Guild Wars 2

If you’ve seen the previews for our upcoming trait changes, all our weapon traits are getting a shiny new coat of paint except two: Focus, Sword.

The focus trait(focus skills reflect) is fantastic and was already one of the best weapon traits, so that’s understandable.

But the sword? (50 precision wielding a sword/spear)

What. The. Eff?

Of all our weapons, the sword is currently in the most need of a rework. Sword 3 is pitifully unreliable now that the clone is almost always killed and offhand sword skills both pale in comparison to the newly traited pistol.

When the patch drops, there will be no reason to ever trait the sword besides a reduced cool down.

While I applaud many of the currently proposed changes, this is a terrible oversight. Sword is one of our only two mainhand options and is becoming an irrelevant offhand once HoT drops.

What do you think a rework of the sword trait should look like?

• Sword clones inflict decent damage
• Sword attacks have a 25% chance to steal a boon & transfer a condi.
• Crits with sword have a 25% chance to inflict slow

Chaos Archangel.5071:

When the patch drops, there will be no reason to ever trait the sword besides a reduced cool down.

For both PvP and PvE, I’d be tempted to suck up the slower cooldowns and take Evasive Mirror instead of Blade Training, to be honest. Especially if it works how I think it does with Blurred Frenzy.

I think weapon traits are a lot more interesting when they have creative effects. It reminds me of guardian’s boring shield trait, and how anet has listened to the fan’s suggestion to add aegis to it.

Here’s my suggestions for mesmer’s sword trait (to be coupled alongside the 20% CDR):
1. Sword’s skills apply twice the amount of vulnerability (affects clones).
2. Sword’s leap range is increased.
3. Sword’s leap applies quickness.
4. Combine the trait with that other one that gives reflection to blurred frenzy.

• Give me back 900 range on Sword #3.
• Give my sword clones back their cripple on-hit (I loved that so much!)
• Give it something other than the precision

I assume that the Sword’s weapon trait wasn’t fleshed out yet to fit into the new Specialization System.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• Sword clones inflict decent damage

:D

• Sword attacks have a 25% chance to steal a boon & transfer a condi.

I like it, but maybe tack it on to Mind Spike as a guaranteed effect?

I want the range increased on iLeap. Also; “Clone created by iLeap gains 1 sec of diversion upon creation”. Too specific or good enough?

100% agree! I was disappointed when I saw that Blade Training wasn’t getting any shiny new bits added to it. Compared to the other traits it’s going to be one of those boring ones now.

Hey we agree on something.

Sword clones inflict decent damage would also be a pretty good trait.

why won’t they make focus trait as baseline? It won’t ruin the balance anyway.

Changing last AA chain skill from boon stripping to boon stealing could be a cool effect for a trait too.

I think it would be cool if the trait extended the range of all sword skills (call it Energy Blade or whatever), INCLUDING AUTO ATTACK (sort of like the Necro Axe). The sword would still cleave, though, of course. Being able to auto attack from further away would be awesome. You could land many more hits, and with all the quickness around now, it would be even more awesome.

Since both swords have a leap finisher, it would be nice if there was some bonus when the mesmer did leap combos, getting fury with a long duration would fit the trait-line.

Traited Sword removes 1 boon on critical hits. 1s ICD.

Harrrr!

@Xaylin:
Ooooh, I like that one. It would provide more boon stripping for Mesmer and it is in-line with the crit-theme of Dueling. That might actually make me rethink taking Reflection on-evade …

… but I hate the passive gameplay that boon-stacking provides … so any good boon-stealing/-stripping always makes me smile

If you look at the few traits we know for Rev, they have a boon strip on-crit already … though it’s not restricted to a weapon and is a minor trait … so I’d hope we’d get something on top of the boon strip.

Westibone.3985:

I think it would be cool if the trait extended the range of all sword skills (call it Energy Blade or whatever), INCLUDING AUTO ATTACK (sort of like the Necro Axe). The sword would still cleave, though, of course. Being able to auto attack from further away would be awesome. You could land many more hits, and with all the quickness around now, it would be even more awesome.

I would actually really dislike this. Mesmers are supposed to be duelists, and actually use swords as actual melee weapons. Adding another melee-weapon-turned-range is very boring and not creative. I’d rather they just give us mainhand pistol and be done with it.

