Guild Wars 2

wasted.6817:

PS. Then, the lovestruck ones were actually decent skins, but yeah, the heart, it had to be there… Right.

Yeah, that’s my issue with them as well. Design wise they have a really functional shape. But the designers kind of ruin it, by making the weapon so themed. It makes it so that the weapon really doesn’t fit with the majority of characters. It stands out like a mesmer at a fashion show. It’s an eye sore, when it could have been just a really good looking weapon. There’s just no way my necromancer could ever walk around with a weapon that has a giant heart on it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

There’s just no way my necromancer could ever walk around with a weapon that has a giant heart on it.

What if it was the still-beating heart of your enemies?

Pandaman.4758:

What if it was the still-beating heart of your enemies?

Maybe if it is the heart of a mesmer…

Rifles too. there are hardly any rifles that I would call rifles. More like fancy bits of stuff that make rifle sounds. I don’t want to see more odd bits and pieces hanging off the rifle.

Skins like Ascended, Aetherised, Aureate musket, Avenger’s, Black powder, Ceremonial, Ebon vanguard, Felix’s, inquest/mystic, Predator, etc. Rifles that don’t have extraneous pieces that would obviously throw the weight of the rifle off if they were real.

I love Greatswords, but I hate the fact they are surfboards. Aureate Highlander > Twilight/Sunrise.

I just want to say, thank you Malfide, I totally agree. Sometimes I think i’m the only one that likes a good realistic look to my weapons, unfortunatly that leaves me very limited as to what weapons I can go with. Bonetti’s rapier is one of the VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY few weapons I’ve actually really liked in my 15 years of playing various MMOs.

Wheelock rifle is easily my favorite rifle, almost makes me want to play GW1 just to get it. If I start playing my engi more I may have to.

If they simply touched up the textures and redid the hilts of the iron weapons I’d probably be using that whole set.

Pandaman.4758:

To be fair, the artists making these weapons aren’t under the illusion that they’re remotely practical, so pointing out the flaws isn’t much of an argument. A lot of people like these over-the-top designs (I’m not one of them, however) and that’s who they’re appealing to; if we want to see more practical and elegant designs, we just have to convince them that there’s an equally large (or large enough) audience to make appealing to us worth the effort.

No how idea we could go about accomplishing that, sadly.

By complaining on the forums \o/

To be honest though, ANet could have picked up the hint already – remember when players saw Mai Trinn’s rapier and pistol and EVERYBODY WANTED THEM, or when players saw Belinda’s greatsword and EVERYBODY WANTED IT?

Exactly, Bonetti’s Rapier is easily the sword I see used most often, why? becaus it’s one of the very few real looking swords.

I agree SO MUCH with this thread…

One thing to note, I think “realistic” and “fantasy styled” don’t necessarily exclude each other. For example, I believe that both Tormented sword and GS would make pretty good fantasy weapons while reamaining realistic enough for my tastes… if only the blades were reduced to about 1/4 of current width. For now, the GS looks like a high – tech ironing board out of a Star Trek movie.

I feel we have a semi – decent choice of swords, but we sorely lack usable GS models (last update gave us one “way too heavy” and one “is that even a weapon?” ones…) This is one of the reasons I expect Belinda’s GS will be extremely popular – it’s been a looong time since we saw a new GS skin that wasn’t horribly oversized and/or otherwise silly. The fact that existing ones are either plain yellows or cheap exotics doesn’t help things either.

Being a thief I agree with this 1000000%… The only daggers I can ever use in this game are Komalie’s Sacrificial Blade… Why? Because they actually look like daggers, not 1-handed swords being held upside-down.

Mistforged/lovestruck daggers looked very good, the only problem is of course whoever is doing the scaling on the dev side for some reason has a thing for obnoxiously oversizing them. I might as well use a frying pan instead of a dagger.

Seriously… Daggers should not be as long as your arm.. On my human thief, almost EVERY dagger, from point to end is as long as my arm from shoulder to fingertip.

