Guild Wars 2

Is the greatsword the most over rated weapon in the game across all classes?

Ive tried multiple times to like the GS on my warrior specifically just to have an excuse for weapons like twilight and visions of the mist. And every time i go running back to axe/shield. Ive tested sooooo many times on spvp isle golems and in cursed shore. On spvp isle the dps on the “medium armor”(i think they fixed this just this weekend) golem both the axe auto attack and the GS 100b both killed it in ~4sec. Admittedly the GS was closer to 4sec and the axe was 4-5sec but we are talking about splitting a second when comparing 100b with a growing might stack to an autoattack. Ok that was static environment so i took it to cursed shore and went full glass cannon traits and swapped out major traits to fit the weapons as that only makes sense. Still i was getting ~4-5 sec kills on earth golems and the difference was even less there.

Ok 100b may look and feel cool but tbh its a terrible skill mechanics wise beyond the obvious boon of might stacking which doesnt really do much in a 5 sec fight. This is beyond the fact that for some reason when i get into a fight and start 100b (generally 1 use kills everything in cone in front of you as far as trash mobs go) but maybe 20% of the time the foe runs past me like some wierd glitch and i hit air while it starts attacking me from behind.

Ranger GS is a joke. Try it. Really all the ranger melee weapons are just, well ok they are not my play style sorry. pets really put limiting factors on rangers to prevent OPness and i think it shows most in their melee selection.

Guardian is ok. Its got an aoe pull, a sexy whirlwind and…oh wait they nerfed the symbol by doubling its recharge. Still i have to admit its not bad. But its dps is no different then the other melee weapons after they killed the symbols recharge. In the two hander department i think hammer is probably tops now although everyone that has/wants twilight/sunrise will deny it. Would probably take the staff over GS but thats more to do with its awesome (ofcoarse its dmg is weaker so dont go there!) auto attack and its piercing orb skill number 2, not mentioning it also has a symbol and i believe its recharge is much shorter then the GS one.

Mesmer plays wildly different. I do like this weapon for its range and you are infact encouraged to play at its full range. But even if you dont play at 900-1200 range there are some goodies. Skill 2 mirror blade is AMAZING in full beserker gear with high crit chance (ranger runes/ 25 perception stack) and even more so when traited for an extra bounce. if its just you and a foe it will hit 3 times and its not channeled so you can do other things and also when traited its like a whole 4.8 second recharge AND on top of that it makes a clone. VERY loaded skill OH and it gives you (or ally) might and foe 3 stacks of vulnerability PER HIT!

Ok so yeah i admit 2 of the 4 classes that can wield GS on i havnt had any serious play with other then golems on spvp isle. But 2 of them i have, warrior and mesmer. Of the 4, mesmer seems to be the one that has GS as a solid staple along with maybe staff. As a martial weapon though the other 3 ive gotten an ok feel of how they play and whats not so great about the greatsword:

warrior: despite the fact of all this weapons movement ability (too much?) i find its mobility to be its drawback. Self immobilize for like 3-4 seconds (this is its primary skill 100b) is aweful in almost every setting i can think of and worse when you miss.

guardian: it kinda falls inline with the warriors mobility issue. when traited (healing line 20pts i think) taking the recharge of whirling to 8sec is great until you realize you are over killing and worse you most likely are just fight the next foe a short jog away with your auto attack. I know that really only applies to trash mobbing but im pretty sure auto attacking with the hammer and placing a symbol down with autoattacking has to be worlds better. Not to mention i think skill 2 is a super fast recharging hard hitting huge aoe awesome skill more verbs please.

ranger: you poor things you ;-(

Sorry for the wall of text. Wasnt a rant (i dont think) but just some curiosity in the player bases infatuation with the GS. Oh and forgive the speelling ;-)

I had to trim ALOT out of this wall of text and im sorry but i was going on and on and on there are other things to be said about other weapons. Not to mention i had much more to say on mesmer GS, the weapon has got alot loaded into it.

cool story, but would not read again

It looks cool…

I must ask if your speaking primarily about pvp or pve, and if your including pve then what level are you?

Because at level 80 GS does so much more damage than almost any other weapon for a warrior that its sad. 100b is hitting for 15k every 8 seconds, and whirlwind hits for 7-9k. Thats equivalent to other weapon sets using all their abilities and then some.

In pvp theres times where weapon + shield is better but thats why theres a thing called weapon swapping. In spvp i run axe/shield and GS and the axe/shield is only for eviscerate and the 2 shield abilities, otherwise im in greatsword.

