquire skiffs, which are unlocked by completing a heart somewhere out in the world (similar to Path of Fire’s skimmers and jackals). Skiffs can hold up to five players. The player who summoned the skiff steers it, while party members can emote to keep the skipper’s boost meter full. The driver can anchor the boat, which makes the boat a solid, stationary platform that lets party members move around and fish off the side. You can even have multiple skiffs out per party if you want to split up. Don’t worry, skiffs are only solid to members of your party, so you won’t have to worry about struggling to find a parking spot near popular fishing nodes.
Skiffs, of course, also come with their own mastery line, which includes movement speed improvements, a fishing buff, and a special skill to keep enemies off your tail while driving your boat around.
Just as the stream was wrapping up, ArenaNet shared the sixth of its colorful silhouette elite spec teases, and reminded us that it, along with the other two it hinted at previously, will be detailed in next week’s Guild Chat and demoable on September 21st.
For more details on fishing and skiffs, check out the full stream below, and watch our Flameseeker Chronicles column for a detailed breakdown in the coming days!