Pistols are also oversized. Why do they all either look like overweight blunderbusses or one handed rifles? Look at the ascended pistols. I LOVE the design, but on my human, there is NO way my finger would actually reach the trigger because it is too far away. If they scaled them better they would look 100x better.

Bonetti’s Rapier, and Komalie’s Sacrificial Blade are 2 of the best looking/appropriately scaled weapons in the entire game.

Seriously, pass this along to whoever is making these skins: when you’re done sizing the weapons and decide you’ve done a good job please stop for a second, go back and reduce the size by 50% and then you are truly done.

Azhure.1857:

+1

I’m tired of the cheap, fat weapon skins.
No longer can I look at the majority of the greatsword weapon skins in particular without thinking they’re anything but giant paddles – instead of swords as they should be.

I’d love to wield an Oar! That’d make an awesome hammer skin.

I also want that “Termite Shovel” to be a hammer skin too, it looks like a giant wooden Spoon. I’d run around yelling SPOOOOON! >.>

Practical? Not one bit, but quite hilarious.

Lifestealer.4910:

The ratio of fat, blunt and oversized weapons is way out of hand when compared to the slim and elegant weapons. Take sword for instance, the only elegant sword are infinite light and fractal sword, both of which are insanely hard to get. I know somebody will suggest low level weapons but those weapons have other issues like being too generic.

YES!

Interesting topic.

The Warden sword and greatsword are my current favourites, mostly because I like the colour and the thinness of the blade. It goes well with my Sylvari Guardian. I find that the crossguards are too big, though, especially on the greatsword.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/5/51/Warden_Greatsword.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/e/ee/Warden_Sword.jpg

I’d like to see some more slimmer or realistic swords, with or without a fantasy touch.

Could someone please critique the Kymswarden greatsword? I like it for its ornamental qualities but it looks wrong. Narrow grip, weird blade flare just above the crossguard… am I close? Other than those two little anomalies, it seems pretty satisfactory to me:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/fb/Kymswarden.jpg

Also,

I guess as far as greatswords go, I’m a fan of the Mithril version of the stock GS:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/1/12/Mithril_Greatsword.jpg

Boring? Well… yeah okay maybe! I just love the simplicity of it.

I’ll add my plus one to this thread, I remember early on when my Norn Guardian picked up her first great sword, i looked at it and wondered if it was meant to be a sword or a cricket bat. There is a theory that some undead take more damage from bludgeoning weapons and others from slashing weapons, I wonder if they are trying to design swords that count as both.

My Ranger on the other hand is now quite happy she has Arc which actually looks like a bow that would work.

Aureate daggers are nice as well, though I think daggers as whole were made larger to show more detail as their appropriate size doesn’t leave much room to work with as far as textures go. Not saying I agree with the decision, I would have left them realistic, but I see why they chose to make them a bit larger.

Kymswarden is a great sword, a little off, but overall one of the better ones. If they took the hilt off of that and tossed it on the Mitril sword and maybe retextured the blade a bit they’d have my perfect greatsword. Somewhere between those two swords lies a true greatsword IMO.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

The only daggers I can ever use in this game are Komalie’s Sacrificial Blade… Why? Because they actually look like daggers, not 1-handed swords being held upside-down.

Mistforged/lovestruck daggers looked very good, the only problem is of course whoever is doing the scaling on the dev side for some reason has a thing for obnoxiously oversizing them. I might as well use a frying pan instead of a dagger.

Haha, exactly same story and thoughts.

khani.4786:

I also want that “Termite Shovel” to be a hammer skin too, it looks like a giant wooden Spoon. I’d run around yelling SPOOOOON! >.>

Okay that was a funny image. Seeing as they are all for creating crazy and unrealistic weapon skins – you have a better chance at getting your wish than we do.

Personally anyone of my characters that has used a greatsword has gone with the Ebon Vanguard skin since launch. Long time, I know, but I can’t lower myself to using most of the others. Its silly looking. There will always be some people that want to run around with a shovel or a giant candy cane – but I have never been one of them.

