Guild Wars 2

So after much coaxing on my part, my favourite niece finally decided to make a female Guardian because she thought the Greatsword stance on my male Guardian looked cool. So she leveled up a few times and finally found a greatsword. She equipped it and her character just kinda held it there, pointing downwards. I had never noticed that the female greatsword stance was so lame. Needless to say, she was thoroughly disappointed at how her character held her weapon compared to mine.

I notice idle stances are the same for both genders of other races. Why is it that human females get the shaft? For example, both Asuran male and females hold their greatswords over their shoulders (which is pretty awesome). I’d love if Anet planned on changing this in the future, and so would my niece.
Screens, so you can see what I’m talking about:

Male: http://imgur.com/DktQZ
Female: http://imgur.com/89LU3

The stance isn’t what gets to be but the way they run with it…c’mon what guardian/warrior drags their GS around like that.

I dunno, I kinda like it. Makes me wonder why they didn’t give all the race/gender combinations different animations/idles.

I actually think the female GS animations are pretty awesome. I have both a Mesmer and a Guardian, so there are some differing animations between the two of them and they look like badarse [stupid filter] girls to me lol.

The female stance is actually correct, the male wrong, at least from a Samurai’s point-of-view. Observe:

Show that to your niece, tell her her character is doing it the pro way, the males are all doing it like no-skill brawlers who think they’re holding a baseball bat.

I’m more a mace & board type of warrior so it’s not a big deal, but I admit that the male’s stance feels better for greatswords. The male’s stance looks strong, powerful and energic while holding his greatsword. The female’s stance, on the other hand, looks weak, like she can’t hold the sword. (Although it might as well be true for 9/10 of the body types, heh.) But she should at least take a defensive pose by holding the sword in front of her.

Personally though, I’m more annoyed by the ridiculous high-pitched “grunt” they make when they use a greatsword. At first I thought it was an error and that they used the asura female voice.

I love the female greatsword stance, it reminds me if Siegfried and Nightmare from Soulcalibur.

Not sure if the Seven Samurai clip is accurate (else why isn’t that stance used more often professionally?), but anyroad doesn’t the FemHum stand with her knees knocking together in Guild Wars 2?

I too don’t really like how a female drags her sword like she can’t lift it xD As a well trained “Warrior”/whatever class, certainly you wouldn’t look like you can’t hold it.

The samurai clip isn’t so accurate. Samurai generally, more commonly, (the other samurai and think kendo and other sword arts) hold their sword in front of them or to the side, but mainly pointing upwards. Pointing down is not so effective, taking too long for it to move to block. That might be a style/preference thing but the most common stance is upwards not downwards…

Anyway the female holds it too far back and stuff too. Doesn’t look professional xD I always sheath the sword after every kill/fight just so she doesnt look dumb holding it all the time :P

Farzo.8410:

I love the female greatsword stance, it reminds me if Siegfried and Nightmare from Soulcalibur.

It should; that character and the female humans in GW2 are using a specific two-handed sword style: http://www.thearma.org/essays/StancesIntro.htm

Note the bottom two pictures; look familiar?

a fifth position is the Nebenhut (“near ward”), assumed by rotating the weapon down and to the side from above… Note on the right side here the point slants downward and behind, not off to the side, with the long edge aiming forward at the opponent, not at the ground. This permits a strong rising cut with the long edge

Italics mine.
Note the lack of any (idle) stance like the male’s in that article. Holding a big heavy sword up like that takes effort and work, effort and work you could be saving for when you actually need to swing the blade. The male’s way of holding it would be laughed at. The closest it could be is the ‘roof guard’ in that article.

I’ll be surprised if there aren’t more stances for longswords, but my point is unaffected; the way female humans and sylvari hold the greatswords in GW2 is perfectly acceptable, especially since iirc the second attack animation after the first swings it over their head, keeping the momentum of the first swing. The third with it’s spin is a bit dodgy in terms of “you’re exposing your back” but swinging the body with the sword adds momentum to the blade, and for puppy’s sake it’s a fantasy game with BLEEPING MAGIC so I think that can be overlooked.

…and before efore anyone starts complaining, the term ‘greatsword’ is actually quite modern, and there was no absolute definition of a ‘longsword’. They could be a onehander, or they could be a good 5-6 ft in length.

The male stance looks more like your archetypical “berserker”; the female more like a thoughtful duelist, akin to the modern depiction of a Samurai. I find the latter more appealing personally. It doesn’t look like it’s too heavy for them at all, besides, actual greatswords were much lighter than pop culture made them out to be.

kurtosis.9526:

The female stance is actually correct, the male wrong, at least from a Samurai’s point-of-view. Observe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMWsOyOHaaA

Show that to your niece, tell her her character is doing it the pro way, the males are all doing it like no-skill brawlers who think they’re holding a baseball bat.

I wanted to bring up that very clip. That stance is an actual stance used in swordplay, and not just in kenjutsu either.

I DESPISE the great sword holding on my male human. It SUCKS. It is the only problem I have with my warrior. Everything else is purrfect.

My main is a human female mesmer, and I absolutely love the way they hold the greatsword. I dislike the way the males hold it though.

Same as Varthorne.

I think males look stupid in their GS stance. Females got that swag going on.

There’s only 2 good looking weapon stances in game. Female Greatsword and Staff.
Dual dagger is not so bad either, but it could probably be better. At least they don’t run like hunchback like in Skyrim.

I find that all other weapon stance look stupid. Dual sword and bow probably being the worst.

The tail guard as the stance is called is good for hand and a half weapons, like a longsword or katana, as shown by that video of a samurai. The greatswords in game though are almost all full two handed weapons which the tail guard isn’t good for because it requires a large amount of torque to bring the weapon forward to parry a blow. With the slow acceleration forward your defence is bad. Especially for a female combatant who isn’t going to have as much upper body strength as a male. The male stance is totally wrong as it isn’t even a stance. For such long weapons you normally use the high guard or middle guard. High guard was preferred by the Zwihanders in the imperial army of the holy Roman empire. This again was because with a long blade the torque to move the weapon is significant and from high guard you can use gravity to aid you unlike the other guards where you have to move against gravity to bring the weapon to bare. That should be the idle animation. For running they should close up on the hilt and hold it in front of you.

I like the female GS stance aswell. The stance makes it look like the Pixel has some weight to it. The Male stance is just no accurate. Maybe that stance could work for a one handed sword, but not a heavy Greatsword. Have you ever felt the weight of a real Greatsword? It is not light, like it seems on the way the males hold it.

drifter.8453:

I like the female GS stance aswell. The stance makes it look like the Pixel has some weight to it. The Male stance is just no accurate. Maybe that stance could work for a one handed sword, but not a heavy Greatsword. Have you ever felt the weight of a real Greatsword? It is not light, like it seems on the way the males hold it.

Actually a lot of what we might consider to be great swords were relatively light. about 7 lbs for big 2-handed swords.

Of course it doesn’t change the fact that the male greatsword stance isn’t a real stance, but still.

Yes… you try holding up 7lbs of long metal up horizontally for absolutely no reason while resting, don’t forget the torque caused by that. You’d be exhausted before you even go to battle.

This is what I hate so much about 2h sword walking too. Every game does this! Why are you swinging these swords around when walking like they’re weightless?! It makes no sense! Even if they were feathers of that size, it would be hard from wind resistance! Try holding even 1lb of dumbbells and try walking like that.

2 handed swords themselves are only suppose to be 9-11(European style). That isn’t very heavy. over 11 pounds is not a effective/usable sword :P