Guild Wars 2

They actually seem alright. Sure, they’ve lost some of their flavor, but I really don’t miss those glowy things awkwardly floating around me. We might have an actual new build on our hands and even if they turn out to be undertuned, they can buff them later because it’s just about numbers now, not about a broken mechanic.

So here are some things about the new SWs:

1. Their base damage in unaffected by your own stats while being resonably high. That means even total support builds can slot Sword/Hammer to have some additional bite. Their damage isn’t affected by Unschathed Contender.

2. It seems that they will track down enemies even if they enter stealth in the middle of the cast.

3. Same with teleports. The spirit weapon will always track the targets.

4. Looks like the spirit weapons share their spawn mechanic with shadowstep. Meaning the place you want to spawn them needs to be reachable without having to jump (and having no bugs in geometry). That makes them quite a bit less useful than normal AoEs, unfortunately.

5. Eternal Armory burning is bugged. It just doesn’t work. When it is fixed, Sword of Justice will inflict 4 stacks of burning in AoE for 3.75 seconds with Balth runes and Smoldering sigil. Plus it will also deal around 4k normal damage. Might be good enough to include into Burn Guard builds.

6. Bow of Truth is affected by healing power. The impacts aren’t random, the whole AoE pulses 15 times across its total size. With 1050 HP (Mender’s Amulet) it heals for 390 every pulse. That’s 5850 healing for up to 5 people inside the area, you can use it twice almost back to back, plus it’s a light field that just got a bit better through the light aura buff. Is that good? I think so.

7. Spirit Weapon hits do proc VoJ passive and active.

8. Shield of the Avenger dome lasts 2 seconds. This Spirit Weapon seems pretty bad tbh. The duration needs to be longer and/or the casting time should be instant if it’s meant to be a clutch block.

Number 4 really has to be changed unless they finally manage to fix their teleport bug on normal terrain.

Also, there is another bug with them. They go into cooldown for no reason randomly.

The Shield of the Avenger is just really bad. They should increase the dome duration to 3 or 4 seconds. It also doesn’t have the stun breaker any more.

@edit
It also doesn’t apply aegis anymore.

They made them worse. If the idea was to build a burn build around spirit weapons, the previous functionality worked better. GG on making something worse that was already bad.

The hammer command skill if casted in targets that were inside a WvW tower, the SW hammer would ignore the gate physics and just walk and atack the target inside the tower.

still possible?

Pyriall.1683:

They made them worse. If the idea was to build a burn build around spirit weapons, the previous functionality worked better. GG on making something worse that was already bad.

When they fix all the bugs, the Sword of Justice might become viable on condi builds.

Mikau.6920:

Pyriall.1683:

They made them worse. If the idea was to build a burn build around spirit weapons, the previous functionality worked better. GG on making something worse that was already bad.

When they fix all the bugs, the Sword of Justice might become viable on condi builds.

It was already as viable as it could be on a condi-build previously. It’s worse now, at least for pvp (which wasn’t much to begin with, but it was fun/funny).

SW should stay arorund the Guardian when they get equiped on bar.

Not like the gyros, but with the cast aspect before the update.

Pyriall.1683:

Mikau.6920:

Pyriall.1683:

They made them worse. If the idea was to build a burn build around spirit weapons, the previous functionality worked better. GG on making something worse that was already bad.

When they fix all the bugs, the Sword of Justice might become viable on condi builds.

It was already as viable as it could be on a condi-build previously. It’s worse now, at least for pvp (which wasn’t much to begin with, but it was fun/funny).

Once the trait gets fixed it will be really good for wvw. 4 hits, 5 targets, with perm wrath that’s 6 VoJ activations on top of the burning its going to cause already. As long as you cast it on a restack or in the middle of a group its going to be pretty damaging.

Hammer could use buff to dmg 3 ppl. its 30 sec cd per use.

Pyriall.1683:

They made them worse. If the idea was to build a burn build around spirit weapons, the previous functionality worked better. GG on making something worse that was already bad.

[Condi PvP]
Then you’re not running an optimized build to work with SoJ.

SoJ performs a heck of a lot better than Procession of Blades. All due to it being a ranged AoE. You’ll handle Mesmers and Rangers a whole lot better than any other (non-power built) trap. Each cast of SoJ will hit the target with more accuracy. That alone makes it better than old spirit Sword.

Spirit’s Burn on hit trait is nice (would be nice if it’s fixed) but that’s not what I run.

Virtues/Radiance/DH – Carrion power hybrid.