All nice ideas but what I’d rather see is the precision aspect removed and sword skills deal bonus damage to targets with no boons.

-20% CD, Sword skills do 50% more damage to boonless targets.

And yes, it is painfully obvious I’m thinking of PvE but hey, it’ll take a lot of skill getting that damage buff going in PvP.

P.s. Before someone cries OP, you will still do a lot less than the normal auto attack from other classes.

apharma.3741:

All nice ideas but what I’d rather see is the precision aspect removed and sword skills deal bonus damage to targets with no boons.

-20% CD, Sword skills do 50% more damage to boonless targets.

And yes, it is painfully obvious I’m thinking of PvE but hey, it’ll take a lot of skill getting that damage buff going in PvP.

Actually, I think this is really good for all game modes. I’d really like this.

I would rather have Sw3 fixed to work properly in all game modes, but if this was the only way, I’d say: let me trait sword to fix iLeap!

• option 1: on Leap you have an actual leap finisher, teleport to your target and immobilize, leaving a clone behind (that will start moving toward the target). On Swap you go back to where you started.
• option 2: on Leap you teleport to your target, leaving a clone behind. On Swap the clone is teleported to you and immobilize in an area (just like now on swap).
• option 3: on Leap you teleport to your target and immobilize, on Swap you switch position with your clone.

It also makes it interesting because changes the behavior of a skill that has been in game for a long time.

Remember at some point in the alpha we had, on sword, two skills that generated a clone. One was the mesmer leaping forward and leaving a clone behind, the other was the opposite. I tought that was really cool.

Then you can add any secondary effect (cooldown reduction, etc). But I want to be able to use iLeap like a leap or teleport in WvW.

Xaylin.1860:

Traited Sword removes 1 boon on critical hits. 1s ICD.

Harrrr!

Since sword auto attack and #3 clone’s third attack already remove 1 boon, they can simply make iswordsman removes 1 boon on hit as well.

apharma.3741:

All nice ideas but what I’d rather see is the precision aspect removed and sword skills deal bonus damage to targets with no boons.

-20% CD, Sword skills do 50% more damage to boonless targets.

And yes, it is painfully obvious I’m thinking of PvE but hey, it’ll take a lot of skill getting that damage buff going in PvP.

P.s. Before someone cries OP, you will still do a lot less than the normal auto attack from other classes.

50% damage on sword skills would help us in the PVE department, where we lack at the moment. Our personal dps (i.e. sword attacks) is supposed to be supplementary to the damage dealt by our illusions but even still, 50% seems a bit too high to me.

If you figure that our sword attacks account for 1/3 of our total DPS (no clue what the actual numbers are), then a 20-30% increase to sword damage should net out to a 7-10% increase in our total DPS.

apharma.3741:

All nice ideas but what I’d rather see is the precision aspect removed and sword skills deal bonus damage to targets with no boons.

-20% CD, Sword skills do 50% more damage to boonless targets.

I love this idea. The devs need to see this.

apharma.3741:

All nice ideas but what I’d rather see is the precision aspect removed and sword skills deal bonus damage to targets with no boons.

-20% CD, Sword skills do 50% more damage to boonless targets.

+1

/thread

apharma.3741:

All nice ideas but what I’d rather see is the precision aspect removed and sword skills deal bonus damage to targets with no boons.

-20% CD, Sword skills do 50% more damage to boonless targets.

And yes, it is painfully obvious I’m thinking of PvE but hey, it’ll take a lot of skill getting that damage buff going in PvP.

P.s. Before someone cries OP, you will still do a lot less than the normal auto attack from other classes.

This would be great. They definitely need to strengthen 1h sword. The precison is very weak on that trait. That’s only like 2% chance to crit. I love the CD reduction on it though…pretty much the only thing keeping my mesmer alive in melee…moar blurred frenzy.

