Guild Wars 2

which one are you going to play with sword main hand? and why?

Focus because ranged denial and survivability. Offhand dagger stopped being good the moment the cele meta was ruined

I will probably change it up, but I think Focus in the most situations. Will try out dagger in open world tho.

I will probably stay with MH dagger, if they don’t noticeably buff sword dmg/skill speed

Focus :
+ survivability
- mobility
- damage

Dagger
+ mobility
+ damage
- survivability

Considering the lack of mobility and gap closer for sword, i prefer dagger. Focus is good but you can’t catch anyone with it, rendering your sword useless. Focus is better with MH dagger or scepter.

Sword does has gap closers thats short-med range. I will use focus because of the extra defense options. Weavers had survival issues during the beta. In pve I would use dagger because of the damage.

Dagger is still good on D/D Roaming Tempest and decent on Celestial Ele but if you’re running Vipers, Sinisters, or Grievers on Weaver, you’re gonna get destroyed by Pew Pew Pew with offhand dagger.

Unless they do buff Weaver’s barriers and increase the range on its gap closers, then I could see Dagger potentially fighting nicely.

I will use dagger for damage + with grievers set. If I need to CC ill use focus.

Right now, Sw/D and Sc/D are my likely choices for Fire/Earth/Weaver.

Neither for me, I’m still super in love with Staff Weaver If I do a more sustainy sword build for pvp, I’ll likely go Focus though. It has a lot of lightning rod synergy.

For PvP/WvW? Focus. For PvE I might throw in the Dagger for teh LuLz.

Had a lot of fun with Sword/focus condi combo in the betas. They flow so well together, specially fire and earth. in fire/eart you can use your sword 2 for a fire field and focus 4 for a blast finisher, then swap immediately to earth/fire and do focus 4 for a fire field and sword 2 for a blast finisher. Mix in a couple of pure fire and earth sword 3s for extra damage and you basically have a very rythmic rotation going. Having earth focus skills in there is also great for survivability. you can also combine earth skills with the sword water 2 for additional healing. The only problem with this combo is usually condi cleanse, though you can supplement that with traits or utilities.

I can’t wait to try sword/dagger in fractals. I believe I’ll need focus for uncat harpies and other bits here and there although I liked how offhand worked.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Had a lot of fun with Sword/focus condi combo in the betas. They flow so well together, specially fire and earth. in fire/eart you can use your sword 2 for a fire field and focus 4 for a blast finisher, then swap immediately to earth/fire and do focus 4 for a fire field and sword 2 for a blast finisher. Mix in a couple of pure fire and earth sword 3s for extra damage and you basically have a very rythmic rotation going. Having earth focus skills in there is also great for survivability. you can also combine earth skills with the sword water 2 for additional healing. The only problem with this combo is usually condi cleanse, though you can supplement that with traits or utilities.

Was doing similar with Sword/Dagger starting in Earth/Fire then going Ring of Fire → Earth → Rust Frenzy → Earthen Vortex → Auto Attack Chain (waiting on swap) → Fire → Lava Skin → Flame Uprising (Fire Aura due to persisting flames) → Earthquake → Churning Earth) → Auto Attack Chain (waiting on swap, if swapping to Fire again doesn’t interrupt could swap to fire after 2 hits but didn’t test this) → Fire → Cauterizing Strike → Fire Grab

This was on a Fire/Earth/Weaver build so had a lot of bleed/burn and durations but I didn’t have anywhere near the optimal setup.

The auto chains felt really slow but we’d have to see with Quickness. Even then I see this an area where Sword will eventually get buffed cause it’s just so slow for a 130 weapon. Battle moves for 1 second and it’s like oh well start your chain over.

I like dagger for open world PvE, but it remains to be seen for group PvE and PvP for me.

That said, I suspect focus will be better for group PvE if you’re doing a condition build. If you’re going power, I think dagger will win out.

FrownyClown.8402:

Focus because ranged denial and survivability. Offhand dagger stopped being good the moment the cele meta was ruined

Indeed u are bad ele xD

Sword does a lot less than main hand dagger, less damage on the auto chain, while the number 2 evades are nice I can’t really say it’ll be better. Neither can I say that weaver offers something I consider worth the trade off for the number 3 skills on dagger, shocking aura, frozen burst, magnetic leap and burning speed are just far more useful.

However if I had to use sword and weaver it would be offhand dagger for mobility and the 2 condition cleanses on offhand water. For a long time people will condi bomb you after you leave water but weaver gives you the ability to get a heal and cleanse, then swap back to water if needed 2-4s later. Fire grab is also pretty much the only damage you will have so if you pick focus what are you going to do? Tickle the enemy? Tell really bad jokes so they die laughing?

Sorry but there’s barely any pressure or damage from a sword focus build, most current HoT builds will either destroy you or get bored and just leave without feeling pressured.

apharma.3741:

Sword does a lot less than main hand dagger, less damage on the auto chain, while the number 2 evades are nice I can’t really say it’ll be better. Neither can I say that weaver offers something I consider worth the trade off for the number 3 skills on dagger, shocking aura, frozen burst, magnetic leap and burning speed are just far more useful.

