Guild Wars 2

Hi! I’m currently playing through HoT and having a lot of fun with it. Currently I’ve entered Auric Basin running a full Zerker Dragonhunter (Zeal/Radiance/DH) with Sword/Focus + Longbow, but I’ve gotten through Verdant Brink with Greatsword + Longbow. I’ve noticed that I usually run through my Longbow skills first before swapping to my melee weapon, but lately I’ve been swapping to Sword more often than when I was running Greatsword. I’ve even been engaging with Sword instead of Longbow, something I’ve never done with Greatsword unless my swap was on cooldown.

Sword and Greatsword are similar in that they both have approach skills that blind, a symbol, and a multi-hit burst skill. However, I believe that running Sword offers more DPS for the fact that its auto chain (according to wiki) is half a second faster than Greatsword. As well, Sword allows me to approach, blind, and drop a symbol simultaneously with skill 2, which sets up the 10% damage bonus from Symbolic Avenger in less time than it would take for Greatsword (approach with 3, drop symbol with 4).

If I hit with Spear of Justice before my approach, I’ll have cripple, burning, Justice, vulnerability, blind AND a 27% damage boost (Big Game Hunter + Symbolic Avenger + Fiery Wrath) on my target in two skills on Sword rather than three skills on Greatsword. I also engage my enemy with an additional 45% crit chance on top of Zerker’s precision bonus due to Right Hand Strength, Radiant Power and Symbol of Blades.

Writing this all out convinces me that Sword is better suited for DPS than Greatsword under the assumption of a Zerker-based DPS build, at least in open world PvE. I’ll admit to a bias in that I haven’t played WvW, PvP or Fractals/Raids enough to gain sufficient knowledge in each of their respective metagames. This thread is to gain perspective on Sword/X vs Greatsword under those metas. I’d love to hear opinions from all player types: Is Sword/X better than Greatsword? How did the recent patch shift your argument? How does the Dragonhunter specialization affect the argument?

Thanks for reading!

GS has been buffed recently in the last patch. I’d say each has their place. Sword/x does offer more utility though. Much safer since it has shield or focus for blocks and cc. GS does have more mobility though without the condition of having to target ambients or passive mobs, if you want to get around quicker. You can also apply light aura by dropping symbol and leaping with leap of faith. The damage and cleave on Whirling Wrath is also pretty good.

Sword is just better, even after the patch buff gs can’t compete. I was always a fan of gs, used it for most of the time and even crafted Twilight, Sunrise and finally Eternity, but about a year ago duelling in WvW I learned the hard way how much better sword + focus was vs greatsword in mirror DH matches, so my gs stacks dust since. Sword also offers more flexibility because you can couple it with focus, shield or torch. I would say that even hammer is better choice before gs but sword is still king in terms of damage and flexibility.

I agree with Buran, GS is better than before but Sword/Focus is still better. GS is fun to use esp in open world but its just not quite there yet. They need to speed up animations/projectile speed of GS 5 and allow us to move normal speed while using GS2

Have to agree with the previous posts. I played a bit with GS yesterday, but compared to sword+x it still doesn’t feel right, even in open world.

Greatsword has better aoe burst, thats pretty much it. Idk about the sustained dps during long fights since the patch but my money is still on sword, saddly.

Keep the S/F and throw a SC/T into the mix. Works wonders when Radiance is traited and the extra burns are great source of damage.

Glad you’re having fun, those maps are really enjoyable as a DH. The only one that I won’t touch again is TD.

Meh can just use both like guardians used to before dragon hunter was a thing

Sword does indeed feel better than gs, both in open world and instances. and pvp.

However after making the dps tests myself post patch:

GS / Scepter + torch using Virtues instead of radiance offers a lot more DPS in sustained fights if you manage to keep unscathed contender which can be very hard in a “real life” situation (the comparison was done against the values listed by Qtfy in “unreal” conditions WITHOUT using FOOD).
Not using food means that I didn’t get the 10% damage benefit not the condition damage bonus so the DPS gap might have been even higher.

Sword instead of gs benefits a lot more from Radiance given the almost permanent torch 4 activation, plus the % crit increase which allows you to use power infusions for a slight dps buff, contrary to gs which i would suggest using precision infusions.
However as noted before, the dps was lower.

Note 1: to make gs do full damage you have to be inside the boss hitbox so all projectiles hit the boss.
Note 2: sword offers a lot more versatility given the fact that you can use 2 weapons. On top of that all the gs attacks are clunky and slow so….

The general thing between S/X vs GS is that S/X has better stick(in-combat mobility) and sustained DPS, and safety utility with offhand defenses. Though the pros of GS is that it has much better cleave and AoE burst than S/X. Not to mention you have another tool to pull people through ToF. Granted though S/X is still probably the safest pick between the two, especially with the blasting light field change, since you get more defenses for sustainability.

IMO since I mained GS on guardian for a long time, they should do the following:

- Bump up the might stacks on the AA chain from 1 stack to 3 stacks for every person hit as well as bumping up the AA damage like 5% on all three skills.

- Whirling Wrath should either lose the movement impairment for using it or at least lessening it.

- Also please, please make it puke whirl projectile finishers like Warrior offhand axe it’s disappointing to only see 1 fire off for using it in like a fire field or dark field.

- Damage of Whirling Wrath was a nice step to fixing the weapon’s niche, but what I’d like to see maybe is having a damage scaling component or a short unique buff tied to how many consecutive hits you land with it, up to like 2% for every hit you land projectile and melee up to a maximum % increase ofc.

-x- Reluctant to suggest this change but making Whirling Wrath reflect or destroy projectiles. I know warrior has wanted this on offhand axe for a long time, maybe it’ll get it too but I think it might help out in choice against S/X setups, but it starts to fill the attack and defense at the same time scheme everyone complains about. Kinda want to hear what anyone else thinks of this.

- Zealous Blade needs to be changed to something else, or they need to really bum up the healing numbers to around 100-150 per hit. Also i never understood why they normalized every damage modifier base of trait tier except this trait. Fiery Wrath itself is in adepth and gains 7% while ZB gets 5%, not only this but even Warrior having a similar trait location in strength Forceful Greatsword provides 10% damage and the ability to generate more might. ZB should also be equalized n the modifier section of the trait.

The most iconic thing about GS is Whirling Wrath, it’s pretty much the weapon’s bread and butter skill for damage, and the only real skill that sets it apart from other guardian weapons.