I prefer some manner of realism in my fantasy games. I suppose weapon skins is where I’ve drawn a line.

khani.4786:

I also want that “Termite Shovel” to be a hammer skin too, it looks like a giant wooden Spoon. I’d run around yelling SPOOOOON! >.>

A Norn with an entirely blue outfit, running around with that and accompanied by a human in an entirely white outfit. I’d watch that.

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

leng jai.2961:

Anet has amazing environmental artists but their designs for weapons and armour are really lacking. I’m picky and prefer minimalist looks but to me 80% of the weapons/armour in GW2 looks pretty terrible for my tastes.

This!

leng jai.2961:

Infinite Light, Bonetti’s Rapier and the Lovestruck sword to a certain extent are the only good looking swords in this game.

I would add the Fractal Sword to this, and also Honor of Humanity and Firebringer. And maybe the Ebon Vanguard sword. I myself use Infinite Light since, to me, this is by far the best-looking one. It was well worth the insane cost IMO. Now, if only the rather cool glowing runes would not glow when sheathed and it would appear just like a regular longsword when not drawn… This has already been done with Beacon of Light, why not with Infinite Light as well? Especially since the cost of the latter is mind-numbing…

I forgot about the Fractal Sword, that’s probably my second favourite skin besides Infinite Light. Fractal Weapons are a myth for 98% of the population. I’m up to level 39 and never gotten a single drop.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/fb/Kymswarden.jpg

This looks like an actual sword. I’d probably make the blade a bit thinner, and then scale the cross guard down appropriately. And the grip is far longer than it needs to be (unless you have 4 hands). But other than that, a functional blade, and mostly in the correct proportions. One error though, the fuller should not extend to the tip of the blade. The fuller is the hollowed out middle section, and it never extends all the way to the tip of the blade. That’s sword smithing 101, it makes the tip too fragile. Contrary to what many people believe, the fuller does not serve as a blood groove. That is why with most swords it doesn’t extend all the way to the pointy end.

It’d be neat if Arenanet had a system or a specific thread that welcomed users to post sketches of weapons and even armor that they’d like to see in game, and the art team could check up on it.

SOE released the Player Studio, they took it a step further than just sketches. They accept fully done 3d models from players and finish them up and put them in their gemstore type thing. It’s pretty awesome. I only saw a few of the released weapons before I stopped playing, but they were fantastic.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/fb/Kymswarden.jpg

One error though, the fuller should not extend to the tip of the blade. The fuller is the hollowed out middle section, and it never extends all the way to the tip of the blade. That’s sword smithing 101, it makes the tip too fragile.

On earlier types it sometimes did (Oakeshott types X to XIa http://www.oakeshott.org/Typo.html).
Not to be nitpicky :P.
Kymswarden is indeed one of the more realistic looking greatsword skins.

I like elaborate, ridiculous, ornate weapons, and I quite like the new ambrite weapons. But I still agree that some more, sleek, elegant skins are needed to add to the options.

Same goes for armor too.
There’s too much spiky, sparkly nonsensical stuff in the game.

I get that it’s a fantasy game that caters to the fantasy crowd but give people who like things a little more toned down a chance too.

I’d pay good money (gems) for a set that looked like :

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/warrior-stances.jpg

And a sword that looked like :

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Legacy_of_the_Foefire_loading_screen.jpg

Would it be too much to ask?!

There are plenty of realistic skins, look at the basic skins and you will see it. There isn’t a lot of room to make swords look epic when you all want them to look like crap you can get irl.

The basic skins are realistic but have horrible textures. No shiny to them a’tall. I would love weapons that show some care and fineness in crafting while looking like actual weapons. Give them excess detail if needed in decoration and blade etchings, in tassels and shining gems, not in adding so much width you may as well be — as another poster put it so well — wielding a kayak.

Khyber.2693:

There are plenty of realistic skins, look at the basic skins and you will see it. There isn’t a lot of room to make swords look epic when you all want them to look like crap you can get irl.

There’s plenty of room between the bland plain textures they put on the basic weapons and the textures they put on the rarer skins. But you’re right, take the basic stuff retexture and work on the hilts a bit and you’d have some amazing looking weapons.

I think the best looking Guild Wars 2 swords are Bonetti’s Rapier and Honor of Humanity / Firebringer, since they are based on real life swords.

