Guild Wars 2 Previews New Weapons & Proficiencies Coming in 2024, Ahead of Beta This Month

mmorpg.com:

ArenaNet is talking expanded weapon proficiencies coming to Guild Wars 2 in 2024, and there are some new previews for the Thief’s axe and staff for the Warrior.

Secrets of the Obscure will get its second major update sometime next year, and this will be where the new weapons and skills for each of the game’s progressions will arrive.  in terms of what is on the way, the team has been looking at where there are gaps that they can add to build diversity, as well as to serve players who might not currently be served by available options.  

For the Warrior class, they analyzed the option and in a support build, there hasn't been a sufficiently strong weapon to make support Warriors truly viable. Enter the staff. With the new options for support, skills like Valiant Leap means a Warrior can jump right into the fray and begin helping allies with boons and heals quickly. To back that up, they also want Warriors equipped with a staff to also have personal survivability so they get abilities that they can use to block as well as to heal.

The other new option on the way is axe to give the Thief a new option for both power and condition builds. Throwing axes will both cause damage but also linger, allowing them to be redirected. This adds a new level of strategy to both use for the Thief, and to watch out for and consider for the others around them. 

For example, Venomous Volley lets you throw three poisonous axes to damage and inflict poison. They will stay spinning. A Thief can then redirect these with an offhand dagger, using Harrowing Storm, teleporting to a target and recalling the spinning axes, damaging and poisoning the target. There's a limit of six spinning axes active on the field at any time, so building those up