Theres also a few ways to work around the immovability issue in pvp, since in pve you shouldnt be having problems with it. Frenzy + bullscharge is a popoular one, and can basically 1 shot all clothies unless they blow major cooldowns. Personally prefer bola myself since stability cant stop immobalize and it has a shorter cd.

Greatswords are definitely overrated.

Why do people use them? Skins.

Hammers are much better, but all except 1 or 2 skins are small/ugly. Same with Axes. Deals much more damage than GS, yet the only skin that looks cool is “Reaver of the Mists”. If you want 2 of those, it will cost you about 900 ecto’s, 100 Mystic Coins and 100 skillpoints.

Better grab a Greatsword and suddenly you have a whole array of cool and cheap skins.

Mesmer GS is not over rated. It is seriously awesome and I love it.
Shh don’t tell though
I can’t personally speak for other classes but my hubby has a Ranger and a Guardian and it seems like they have nothing on the Mesmer GS. That might just be my bias speaking

greatsword is so much better skills-wise, anyone not using gs is just plain bad

A ranged cripple, bleeds, a dash, a very strong whirl, and ofc 100 blades. All really good skills. It can be annoying when 100b misses, but hey you can’t have it all. At least it has a short cooldown so you can try again in a few seconds. Personally I like it, but I do need to experiment with the other weapons a bit more.

Guardian GS is great PvE. Just great.

As a guardian the GS is a great weapon, but some bosses including the recent Mad king I swapped to Scepter and Torch, as it was more effective, and getting up close and personal was a death wish.

incisorr.9502:

greatsword is so much better skills-wise, anyone not using gs is just plain bad

Sooo then, you’re right and everyone else is wrong?
It’s your way or the highway?
You’re the best and everyone else sucks?

“greatsword is so much better skills-wise” Why don’t you go into detail and explain exactly why you think it’s so much better.
Don’t be afraid to include stats and statistics unless of course you have none.
In that case you’re left with only your * opinion*.

I hardly ever use GS, in spite of all the kitten kitten on the internet. But then again I’m smart enough to know it’s not the only viable choice, unlike some other BADDIES.

I like the GS on my ranger, guardian and my mesmer. Warrior….not so much. On that one I run with dual axes or axe / shield depending on mobs.

I don’t really like the GS, myself. I’ve run across some opportunities to use it thinking I’m gonna kick some butt with it and instead stay in fights longer than necessary.

Just last night I found a nice lvl 35 green with 36 power and I forget the condition damage. I came across a Vet Skelk and thought I would beat it easily.. I ended kiting it while diagonally bunny hoping cause I was down to less than 100 health. I went back with my crafted lvl 30 sword and shield, current lvl 38, and beat it easily.

I just don’t like the slow speed, it opens you up to knock backs and interrupts where you would have been able to get off an attack.

Greatswords just look awesome, pure and simple.

Overrated, afaik, is meant to denote something that everyone thinks is good but in reality is bad.

The thing is in GW what is good or bad depends on your play style, utility/elite skill choices, traits build and gear stat focus. I love hammer on my warrior and I have an appropriate trait build (not necessarily the best) for hammer use, skills that favor hammer use and I’m geared to favor my play style/weapon choice. My guardian on the other hand uses GS and I followed the same philosophy as my warrior.

wow that was bad..all i read was blah blah blah i cant blah blah cant do blah blah.

How hard is it to use a rotation lol. GS has the highest damage in the game atm.

My 100blades crits up to 22k atm and my gear isnt 100% complete.

With my traits and skills my auto attack does more damage then most profs usefull attacks do.

Let me guess you are the type of player that just sits there and only uses the best skill and waits for the cd… Well placed whirlwind can deal over 15k damage, throwing the sword can deal up to another 10k damage and charge up to another 8k-10k on crits.

Meanwhile your puiny axe/sheild deals damage in the hundereds.

Whats funny is people ive ran into allways try to say axe/axe best damage over all in dealing constant damage and GS is nothing but a burst weapon.

Then why does GS auto attacks do more then your usefull skills?…

Honestly i think they leave the GS with a couple issues, like 100b rooting you, and having a low damage burst move that comes with a mediocre buff so that it doesnt completely out class every other weapon available to the warrior.

as it stands if they made 100b mobile and made the burst move awesome… noone would play any of the other weapon sets.

and that leads me to saying that the weapon sets really need to be looked at.

