GUIDES

Guild Wars 2 Warclaw Mount Guide - Ride with Style in World vs World

When a mount for World vs. World (WvW) was first announced for Guild Wars 2, people went crazy with plenty of good and bad conjecture. I even got to read some of it in team chat as the debate continued on day one of the release, March 5th. I’m sorry for all you non WvWers I helped decimate on the field while getting my mount. It’s rather easy to tell what groups are running organized and which are not. I did love finding some truly organized groups in the mix because despite the insanity caused by this mount, I had some of my best and worst fights.

I had some clue about how to get the mount before it was released, but I definitely did not prep as well as I should have. I could have had my mount track done faster if I had remembered to stock my WvW potions. Oh, well, it led to a few hours of fun and I got to buy my mount at midnight my time, which I find quite amusing. I should have been in bed an hour earlier, like my body was telling me, but a friend and I stayed up to get hers and mine done.

The start of my adventure was right after the patch released, so I got in without a queue for my first stint of WvW for the day. First, I spent one point on the Warclaw Mastery, found at the bottom of the last tab of the WvW window opened by pressing B. This activated the achievement, Warclaw Companion. There were eight things to do as follows:

  1. Warclaw Emblem - achieved by spending the first point in Warclaw Mastery and stepping into WvW
  2. Warclaw Gorget - capture a keep
  3. Warclaw Horn Spikes - capture a camp
  4. Warclaw Saddle - capture a tower
  5. Warclaw Helmet - complete the Warclaw Reward Track
  6. Warclaw Body Armor - purchased with Skirmish Claim Tickets from the warclaw vendor
  7. Warclaw Leg Armor - purchased with Badges of Honor from the warclaw vendor
  8. Warclaw Tail Armor - looted from guards

You can find all the achievements associated to the Warclaw in its own listing under Competitive. Some of these include doing things out in PvE and are quite catty in nature. There is at least one hidden one to find and unlock. Now that I have my mount, I’ll be taking my time with these to fit them in with all the other zany things I do. I’m one of those people that does just about everything this game has to offer.

Before running off to get the achievements in the list above, I went to the third tab on the WvW window and scrolled to the end to find the Warclaw Reward Track and make it the active one. It moves to the top of the list when activated. Now if you are smart and prepared ahead of time, you will have WvW potions stockpiled. Stacking available boosters with the temporary WvW booster ArenaNet added for a couple of weeks, allowed guildmates to fill the reward track with 80 potions.

I then purchased the two items from the warclaw vendor. Since I do try to get some WvW in when my disability allows, I had enough of the Skirmish Claim Tickets and the Badges of Honor. If you haven’t done WvW enough, you would have to play it to acquire these.

Running about killing enemies, doing some fun defenses, and taking whatever was in our path, I acquired the captures and the guard loot drop in short order. My second excursion into WvW that led to the midnight buy of my mount occurred to simply fill out my reward track.

This mount can be ridden in PvE, but is the slowest thing there and not worth it, other than to say you have it. For our staunch WvWers, you will have run around PvE areas to complete some of the side achievements, if you want all the achievements.

In WvW, it does have some useful skills, though does nothing to negate the use of rams on a gate despite its chain pull. It does make roaming about without one and not in a large group a bit more daunting with how it can pounce on enemies. This pounce can instantly kill you if you are downed when they land on you, and if the player has that skill trained. There is no chance to evade it when downed, like you can by interrupting an enemy trying to spike you to finish you off.

I will note some interesting cheats were found on day one, due to how the mount jumps with the space bar and a couple days later the distance was reduced in a patch. This has led to even further speculation about how well it may have been tested before the release, but it appears ArenaNet is paying attention and tweaking things already. Of course, several thousand players will find things faster than a few internal testers any day, let alone have a better chance of thinking of trying far more things.

What are the skills this mount gives in WvW and how many WvW rank points do they cost? It comes with Battle Maul, allowing for it to do damage and bleeding to enemies in a 360 radius that works anywhere, but will do 26% less damage and only impact 3 targets when in WvW per a March 8th patch note. In the following list, there is a skill called Battle Maul that adds the immediate kill of downed players for WvW only. You must buy the skills in the following order:

  • 1 point - Unlock Warclaw Companion Achievement
  • 15 points - Faster Movement Speed - moves faster in territories you own
  • 20 points - Extra Stamina Bar - gives it three instead of two
  • 25 points - Battle Maul - adds the immediate killing of downed players in WvW
  • 30 points - Sniff - detect enemies in the area
  • 35 points - Gate Pull - will do 2000 points of damage per pull and costs 1 supply per pull

You will need 126 WvW rank points to acquire all these skills. A free reset of your WvW points can be acquired for a short time to reorganize your points, in order to have all you need for this mount. Due to my disability and a couple of years hiatus from the game when WvW first changed over to this point system, I’m definitely way behind. However, with the bonus period that started on the release date of March 5th, you can gain ranks pretty easily. With this special boost along with celebration boosters and guild boosts, I gained ranks nicely on the 5th while working to acquire this mount.

Like all standard mounts, you can add one dye color to change the armor color. Yup, Fashion Wars can be applied to your new mount to make it match your character’s colors. To the lament of a guild mate, pink doesn’t work too well, and I have to agree when I saw it.

What will this mount do for WvW? Time will tell how it really plays out. There are a lot of people that think it is a bad idea and are not liking the queues, due to non WvWers coming just to get the mount and leave again. I tend to ignore the more negative people and try to help people willing to learn. Maybe this mount will entice those new to WvW to keep at it and learn how to fit in best with the battles. We all were new at one point. Now we are all new to finding the best way to incorporate this mount into the battles. I am sure some fun cavalry techniques could come into play. I look forward to trying some and laughing as I die to some ingenious use of the mount by the enemy.

Here’s to accepting the change and learning how to use it to the team’s advantage. See you out there when my disability allows and let’s have some fun coming up with new attack and defense strategies that boggle our enemy’s mind.

Published: March 18th, 2019   |  14,081 Reads

About the Author

Althea "Briseadh" Damgaard
Senior Editor

Althea joined Gaiscioch back in October of 2009 and has been here ever since with only a few month hiatus between Warhammer and Rift. As soon as she knew they were in Rift, she jumped ship to Faeblight and has followed them onward through every chapter since with a few side games thrown in for spice.

She has been an avid player of RPG style games since 1980 when she first played Dungeons and Dragons. Since then she has created her own tabletop gaming world used with various rule sets as D&D progressed. Once she could get online she played MUDs. Her MMO days started with Everquest and have moved through over a dozen games with some lasting only a month's time in her life and others going for years. She has tested several games from the perspective of a disabled gamer with hand issues due to her multiple sclerosis.

When not writing about or playing games, she can be found writing novels, reading and doing various art projects. She also writes items based on her faith and is working on publishing a novel. She also does editing for a gaming developer.

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