Talk:Shadowstep (mechanic)

Is it just me, or was that note added simply for the sake of adding a note? It doesn't refer to anything in the article; it seems pretty irrelevant. I just don't like going around deleting things.. NALANA 02:25, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I was going to delete it too. But in the future, we're going to be seeing a lot of these notes, primarily because of the way that the game is designed. - Xu Davella 03:02, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a note that encompasses the entrie article. It doesn't merit note status and is still trivial/tactical enough to not merit objective covering in the article. I think it's best of removed. - Infinite - talk 14:38, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

So how does this work?

I'm not familiar with disambig pages, but do we make one for this article and the Thief skill of the same name, or does the skill take priority? --Xu Davella 09:00, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Skill takes priority. A F K When Needed 09:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Lord Pling-a-ling demands it! You have your orders. A F K When Needed 09:50, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

It also makes sense to prioritize skills (not just because Pling said so); users are more prone to search for the skill rather than the mechanic. - Infinite - talk 10:48, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh OK. The main reason why I was asking was because Shadow step redirects to this article. Change to redirect to skill instead? --Xu Davella 10:52, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) While I agree with the above, it does also make sense to do things that Pling says to.

Sometimes he gets mad... generally not everyone survives that. He likes fire. A F K When Needed 10:53, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

List of skills

What about a section "Skills that specifically allow you to perform a shadow step"? |Corvus 18:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Should be there. I'll start. --ஸ Kyoshi 21:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

What about skills from other professions? E.g. Flashing Blade, Haunt, etc. Do these count?_╺┛prʘcess.executıʘn_┗╸05:17, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

They aren't shadow steps, but teleportations. In Guild Wars 1 there is a difference between these terms as well. | Corvus 08:32, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, but is there any mechanical difference between the two? Otherwise, it's simply a naming convention to give the thief more flavour._╺┛prʘcess.executıʘn_┗╸04:45, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the visual effect does the distinguishing, but it's certainly something to ask about. In GW1 the difference was teleporting could move you past barriers, whereas you could only shadow step to a place you could walk to (with the current state of the terrain and with the path in minimap range). Given the ability to jump it's hard to say whether the effect even could be distinguished other than visually. --ஸ Kyoshi 04:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Move

Disagree. Skills take priority when it comes to naming conventions, so the shadow step redirect should be kept for Shadow Step. It's preferable to add in the otheruses tags onto the articles as they currently stand. --Xu Davella 09:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I want to move it to a delicate location like "shadow step," where the skill is titled "shadow Step" (omitting the first capital due to auto-caps). I think this is fine where it is. - Infinite - talk 13:24, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Technically Infinite, it'd be Shadow Step not shadow Step.

Personally, I prefer the otheruses tag being used over article titles less likely to be searched, and I prefer them over redirects as well, as they effectively are a redirect on top of articles. Konig/talk 20:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Hence I omitted auto-caps, it doesn't matter if it's moved to Shadow- or shadow Step; they will end up to be the same thing. I just find it too delicate and the current naming clears up any confusion without the need for a disambiguation. - Infinite - talk 20:26, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd leave it as it is. Having two articles which are differentiated only by the oddities of wiki capitalisation sensitivity seems unwise. -- aspectacle  00:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Skill type?

I'm afraid neither shadow step nor stealth can be counted as a skill type, since the former one is a mechanic which will be triggered after certain skills, while the latter one is simply an effect, Shew. Glastium | talk 15:50, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Since it is clear shadow step is a mechanic rather than an effect, should it be removed from the Effect category? Holy Mountains 13:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, it is an effect, it's just not a skill type... Aqua (T|C) 02:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Holy Mountains here. This page and Teleport (mechanic) should not have the Effects box at the bottom and should not be called effects in their descriptions ("Teleport (alternatively, flash) is an effect which causes the user or target(s) to instantly move from one location to another.") if they aren't even included in the Effects box and explicitly have (mechanic) in their name rather than (effect). ~ Bow | 08:03, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

"Teleport (alternatively, flash) is a mechanic which causes the user or target(s) to instantly move from one location to another."

or

"Teleport (alternatively, flash) is a mechanic with an effect which causes the user or target(s) to instantly move from one location to another."

I'd prefer the bottom, because both shadow stepping and teleportation share the effect of the user being moved instantly.

Both mechanics are exactly that, mechanics, which both behave slightly different (or used to, in Guild Wars) circumstances (can you shadow step past a closed gate with no other way in?). However, the effect of instantly moving from one location to another is a shared trait between both mechanics and should probably be noted. - Infinite - talk 08:18, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

How is This Different?