The patch this afternoon fixed the Eternal Armory trait. Sword of Justice now applies four burn stacks if all swings hit. Running Radiance 1/2/1, I got up to 17 burn stacks for a split second between Spear of Justice, Zealot’s Flame/Fire, and Sword of Justice. I don’t have any condition damage or expertise, so if you have increased condition duration, you could probably get even more stacks.

So far the change was in the right direction but IMO they will never be viable unless they are instant cast. 3/4s is way too long for an already telegraphed attack and it forces you to stop attacking to cast a spell that might miss.

Also yeah they need to make them able to be cast anywhere, lots of terrain is making them miss because it follows the same rules as shadowstepping.

Shorten the cast time on the SW skills and they should be good.

Been doing wvw and pvp today and here are my feedback.

Sword and hammer should be instant cast.

Bow needs also to be instant since the animation (before the healing starts but after the cast) is just an eternity. The healing also needs to be increased and in less pulses but with the same total healing. The mobility in this game makes a mockery of a decent skill.

Something needs to be added to the shield, stunbreaker would be nice.

Overall i think Anet done a good job and now they need to tweak this,

The change is bad because it destroys old functionality and play style. They used to function more like pets, now they are just clunky abilities with weird pathing issues.

And we do not really need to argue over which implementation is better. They could have enabled both options through the trait system. Instead, to make people who don’t use SWs like them better, they ruined them for people who liked SWs. It seems like a bad choice. I think we can all agree that destroying a play style which isn’t toxic or exploitive is a bad design choice when they could have easily just made optional functionality. Have eternal armory make SWs the same as before the patch, replace Mystic Rebuke with it’s current functionality (does anyone use that one?) plus the new functionality. Nobody loses.

Lets not pretend like anyone actually liked or used the old SWs

Instant cast, but slower initial attack would be a decent middle ground.
I tried running Sword in Fractals – too clunky and slow, ended up dropping it really fast.

Darknicrofia.2604:

Lets not pretend like anyone actually liked or used the old SWs

I did. Among other uses, I even used them as retal punching bags to rack up more damage when solo.

Darknicrofia.2604:

Lets not pretend like anyone actually liked or used the old SWs

Let’s not go down that road again. The skills were ignored for four years, there are a number of buffs they could have tried instead of reworking them. But it’s done now.

The cast times do appear to be an issue. For me it was most obvious with the shield, but I can see the arguments with the other skills as well.

It’s a general nitpick with the ammo system, but it would be nice to see each count recharge independently, rather than consecutively as they do now. As it currently stands, it feels like you’ve still effectively got a skill which recharges on the count recharge, albeit with a shot or two in reserve (but if you use that reserve, it’ll take close to a minute before you get that reserve back). I think I’d prefer a longer count refresh time to have the counts recharge independently.
(So, for instance, using SotA as an example – currently, if you use your last charge, it will take about a minute to get them all back – the time it takes for your first count to finish recharging, and then 50 seconds after that as each additional count recharges. If the counts recharged individually rather than consecutively, though, the count recharge might need to be increased to 30 or 35 seconds, but 35 seconds later you would have all of your counts back.)

Maybe the current functionality is exactly what they intended and balanced it around, but I have to say I was thinking in terms of “You get [count number] uses in [count recharge] seconds”, not “You get 1 use every [count recharge] seconds, but you can bank up [count number -1] additional uses if you don’t use it at all for a while.”

RabbitUp.8294:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Lets not pretend like anyone actually liked or used the old SWs

Let’s not go down that road again. The skills were ignored for four years, there are a number of buffs they could have tried instead of reworking them. But it’s done now.

I liked the idea, but they had got to be a bit like the original tomes – cool idea, but never balanced to something that was seriously used. I think I’d have preferred to see them balanced with their original theme, but… shrug I’m more likely to seriously use them as they are now than as they were.

Except for Shield of the Avenger. It was a niche skill that had its uses before. Now? 2s of projectile block every 25s (see above comments regarding operation of ammo counts) with a cast time long enough that it can’t really be used reactively doesn’t seem all that useful to me. I think if traited, it gives 10% uptime, rising to 40% uptime for a short period if you’re willing to expend your reserve counts? That’s nice, but WoR gives 33% uptime baseline and 50% traited, can maintain that uptime throughout the length fo a long encounter, can be placed more tactically rather than always being on the guardian, and is a reflect rather than a simple destroy. There’s no competition, and they don’t seem to synergise well with one another either.

