Guild Wars 2

I’m making a new character, and I’ve gotten down classes choices to Warrior or Guardian, and I just can’t decide on which. I have various things I like about both, and wont be getting into that here.

Mostly, I was wondering of the PvE viability of 1 handed sword for Guardian. 1 handed Sword because it’s my favorite weapon model wise, and I’d of course like to use it. PvE, because I already know plenty about PvP, from my needing to know how to counter certain types when playing it (dont need to know as much about others classes in PvE).

Pic is what I hope to eventually look like. Kurzick for life.

Sword is great in PvE. Sword 1 does very high damage on last chain (with Zerker) and always procs VoJ passive, Sword 2 is a short port with a short CD (even without staff, if you get a GS as well you can jump around map very fast by targeting critters/far away mobs), and PvE mobs will stand there and eat the high damage Sword 3.

My friend is a RPG fanatic and since casual PvE means you can run around with any set, he always has Sword + Shield.

1h sword is actually the best sustained dps weapon a guardian can use. Using Brazil’s dps guide I actually enjoy my guardian a whole lot more than my warrior because I too love 1h swords.

Although the offhand of choice is focus….if only shield had better pve viability..

link to build: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83701-the-perfect-dps-guardian-build/

The downside of sword in PvE is that the third attack in the #1 chain is a very narrow attack rather than a wide cone like the first two attacks in the #1 chain. So you have to be aware of that with positioning.

I used to like sword but it has such weak linkages to all the other fun stuff that I stopped using it. No symbol, no boon sort of kill it for me. On the flip side, your not tied down to traits to enhance those things depending on your swap. Still, I found it got boring to make builds with and use.

Yep, sword’s great. It’s great in WvW too – ZDing Kill Shots is a lot of fun.

sword is definitely very strong. and decently fun! admittedly, you’ll spend a lot of the time auto-attacking, but you make quick work of mobs and i love the added mobility you get with the port.

know that as long as you have sth targeted, you’ll go the max distance with the port in the direction of your target (unless if target is within max range of course). and you can kind of use that to travel across maps a bit faster too.

Why is nobody mentioning the blind? Is conpletely negating a potential 5 attacks on you and your allies completely inconsequential? Blind is perhaps the absolute best defensive support condition in PvE since mobs don’t cleanse.

Sure, the tele is nice, but I would have a lot less reason to use sword if it didn’t have a blind (which is also traitable to inflict 3 stacks of Vulnerability, comboable with Focus blind, GS blind, and even VoJ blind if you traited it that way, so you may produce 15-21 stacks of AoE blindness for 10 seconds with proper skill chains).

Yes, sword has it all. Great autoattack and sustain DPS (a modest combo may be 2k/2k/6k), a spammable blind linked to a tele, and a short reflect (though people say it doesn’t work half the time; I camp melee behind perma blinds and never really bothered to take use or note of that statement’s validity).

No cleave, small cone. I’m not a fan unless it’s single target.

Too much single target = useless in PvE for me.

But can be good in WvW or PvP for tactics/burst dmg.

1h sword + focus with pure dps build on alpha= pretty nice :P

Young Somalia.1706:

Why is nobody mentioning the blind? Is conpletely negating a potential 5 attacks on you and your allies completely inconsequential? Blind is perhaps the absolute best defensive support condition in PvE since mobs don’t cleanse.

Sure, the tele is nice, but I would have a lot less reason to use sword if it didn’t have a blind (which is also traitable to inflict 3 stacks of Vulnerability, comboable with Focus blind, GS blind, and even VoJ blind if you traited it that way, so you may produce 15-21 stacks of AoE blindness for 10 seconds with proper skill chains).

Yes, sword has it all. Great autoattack and sustain DPS (a modest combo may be 2k/2k/6k), a spammable blind linked to a tele, and a short reflect (though people say it doesn’t work half the time; I camp melee behind perma blinds and never really bothered to take use or note of that statement’s validity).

I’m not really going to discuss the PvE aspect as that’s my least favorite part of the game.

I will say that I think you are misunderstanding a few of the mechanics, unless there is a big difference between the pve and the PvP versions of the sword skills.

Blind stacks in duration, so what you are actually referring to is a blind chain. I always wait for the blind to be used, if it isn’t you can refresh it at .5 seconds remaining. So if they have 30 seconds of blind, or .5 seconds it still blocks one attack. In PvP you can take care of this with interrupting your own skills, or just hitting the air.

Zealots Defense doesn’t reflect ranged attacks, it also doesn’t block. It absorbs them. That’s why traits that grant might, or burning, on block won’t trigger for zd.

Sword has an amazing coefficient, and mixed with a gs burst chain it can do an astounding amount of damage in a short amount of time. Then with something like 5% bonus damage to the sword (trait), with a 5% sigil and how those stack with might it’s pretty ridiculous how high you can stack your effective power without actually stacking power.

