In GW2 there are many abilities with a small aftercast. If you sheath your weapon immediately after using the ability you can bypass the aftercast and save yourself a lot of time that can be very game-changing. Some may say that this adds skill depth. However, for many skills this just becomes habit, and does not add any meaningful skill elements. For example, I play mostly Mesmer so I will list a few abilities where sheath-cancelling provides a direct benefit, not really increasing skill depth but just becoming a habit (Exception: Blurred Frenzy see below!). For each skill I will explain the phenomenon and a proposed balance solution.
Greatsword Auto Attack: This ability has a 1 1/2 second cast time but the third hit actually occurs at around 1 second! If you sheath immediately after the third hit you can start a new auto attack, saving yourself ~.5 seconds per auto greatly increasing your dps! This ability is one of the greatest offenders where sheath-cancelling provides an immense direct benefit with no trade-off. You MUST sheath-cancel this ability to maximize its potential.
SOLUTION: Spread the triple attack so that the third hit actually occurs at the end of the cast time. This is a nerf for experienced players but greatsword imo needs a nerf.
Illusionary Leap: This ability has a 3/4 second cast time but after using the ability, the clone will leap immediately and the skill with switch to swap. If you look closely you will notice that swap will begin on a cooldown of .2 seconds before you can use it. If you use swap immediately you do not have to sheath cancel because using swap behaves like a sheath cancel and will cancel out the remaining cast time of illusionary leap on its own. (Intended?) However, many times it is best NOT to swap right away to bait out dodge rolls or save it to dodge a skill. But doing so leaves a useless, hefty 3/4 second cast time. In this situation it is ALWAYS beneficial to sheath-cancel to perhaps start summoning a phantasm or get a quick blurred frenzy or autos. This has no downsides or trade-offs and once again must always be done to maximize this skill if you choose not to swap right away.
SOLUTION: Buff the cast time of ileap to 1/5 of a second, equal to the time before you can use swap. Most new or average players will swap immediately anyway so this has no effect on them, but it removes the necessity to sheath cancel for experienced players if you choose not to swap immediately.
Blurred Frenzy: This skill has a cast time of 2 1/2 seconds. The 4 hits of damage occur during 2 seconds however so you can sheath cancel the remaining 1/2 seconds and begin an auto-attack faster increasing your damage or start casting another skill. Unlike the greatsword or ileap however, sheath-cancelling this ability HAS a tradeoff. If you cancel this ability early you will lose 1/2 seconds of evade. I believe this a good case where sheath-cancelling provides more skill depth. You sheath-cancel the aftercast to increase your dps or cast something else but you expose yourself for an extra 1/2 of a second. Nothing should be done here.
Sheath-cancelling is also useful to interrupt your own skills. For example, I start to cast a phantasm and I get blinded. To not waste the cooldown I sheath-cancel the cast. This is a great functionality and adds skill depth so nothing should be done to this specific functionality.
I’m sure there are many other skills that have the problem where sheath-cancelling is a necessity to remove aftercasts. This just becomes a habit for experienced players and newer players are left in the dark and most do not even know about sheath-cancelling. This does not add any skill depth in my opinion and sheath-canceling should be removed for skills where it provides a direct benefit and simply becomes habit.
Please post your thoughts on the matter and also any skills that use this functionality to evade aftercasts, and also any proposed solutions. Sorry for the long post and walls of text (I have no clue how to format properly.)! Thanks for reading if you read all the way through haha!
-Exasol