If it could be used reactively, it could compete for shorter encounters and/or for situations where there are specific projectiles you want to block. If it had a longer shield duration, it might also compete, especially for shorter encounters where for whatever reason you don’t want to trait Master of Consecrations. Currently, though? I don’t see any prospect of using it, unless perhaps the damaging component proves to be just a little higher than the other available options after slotting SoJ and the most relevant signet for the build and I’m looking to do pure AoE DPS, but I really don’t see that being the case. (Dragonhunter has Procession of Blades, I’m pretty sure Firebrand has better AoE damage utilities as well, and even in core guardian, there’d be stiff competition from Smite Condition (if there are conditions to smite), Purging Flames, or simply taking a second signet on a hybrid build.)

I only agree with making the shield instacast since it’s a defensive skill. The sword and hammer should not be instacast, they do a lot of damage and having them be instant makes it very hard to avoid getting hit. especially the hanmer.

skeeman.3140:

The patch this afternoon fixed the Eternal Armory trait. Sword of Justice now applies four burn stacks if all swings hit. Running Radiance 1/2/1, I got up to 17 burn stacks for a split second between Spear of Justice, Zealot’s Flame/Fire, and Sword of Justice. I don’t have any condition damage or expertise, so if you have increased condition duration, you could probably get even more stacks.

I’ve been toying with a burn build using SoJ and I can spike up to 25-30 stacks of burn really fast while also applying a large amount of vulnerability. Makes for pretty huge burn ticks and it is a lot of fun. I can’t wait to try integrating Firebrand into it.

Kuya.6495:

I only agree with making the shield instacast since it’s a defensive skill. The sword and hammer should not be instacast, they do a lot of damage and having them be instant makes it very hard to avoid getting hit. especially the hanmer.

Actually it wont make them hard to avoid.

Its a pretty significant delay after the cast is done and the skill is executed. And the animations are huge and slow so its not difficult seeing them coming. Tbh the only thing you actually need to do to avoid sword is to move, running is enough and you will only be hit one time.

Its the same with the hammer, if you just move/run the skill will just miss in close to 50% of the times.

The part of the animation that displays the hit is stationary so the aftercast is huge and just start running when you see the sword/hammer in the air and it will miss.

I think that before we decide that hammer and sword need to be on instant cast, we should probably ask what people who main other classes think.

Kuya.6495:

I think that before we decide that hammer and sword need to be on instant cast, we should probably ask what people who main other classes think.

Well i dont play my guardian anymore (the only thing i use him for is when i play at the trader) and thief is my main since almost a year back and those attacks are extremely telegraphed and i would have no issues running or dodging when i see them.

Infact i suspect my normal gameplay, always moving, would almost make me immune versus them.

Just get into unranked and see how often they actually hit in a one on one. Even with unskilled opponents its less than 50% of the time. The reason for that is not the casting time, its the length of the animation and aftercast before they apply the damage/effect

Darknicrofia.2604:

Lets not pretend like anyone actually liked or used the old SWs

I used hammer for my burn guard and have been for the last months, got to rank 41 and 1811 rating with burn guard and spirit hammer on EU. I liked the old hammer more

TalleFjanten.7159:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Lets not pretend like anyone actually liked or used the old SWs

I used hammer for my burn guard and have been for the last months, got to rank 41 and 1811 rating with burn guard and spirit hammer on EU. I liked the old hammer more

i liked more the old SW much more…. this new ones besides even more bugs feel extremelly clunky to play…

the old guess where SW will do while in a fight was still better :\
I guess they need some sorta cast and stay near the guard wish ANet prefered to actually remove them to cast skills…

stupid solution as always :\
I

Kuya.6495:

I only agree with making the shield instacast since it’s a defensive skill. The sword and hammer should not be instacast, they do a lot of damage and having them be instant makes it very hard to avoid getting hit. especially the hanmer.

So what about Mesmers Mantra of Pain that’s instant cast and can hit for around 6k?

SoA was very decent, these changes are garbage.

Hammer definitely shouldn’t be instant. 2 sec ranged hard cc on instant cast would be way too strong.

Entenkommando.5208:

Hammer definitely shouldn’t be instant. 2 sec ranged hard cc on instant cast would be way too strong.

But its 3/4 cast time and then 1 1/4 time to actually hit ppl with attack. Its should hit 3 ppl and 1/2 cast time. Also for sword too.

So. What use ARE they? I admit to being at a bit of a loss here on what to do with this. You point and a hammer comes slamming down. Or a sword starts swinging, or a bow does AoE healing. Okay, fair enough. Its basically feels like Mantras do. Wait a cool down, then you shoot twice or so before emptying your quiver, then waiting before you can use it again. Fire and forget.