In the hundreds?
My crit is in the 80s and crit dmg is +100% or 150% added up with base and im critting for 2-2.5 k dmg like i think .66 or.75 seconds.
You do realize that when you are getting those 20k crits thats total over 3-4 seconds right? In my testing against golems i have yet to see much above 15k. 5-6 axe attacks at 2.5k ( i dont even have maxed out power) on 5-6 attacks is 12.5-15 k just auto attacking. A wasnt lieing, you can dmg test on golems and will see the axe and gs do the same dmg or very kitten close.

Only thing that bothers me with the Greatsword is the Mesmer skill 1 on it. Specifically, the sound. Arrgh. It’s loud, and since the skill fires rapidly, and most mesmers I see use it, most dynamic events are a cacophony of “clangclangclangclangclangclangclang” over and over. And you can hear it fairly far away, too. Just…ugh.

Just wish they’d tone down the volume on it, relative to other sound effects. As it stands right now, the sheer racket it causes drowns out other sound effects when one or more mesmer is in the same general area as me. (Yes I’ve turned my volume down, but then every other sound is very faint or inaudible)

Petty gripe, I know, but it bugs the hell out of me since it’s such a popular weapon.

Sorry, had to rant I guess. xD

GS on the ranger is the best AoE weapon for the ranger(although if enemies stack right bows with piercing trait are better). If you turn auto-attack off you can time the evade on the first skill to make yourself very dodge tanky.

Love the GS on Guardian and I thought mesmer GS looked boring on videos but it’s not that bad to play.

I do not like GS on warrior.

Cod Eye.1632:

As a guardian the GS is a great weapon, but some bosses including the recent Mad king I swapped to Scepter and Torch, as it was more effective, and getting up close and personal was a death wish.

I took scepter in one weapon set on my guardian when I first ran MK because I didn’t know what to expect. Found that he did basically no damage outside of 3 step ‘air blade’ attack which I found has a funky hit box up close and often doesn’t hit you but either way it’s easy to dodge. I just used GS for every run with my guardian. The little mobs are more dangerous than MK.

I started playing a warrior finally and I gotta say, definately overrated.

Axes were by far better. The auto attack DPS from Axe alone is disgusting compared to greatsword.

Only thing that’s nice about GS is the mobility and almost has that “Tryndamere” feeling.

I think it’s just poorly designed, for Warrior atleast, and probably Ranger as well. Warrior’s 100b and Adrenaline skills seem completely backwards, 100b should be the adrenaline and vice versa.

Ranger is basically a utility stick in a sense the way Shortbow is, with pretty much ALL the dmg being baked into the auto attack, but they nerfed GS’s auto attack along time ago, so it’s just meh.

As far as Mesmer is concerned, Greatsword is actually really good now, as a long range weapon, up-close it really performs sort of crappy just because of how it’s designed.

Greatswords have the biggest skins on them, they have some of the coolest skins, and there are 3 legendaries. What else needs to be said? This game is as much as dress up barbie princess 5 as it is anything else( not criticizing but it is all about looks at the end), so why not try to look like the biggested badkitten around?

Its nothing to do with that at all , Its the Fact all other weapons look garbage compared to awsome looking greatswords

call me lame but i did roll a mesmer and shes lvl 74 now. I needed an excuse to craft twilight and since im terrible in wvw with my warrior im going to take mesmer in there instead.

i know it would have depreciated the value of the skins but I would have liked sets of weapon skins. like twilight weapon sets, sunrise/bitfrost/and others. Maybe it wouldnt have worked for some like flameseeker prophecies but yeah twilight and sunrise for sure. I see they did that to some extent on the uniques in the forge with mesmer illusion weapons, the guardian spirt weapons and elementalist environmental weapons.

Frenzy + Endure Pain + 100b = pwnt

Frenzy + Endure Pain + Shield Bash + Axe Auto Attack = pwnt

Ugh, I WISH Greatsword was actually overrated…and not just as awesome as it is. I’m so tired Greatsword but it keeps outperforming any other weapon I try. I’d love to go axe/axe or mace/axe on Warrior but it feels like crippling myself. Even on my Guardian who feels so right with a mace/shield I end up going Greatsword for damage and crowd control.
It’d be great if some of the other weapons were given a look by Anet, I feel like Greatsword ends up always coming out on top, which is annoying because I’m so bored with it but also I feel incapable of nerfing myself by using something else.