However if I had to use sword and weaver it would be offhand dagger for mobility and the 2 condition cleanses on offhand water. For a long time people will condi bomb you after you leave water but weaver gives you the ability to get a heal and cleanse, then swap back to water if needed 2-4s later. Fire grab is also pretty much the only damage you will have so if you pick focus what are you going to do? Tickle the enemy? Tell really bad jokes so they die laughing?

Sorry but there’s barely any pressure or damage from a sword focus build, most current HoT builds will either destroy you or get bored and just leave without feeling pressured.

True and shame that Weaver has better traits (imo) compared to tempest and fire

I don’t feel I can abandon water and arcana just yet (in pvp/wvw)

I wish I could play with weaver traits without it replacing my 3rd main hand skill (I wont specialize in dual attacks in the traits – it provides such option)

d/d is still the best combo for pvp/wvw ele, not op like before but it is good.

Focus:
- provides instant damage denial skills and cleansing (earth 4 and 5), plus projectile protection (air 4) → required by glassy builds and likely also defensive builds.
- provides ranged CC – > strong for lightning rod builds; strong in small scale support builds to help teammates sticking to targets and interrupt key skills

Dagger OH:
- provides high damage skills
- provides a gap closer
- a large, fast cast, low cd fire field for good might stacking rotation

The dagger OH cleansing is weaker due to the cast time and the fact that it’s a water skill. Focus is more flexible for cleansing condition because you have 2 attunements available: Water (Arcana/Water combo) and Earth (#4 skill). As DD, if you have your water attunement in cooldown you have no access to the cleansing skills of the weapon skills bar, which could be dangerous.

In conclusion, I think dagger OH is very strong thanks to the buffs received over time, but it’s viable only if the ele is tanky enough to survive most bursts and heal up quickly. This requires a “Celestial approach” to the build, mixing offensive and defensive stats making good use of might stacking and boons. So, defensive/support and glassy builds should stick to Focus.

apharma.3741:

Sword does a lot less than main hand dagger, less damage on the auto chain, while the number 2 evades are nice I can’t really say it’ll be better. Neither can I say that weaver offers something I consider worth the trade off for the number 3 skills on dagger, shocking aura, frozen burst, magnetic leap and burning speed are just far more useful.

It’s worth noting that it’s likely balance will be changed significantly by the time PoF launches. The stress test build from yesterday was the same one as the elite spec preview build from a couple weeks ago, but they’ve said they already have a different one.

In other words, I’m holding out hope that sword got some buffs.

Dagger and focus are both good,

For the dagger, by having a fire / earth / air / water rotation… you can have things you had with the dagger, blast in fire field leap in fire field (so fire shield) / earth/fire has the good old 4+2 which is a fire field + blast – air/earth has 3 cc (2 daze, 3 float, 4 kd) which is really good, and by using the daze (which is a leap) when the firefield from the dagger is up, you got a better combo than the old magnetic leap. when you’re attunning to water/air you gain access to kd as well from the dagger. And if you put the 2 in water/air and switch to fire/water, you can leap inside the water field by using 2 in fire (but that’s a sword combo… i’ll leave it here anyway since it’s good). And it can be pretty smooth if not spamming 10 skills per second but rather thinking about what to use and when it’s the right moment (or else you’ll be stuck with the attunement cd. sad face)

But it’s just something that came up, and I didn’t try it more than 15min last night.

Main problem is the range and the damage. It’s low :/

bOTEB.1573:

FrownyClown.8402:

Focus because ranged denial and survivability. Offhand dagger stopped being good the moment the cele meta was ruined

Indeed u are bad ele xD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avhWI1dGABo

Rare footage of dagger fire 5 not bugging o.O

Anyway, focus is still better, even tho with weaver focus will be a lot worse as you have a 3s delay, so dagger may be a solid option

Focus off hand i think is better for melee weaver then dagger unless your going for that max fire atument dmg. Getting 2 attks that do more vs burning targets is good spike dmg.

As for dagger main hand weaver you may get more out of off hand dagger for the old d/d ele set up as weaver gets a lot of self support and sustate that core ele use to have just in a different way.

As for scpter weaver i do not know i can see it going both ways but i do not use scpter often this may changes due to weaver.

Hana.8143:

Main problem is the range and the damage. It’s low :/

In pvp dagger offhand feels almost necessary if you use sword main hand.
Lightning 2 is the only gap closer/mobility on sword.

The range seems really buggy. Some skills like sword/dagger lightning/earth weaver skill often misses even if you are almost inside the enemy model.

I don’t think that sword will be superior to a dagger in the main hand.

In fact, I think the water+arcana+weaver with d/d will be the best choice for pvp.

I don’t know how you saw the sword in the main hand but unless they increase its range and dmg the dagger is still number 1. The sword was meh to me. BUT if they increase its dmg and range (as it should be, just locical) this will be 10/10 elite spec and since it is one of the hardest professions to master due to the 24/7 changing of elements and 2-3 times more skills than necromancer for example, it will be only fair to squeeze more dmg if u are doing everything right.

Focus for more defensive play, Dagger for more daka.