So, in the game, what am I going to be doing with these?

Mephi.7019:

So. What use ARE they? I admit to being at a bit of a loss here on what to do with this. You point and a hammer comes slamming down. Or a sword starts swinging, or a bow does AoE healing. Okay, fair enough. Its basically feels like Mantras do. Wait a cool down, then you shoot twice or so before emptying your quiver, then waiting before you can use it again. Fire and forget.

So, in the game, what am I going to be doing with these?

look kewl…no wait even the visual got nerfed….

SPirit weapons need to continue as callable spirits wich auto atacks, and dome pulsing…

What ANet needed to do was just to remove the dammn weapon turist mode and make then stacked nearby the guardian…. and give the normal action on command, SWSoA could receive the reflect on the command and stun-breaker like always had…

->>the Ammo system would be interesting on the Shouts tho :> cause shout would be underdog once FB hits…..but that would require shout to be to altered to much guess..

SoJ is definitely a must now in PvE. It does more damage than PB considering the CD. It definitely substitutes ToF. I tried it in sPvP and it works kinda like PB, with shorter CD. Easily avoidable, but highly punishing if not.

The other weapons will never see the day of light in any build.

SoJ burn Guard is meme worthy. It might be a relatively glassy build but kitten does it hurt. SoJ in a team fight = 10 stacks of burning on everybody thanks to Permeating Wrath, just by itself. You stand in that thing – you die, feels like it’s as strong as Plaguelands lol. Zeal/Virtues/Radiance has very little sustain though and I think you need all 3 GM traits from those lines so you can’t drop any one of those.

I actually slotted the hammer into a longbow/sword+shield medi-trapper build for roaming in place of Test of Faith and it worked decently in small fights. The thing does good damage and the utility puts it above the others for me.

I like what they’ve done to the SW skills as a whole but they do need some tweaking. They could use a slightly lower cast/after-cast because of how telegraphed the sword/hammer can be. The main problem I had with them was how the casting interacted with the range of the skill. I felt that by the time it was cast and started moving, just basic strafing or a dodge could put the enemy beyond the 900 range and the skill makes no attempt to course-correct. Wherever the enemy was when it was cast is where it’ll strike and that’s essentially never going to hit unless you were within 300-500 range. The effective range of the melee SW is much shorter than it seems and once non-guardians get used to the animations for the new skills it’ll be even more difficult to hit.

As a sidenote for the hammer, I’m never really a fan of single target utility skills because they can just feel more difficult to use, especially in hectic situations with multiple players, pets, and minions. I think the after-cast and lower number of charges on the hammer warrants and AoE effect, but I feel hesitant in suggesting something like a hammer knockback on nearby enemies (in addition to the knockdown on target) because of how oppressive it could be. Maybe it just needs better timing and to grant a boon on hit? Protection or X stacks of might? Without considering traits it seems considerably worse than Bane Signet’s passive power boost and 1200 range knockdown that has less telegraphing. Its saving grace is that it does good damage and can be cast again when you miss the first use. Once you consider traits I would much rather apply 180 power to nearby allies than get a quick burn on one target.

The Shield I had trouble using. It would randomly disappear, I wasn’t sure if it was because I had no target/lost my target. But the shield should be target-less and spawn on the caster or should be a placeable AoE. I was using it in some zerg wvw fights and it felt so difficult to use when attacking a tower/keep while you’re trying to target enemies within. Any time people duck out of range while casting the shield just fizzles.

The Bow has such a small AoE for how slow it shoots, it might be better suited for pvp but you can’t use the thing on the move or you’ll likely receive only a half-pulse. This one seems like the weakest of all because it doesn’t have any other trick. The sword applies vuln, the hammer knocks down, the shield applies weakness, and the bow is a bow. This could really use a larger AoE and some other boon, or even a condi clear on each pulse to reward those that stand in it.

Overall I like where this is going, I’d like to see the skills do their thing more consistently and maybe feel a bit more rewarding. They’ll have a tough time competing with meditations and traps which are more flexible and provide a wider array of boons and conditions.

Reduced all cast times to 1/2s from 3/4s, hammer now applies 3? stacks of might for 6s? on hit, shield now has no target/is a placeable AoE, increased bow healing radius to X from Y and each healing pulse now removes 1 condition from allies. I didn’t use the sword as much so I can’t speak on that skill yet.