How is this effect different from Teleport? Why should we distinguish between the two?Strill 22:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

bc anet said so. shadow step is a profession specific ability of the the theif. so that's why this page exists. other professions have skills that do allow them to teleport. i believe mechanical difference is still unclear. --Moto Saxon 22:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Traps are also listed as a Thief specific ability, yet we have a single Traps page for both Thief and Ranger traps. Plenty of skills use unusual terminology in their description, yet they're nevertheless categorized with other skills that have similar mechanics. Why should we distinguish shadow stepping because it has an unusual name when no other mechanic gets this treatment?Strill 22:38, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

If you look on gw2.com > thief, you will read that "shadowstepping" is a thief specific mechanic, where as the thieves "traps" are just a special mechanic. no where on this wiki or the gw2.com are traps listed as a specific skill to any single profession. however shadow stepping is. --Moto Saxon 22:43, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) From what I recall from guardian demo, Flashing Blade is more like a very fast movement (there's a stream of light from starting place to ending place), whereas shadow step is one spot to another. In other words, teleport might be merely 1 second-long movement to a nearby location (start at point a, traverse through points b, c, and d very fast, end up at point e) whereas shadowstep is the more traditional means of teleport (start at point a, then at point e, skipping b, c, and d completely). If that makes any sense.

Mind you, this is based off of memory of gameplay footage for one skill - though it does make sense for the second name, "Flash." It should be noted that, in GW1, there was a big difference between shadow step and other teleporting skills (consume corpse, necrotic transversal, rebirth, and ride the lightning being four) - primarily being that shadow step required direct paths to the target, whereas the first three of the four examples (don't remember if the fourth is like this) did not. Konig/talk 22:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

RTL did indeed count as a shadow step mechanically. But we don't know whether there's a mechanical difference in GW2; especially with a z-axis, it seems harder to justify the same distinction. --ஸ Kyoshi 05:09, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Looking on guildwars2.com > thief, it doesn't actually say shadowstepping is unique to the thief, just that it (and stealth) is something that a thief can do. It also literally uses the word "teleport" in its description of "Shadow Step" on the thief page there. Jkarofwild (talk) 18:49, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

So, what exactly is the difference between Shadowstep and Teleport? I still don't understand.

The Teleport and Shadowstep pages are wrong, because people have listed skills under them based on skill descriptions rather than the actual mechanics, and skill descriptions are often inconsistent with mechanics. Teleports ignore pathing, while shadowsteps do not. Because of this, there are only two actual teleports: Spectral Recall and Portal Entre/Exeunt. All the other 'teleport' skills are actually shadowsteps. MithTalk 15:02, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

2022

So User:Kvothe decided to open this topic again by suggesting a merge with teleport, see here. I vote against it as the prototype of a teleport skill, namely the mesmer skill Portal Entre, clearly cannot be labelled as "shadowstep". In my opinion this concept can be easily extended to Sand Swell and Shadow Portal, but also Spectral Recall. However, beyond these skills the difference might become a little bit shallow. Nevertheless, the descriptions pretty consistently list whether it's a shadowstep or a teleport in-game so I would keep this split (Edit: On a second thought, is this sufficient enough?). Furthermore in my opinion all shadowstep skills require a target in order to activate (with the noteable exception Shadowstep needing only a "target area") otherwise the can't be activated or just don't shadowstep (for example Merciful Intervention stating "If no ally is present in the targeted area, this ability will not shadowstep.").

I would suggest to remove the merge tag, cleanup both skill lists on shadowstep and teleport and adjust the intro text to explicitly state the difference. For example, I would set Symbol of Blades and Judge's Intervention to teleport (stated it in the description, can be activated without target) and set Ambush Assault to shadowstep (description states "blink", it requires a target). --Tolkyria (talk) 21:58, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Edit: On a second thought, there are some skills that state teleport in the description but behave like a shadowstep skill, for example the skills I mentioned above: Symbol of Blades and Judge's Intervention (the movement only happens if an enemy target is selected). So the current definition would be for shadowstep: Skills that states "shadowstep" in the description as well as skills that only move the player when an enemy is selected. The first part is required for e.g. Shadowstep that "Shadowstep to target area." while the second part is required for skills like (again) Symbol of Blades and Judge's Intervention.

Nevertheless, let's look at the remaining teleport skills (except the mentioned portals):

• Lightning Flash (elementalist) and Blink (mesmer): both skills teleport the player to a selected location, for me it's kinda hard to speak of a shadowstep here.
• Phase Retreat (mesmer) steps away from the target, but can be also used without target to move the player, again, not really a shadowstep.
• Shadow Escape (thief downed skill) kinda includes "shadow" in it's name, otherwise it's a normal teleport. Also it doesn't trigger the healing of Shadow Savior (however, this could be also due to the downstate).

Overall for me the current movement type split into shadowstep and teleport looks fine, of course the intro texts could be adjusted accordingly. --Tolkyria (talk) 08:39, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I should have explained. It was brought up on Discord. And I noticed Symbol of Blades and Judge's Intervention state teleport but execute what we call Shadowstep. So my suggestion would have been to merge to "Teleport" and state the difference in execution (target enemy or ally vs ground target). But as you pointed out it makes sense to just adapt the description and keep them split. Thanks for your quick feedback and adapting the introduction texts. —Kvothe (talk) 13:47, 2 January 2022 (UTC)