I like the Fractal Sword and Unspoken Curse, personally. I even have a little RP history written in for the latter, since that was the sword my GW1 Warrior used. It was passed down through the generations, and is now wielded by my GW2 Warrior.

I don’t necessarily want realistic, but I do want plausible. I want things that look like deadly weapons. Twin Talons sword? Doesn’t look plausibly deadly. Its a bad model. On the other hand, the ascended swords are likely far too wide to be a decent weapon, but they look plausibly weaponlike. Then there’s things like the Chiroptophobia, and it’s like wtf were they even thinking? its so gaudy over the top mode. Sword themed like a bat? Great idea! But please at least give it a normal cutting blade.

Zaxares.5419:

I like the Fractal Sword and Unspoken Curse, personally. I even have a little RP history written in for the latter, since that was the sword my GW1 Warrior used. It was passed down through the generations, and is now wielded by my GW2 Warrior.

Unspoken curse isn’t bad, at least it has a plausible blade which is saying a lot. I wish they toned down the crossguard just a bit, it looks like you’d constantly be poking yourself with it.

Even with the few elegant designs scaling ruins them. Bonetti’s rapier on a Norn is bad, point clipping into the ground. Huge hilts on most weapons. Pistols suffer a lot, even something as neat as the Aetherblade pistol is ruined by sheer size. Even the Fiery Dragon sword is super scaled up. Only Asura seem to get nicely scaled weapons.

I have to agree with Malifide regarding the absurd designs. So many weaken the structure, inhibit damage, and would be unwieldable.

I’ve settled on very few weapons here. Honor of Humanity, Ebonblade, Ceremonial dagger/aureate, Ceremonial Bow/Aureate (several nice bows however), Krytan Pistol, and Shiverpeak Musket. The Ebon Vanguard weapons are “mostly” ok.

I like the steam pistol for pistols, reminds me of a pepperbox.

Thomas.3890:

On earlier types it sometimes did (Oakeshott types X to XIa http://www.oakeshott.org/Typo.html).
Not to be nitpicky :P.

Actually, none of the pictures in that link portray the fuller extending all the way to the end. There are a few that have a hardened ridge that extends to the end, but that is different from a fuller. :P The thick black line is a fuller it seems, and the thin line is a hardened ridge. Sword XVI even combines the two. Sword X has a fuller that almost extends across the whole blade, but stops short of the final end. The fuller on sword XII however is far more common, leaving plenty of space between the tip and the fuller. Now I’m the one being nitpicky.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/3/36/Unspoken_Curse.jpg

Unspoken Curse looks almost like a practical sword, apart from the cross guard that is way too big obviously. I think the designers should have asked themselves if they could realistically swing this sword around. Just looking at the cross guard alone, you can easily tell that it would get in the way of actually swinging that blade. I’d probably also tone down the length of the blade, but that is probably just to make the blade look more proportionate from a distance. But the width and grip size seem proportionate at least. A perfect example that a weapon can be functional and look good at the same time.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Actually, none of the pictures in that link portray the fuller extending all the way to the end. There are a few that have a hardened ridge that extends to the end, but that is different from a fuller. :P The thick black line is a fuller it seems, and the thin line is a hardened ridge. Sword XVI even combines the two. Sword X has a fuller that almost extends across the whole blade, but stops short of the final end. The fuller on sword XII however is far more common, leaving plenty of space between the tip and the fuller. Now I’m the one being nitpicky.

Oh my mistake, you meant all the way to the very tip. Yeah I agree with you on that .

points at majority of giantic, less then subtle scepters and foci skins

Yeah, Chakram was my favorite.

Yes please for more realistic looking and sized swords.

I hate all anime-sized weapons, including the legendary greatswords.

I can agree about more slicker and realistic looking weapons.Same counts for armor,
especially pauldrons for heavy’s are so kitten huge it’s just ugly..like on that new ninja outfit,or phalanx…It’s just way too big and floating above the shoulders,it looks ridiculous.