To me, the combination of cast time and animation time till the weapons really hit feels way too long. I’d like to see cast times reduced substantially or maybe even gone, but at least the update was a step in the right direction.

I find that hammer and sword work best when you stay at range and team fight rather than 1v1. if a person isn’t paying attention, it’s really easy to land the spirit weapon on them, especially since they seem to track.

using spirit sword with virtues, radiance and zeal is super hilarious though. it feels like you’re dropping nukes on a teamfight. but what’s best is you don’t have to get close to do it like with judge’s intervention + whirling wrath.

Wish the cast direction wasn’t limited. I would really like to cast SoJ behind me as I try to kite.

Saiyan.1704:

Wish the cast direction wasn’t limited. I would really like to cast SoJ behind me as I try to kite.

I believe you can. Just need to your target to be selected.

Saiyan.1704:

Wish the cast direction wasn’t limited. I would really like to cast SoJ behind me as I try to kite.

This is mainly how I was using HoW last night while roaming, kiting in circles and casting without facing them, works well.

The way i see it,

i) First thing first: Fix the pathing for all of them, they tend to get stuck trying to get to enemies in higher elevation.

ii) Cast time: make it instant, or 0.25s if you really insist on being the evil mother-in-law. Imagine that, as it is, by the time you finish summon the spirit Shield, you already will have eaten all the skill bar of that ranger and his grandmother’s.

iii) Spirit bow: add some sort of condi cleanse please. Like cleanses one condition when you are healed by X number of impacts, to give some incentive to stay in there for abit longer. As of now, there are better choice to compete for a support slot, and that sort of local heal over time that requires allies and self to be rooted in that area alone simply provide little incentives to pick over others.

Shield: as above, shorter cast time and duration should be 3 second at the very least.

Overall , what we have right now is a step towards right direction, but need abit more twist to make them a competitive choices against other builds or slot choice.

I don’t mind the cast time but the one change suggest is make them ground target AoEs instead of requiring targets.

They’re not pets anymore, they’re just fancier looking AoE attacks, at least let us ground target them

Darknicrofia.2604:

I don’t mind the cast time but the one change suggest is make them ground target AoEs instead of requiring targets.

They’re not pets anymore, they’re just fancier looking AoE attacks, at least let us ground target them

I agree with this! The spirit weapons themselves seem pretty great when they work, but let us cast them freely like the bow!

Mimterest.4639:

Darknicrofia.2604:

I don’t mind the cast time but the one change suggest is make them ground target AoEs instead of requiring targets.

They’re not pets anymore, they’re just fancier looking AoE attacks, at least let us ground target them

I agree with this! The spirit weapons themselves seem pretty great when they work, but let us cast them freely like the bow!

This and a reduction in cast time and it would be good enough imo.

Darknicrofia.2604:

I don’t mind the cast time but the one change suggest is make them ground target AoEs instead of requiring targets.

They’re not pets anymore, they’re just fancier looking AoE attacks, at least let us ground target them

This would ultimately change them to spawn at the target location which would be a most welcomed change.

I would rather they had found a way to make them better summons, but SW feel way better than they did before at least. Didn’t play with sword or hammer much. Bow of Truth should instantly make the healing field after the cast, currently the delay is too long between finishing cast and the field appearing and you have to predict where people will be or tell them to hold still. Shield is alright, but should either be instant-cast or have a slightly longer bubble duration. I want to suggest it applying aegis to 5 allies like before, but there’s a lot of aegis buttons already.

Other spirit weapons beside the Sword might need slight buffs, yeah. Shield should be instant considering how short the duration is, the Bow needs to be a bit faster (I still kinda like the Bow, I think it has potential even in its current state), the Hammer probably needs to be slightly faster. The Sword is totally fine imo. Sure, you can’t hit a moving target with it, but it has devastating potential. It does like 12k damage by itself to a single target on a condi build. You throw it into a team fight and it gets noticed too late – it just devastates people with permeating wrath procs.

I think the most important question which needs to be answered about SWs for the people who like the new iteration is, do you like the new favor or the new numbers?

Everyone likes bigger numbers. If you kept the new numbers but the old pet style would you like that better or worse?

Although there are several aspects of the SWs which have changed, including SoJ new activated effect, the biggest change is that SWs are no longer pets. Is that single change good or bad?

I think it is very bad since as I said before, they could easily have made that a trait option for those who loved the old SWs. I have never used a Guardian build in the 5 years I’ve play which did not use the SWs because I really liked the pet aspect, not the pure DPS min/maxng aspect.

Favor is important to some players.