1h sword is underrated, I use to be one of those who downplayed the weapon too.

I personally found that when you combine 1h sword with permeating wrath and supreme justice+ condition build, it turns the 1h sword into a aoe machine. I choose torch as my off hand weapon to keep the aoe burn going and for party utility.

Its a great weapon imo!

fadeaway.2807:

No cleave, small cone. I’m not a fan unless it’s single target.

It does cleave on first and second auto, and the cone pierces, possibly infinitely.

^^^ i move a lot when using sword. just in PvE for example. when fighting say 3 mobs, and they are at my 3, 12 and 9, i will hit 1, 2 while facing all 3 of them, and then strafe so they are in a line by the time i hit 3 and all of them will be hit.

the AoE potential for sword is huge actually from my experiences.

why everything I wanted to say was already said?
after some more play with the sword after reaching lvl 80 I can tell that sword in PvE is very viable weapon – You just need to use it right and also don’t forget about nice synergies with some traits
(with some kind of critical succes in positioning You can have up to 15 actuall hits with one auto-atack sequence if I count it well, not pretty sure if cleave on first and second atack have cap to 3 or 5 targets – if 5 so You can even mark 19 hits in fight with at least 5 enemies – and that means nearly 4 VoJ passive efect proccing – with permeating wrath you have nearly 4 aoe burns)

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Young Somalia.1706:

Sure, the tele is nice, but I would have a lot less reason to use sword if it didn’t have a blind (which is also traitable to inflict 3 stacks of Vulnerability, comboable with Focus blind, GS blind, and even VoJ blind if you traited it that way, so you may produce 15-21 stacks of AoE blindness for 10 seconds with proper skill chains).

Blind stacks in duration, so what you are actually referring to is a blind chain

Trimmed for tidiness. But I digress…

No, I was, at least I thought I was, very clearly outlining the secondary function of stacking blinds: a vulnerability spike, which is polar opposite to a blind chain seeing as you can only do it by casting them in rapid sequence to, of course, stack vulnerability.

To anyone who may invest a second to brush over their trait and skill descriptions, and who may observe the standard operation of blind, they will notice immediately that a rotation of blinds to mitigate hits versus a combination of them to spike vulnerability stacks are mutually exclusive; I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to cast 4 blinds without allowing an enemy to cleanse/attack through even one of them, hoping to get their full vulnerability stacks and then follow-up by questioning why three of those blinds didn’t do their job.

At least… I hope not

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

I’m not really going to discuss the PvE aspect as that’s my least favorite part of the game.

I will say that I think you are misunderstanding a few of the mechanics, unless there is a big difference between the pve and the PvP versions of the sword skills.

Blind stacks in duration, so what you are actually referring to is a blind chain. I always wait for the blind to be used, if it isn’t you can refresh it at .5 seconds remaining. So if they have 30 seconds of blind, or .5 seconds it still blocks one attack. In PvP you can take care of this with interrupting your own skills, or just hitting the air.

Pretty sure he was referring to it because of its aoe blind. Which does negate 5 attacks. Hits 5 mobs = negates 5 attacks.

Young Somalia.1706:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Young Somalia.1706:

Sure, the tele is nice, but I would have a lot less reason to use sword if it didn’t have a blind (which is also traitable to inflict 3 stacks of Vulnerability, comboable with Focus blind, GS blind, and even VoJ blind if you traited it that way, so you may produce 15-21 stacks of AoE blindness for 10 seconds with proper skill chains).

Blind stacks in duration, so what you are actually referring to is a blind chain

Trimmed for tidiness. But I digress…

No, I was, at least I thought I was, very clearly outlining the secondary function of stacking blinds: a vulnerability spike, which is polar opposite to a blind chain seeing as you can only do it by casting them in rapid sequence to, of course, stack vulnerability.

To anyone who may invest a second to brush over their trait and skill descriptions, and who may observe the standard operation of blind, they will notice immediately that a rotation of blinds to mitigate hits versus a combination of them to spike vulnerability stacks are mutually exclusive; I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to cast 4 blinds without allowing an enemy to cleanse/attack through even one of them, hoping to get their full vulnerability stacks and then follow-up by questioning why three of those blinds didn’t do their job.

At least… I hope not

You would be surprised.

I don’t run the vulnerability trait because I need inner fire. Fury is just that good. I can understand how in PvE a spike like that would work though. Setup a bunch of blinds each one causing 3 stacks of vulnerability. Seems like it might be fun. That’s kind of why I avoid PvE discussions, I spend most of my time dueling/pvp/wvw though lately my guild has started to do dungeons. (We just did AC story mode for the first time a few days ago). That was pretty fun.

I think what I said with the second part about ZD is still accurate in PvE though. I’m not too sure now, it might have some reflect or a trait that makes it reflect.