There’s even quite a few outfits that wouldn’t work as clothing, unless you packed a month-worth supply of double sided tape. Especially among some of the light armors.

Such as this one:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/9/99/Flamekissed_Light_Armor_Skin_human_female_front.jpg

Female parts would not hold that top up, unless it came with double sided tape, or was made out of a fiberglass shell. It’s like the designers never heard of straps, or just don’t know where to put them.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

There’s even quite a few outfits that wouldn’t work as clothing, unless you packed a month-worth supply of double sided tape. Especially among some of the light armors.

Such as this one:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/9/99/Flamekissed_Light_Armor_Skin_human_female_front.jpg

Female parts would not hold that top up, unless it came with double sided tape, or was made out of a fiberglass shell. It’s like the designers never heard of straps, or just don’t know where to put them.

Don’t discount safety pins.

So many weapons skins, to my eyes, are Cow Tools.

Someone said elegant?
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Zodiac_Sword.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Broadsword.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Crenellated_Sword.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Emerald_Blade.jpg <3 (based on the honorable mention design by Findur Calenardhon from the Design-a-Weapon Contest held in 2007)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Envoy_Sword.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Eternal_Blade.jpg (high-end UW/pvp skin)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Falchion.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Fellblade <3 prolly one of the most popular OS swords
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Glacial_Blade.jpg <3 (based on one of the winning designs by Andre Roux from the Design-a-Weapon Contest in 2007; concept art: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Glacial_Blade_DaW07.jpg)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Golden_Phoenix_Blade.jpg (kinda short, but goes really well with Amber Aegis: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Amber_Aegis)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Katana.jpg (yay Cantha)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Shinobi_Blade.jpg (my fav from cantha)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Long_Sword.jpg a classic
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Runic_Blade.jpg cuz it got class
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Shadow_Blade.jpg FoW high-end sword skin
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Eternal_Blade.jpg High-end UW/pvp skin

and ofc…
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Dryad_Bow.jpg (concept art: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Dryad_Bow_DaW07.jpg)
+
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Silverwing_Recurve_Bow.jpg

heh, Karla, unsurprisingly, my fav Sword in GW2 is a Nightfall Gladius. (Honor of Humanity) http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Gladius_%28gladius%29.jpg

I’d have a really hard time deciding between emerald blade, shinobi blade, fellblade and runic blade, while glacial blade is unfortunately out of my reach.

However with the introduction of spears, I virtually don’t use melee weaps in pvp anymore at all, bar when running some specific skills.
I normally use a combination of these skins:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Deldrimor_Spear.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Greater_Guardian_Spear.jpg (looks really odd from this PoW)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Ornate_Spear.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Serrated_Spear.jpg (2nd best skin imo)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:PvP_Spear.jpg (basic pvp skin, but really well designed imo, and looks awesome in white)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Voltaic_Spear.jpg (fav)

On a side note: Yesterday I had one of the funn(i)est runs in RA in a while – nothing better than kittening off terribad botters.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Emerald_Blade.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Long_Sword.jpg

These 2 are probably the best sword skins i’ve ever seen in MMOs. And the Long Sword design was used for Kymswarden, no wonder it’s one of the very few decent greatswords in GW2.

Give me that Broadsword and Falchion NOW!…. please?

Upon further thought though, they’d have to be scaled up and made into greatswords as we don’t really slash with our sword animations.

That Runic Blade though, my god it’s perfect.

I thought I was the only one that hated all of the bulky weapons and armor. I having the same problem trying to find some combinations to work. Worse thing about mix matching armors is that some of the dyes don’t match up on different sets of armor.

I’m thinking about using the raipers for the swords as well. I was thinking about using the mithril blade or the dark steel version of it but they made it look way to damaged and old. Might just stick with the ebonblade for the GS. Seems simple enough. Really wish they would readvise their armors and weapons.

100% agree. Theres so many nice skins in the game but most of them suffer from being oversized which makes them look odd.

I was considering getting the Ley Line focus because its the first non pink glowy focus which goes relatively well with infinite light. Unfortunately its too big so i have changed my mind. It would be perfect if it was half the size. They dont need to be huge to look nice anet!