One thing that concerns me though is the way 1h sword interacts with the new shield #5. All the demos of the new chronomancer specialization showcase 1h sword+shield, but they all have the mesmer camping range with this melee weapon equipped. This was all apparently set up to showcase how iLeap interacts with Tides of Time. It works great when the mesmer starts at range and iLeaps into the Tides of Time wave. It gives the option for the double alacrity from the wave. The issue I have is what happens when you are already in melee combat and try this? Do you even get the alacrity from the wave once? Obviously you can’t iLeap past the melee target in front of you…unless there are more targets further in front. The wave just starts in front of you and then comes back and stops in front of you again..unless you move forward past the melee opponent just to touch the wave. This seems broken, especially considering they showcased the chronomancer using 1h sword+shield and it apparently does not work unless you try playing ranged…despite having a melee weapon equipped. Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong, but it just seems like a failed mechanic. What’s worse, it seems like this has been completely overlooked due to poor presentation and lack of play testing.

Increase AA damage by 25% ?

I was really hoping we got a new mainhand weapon like axe or mace…. something that hit hard. Sword needs an AA buff bad. S3 needs to be replaced completely. It should be some kind of projectile or power hit with a reflect, similar to guardian s3.

I like the ideas for #3. They remind me of Elementalist’s Dagger #3 in Earth Attunement:

• Magnetic Grasp - Immobilize your foe, making them vulnerabile to a Magnetic Leap attack.
• Magnetic Leap - Pull yourself to your magnetically grasped foe and deliver a strike.

So I could see the initial Illusion applying the immobilize and then us being able to swap-with/teleport-to it.

One thing that bugs me is that the Elementalist ability is 900 range. Our Sword #3 used to be 900 range … then it got nerfed to 600 for whatever reason(s) … or lack thereof.

Keep in mind that any trait would need to work for sword MH and OH. For example:

“Sword clones negate the first attack against them and then dodge towards their target”.

This seems very Duelist to me. Less about clone spam/shatter and more about Deception. Note I’m not talking about a true dodge here since clones can’t really preemptively dodge. Mechanically, sword clones would gain a non-channeling skill similar to our other block skills that blocks an attack and triggers a dodge. It adds some reliability to sword clones and a way to mess with enemies in PvP

That’s an interesting idea … it would definitely get my big Norn illusions targeted more often … they are already aggro magnets in PvP … people see a big clothie and can’t help but target him … exactly what I want :-p

We need a way to get dev attention about this. Robert Gee has been nailing it lately so I’m surprised a sword trait (or the weapon itself) rework got over looked.

And I reeaallyy don’t wanna cry in the pvp forums.

Azure.8670:

I was really hoping we got a new mainhand weapon like axe or mace…. something that hit hard. Sword needs an AA buff bad. S3 needs to be replaced completely. It should be some kind of projectile or power hit with a reflect, similar to guardian s3.

I like sword 3 in its current form – it just could do with a few little tweaks.

For example once on mid in Forest we were losing the teamfight, last ally went down – outnumbered then 4 to 1 and I was taking heavy damage. Fortunately a ranger who was up on one of the ledges decided to jump onto the point but his pet happened to stay up there for a little while – so I swapped target to the pet and used ileap/swap to blink up there and survive – luckily the enemy team didn’t have any classes/builds that could port up there to follow.

For that reason, despite swap being needed I still enjoy the creative ways you can use sword 3.

If anything, the clone just needs some kind of survivability mechanic that allows it to block/evade/tank an initial hit so swap is guaranteed within the first couple of seconds of spawning unless the enemy players actively focus the clone and kill it (through multihit attacks or aoe).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

And I reeaallyy don’t wanna cry in the pvp forums.

Yeah… better don’t. Especially since Mesmers don’t deserve a good Sword trait. Because Swords are weapons and Warriors are supposed to best at whielding Swords.

Some ideas I had:

• Gain Fury on crit while whielding a Sword. Flat cooldown reduction.
• Gain Distortion when successfully comboing a leap. Flat cooldown reduction.
• Reduce Sword cooldowns by x% when successfully evading or blocking an attack (different ICDs). Each critical hit of your AA removes a boon (no ICD) or critical hits with your Sword remove a boon (1s ICD).

We got silent nerfs, why not silent buffs? Robert could just increase the attack speed and call it a day

Korusef.3714:

We got silent nerfs, why not silent buffs? Robert could just increase the attack speed and call it a day

while he is at it he can give us a 3k range sword 3!

Sword #1 – Remove the second AA.
Sword #2 – Fine as is.
Sword #3 – Increase Range.

increase the AA damage

Improved Blade Training:
- Recharge Reduced: 20%
- Precision: +50
- Increased range on #3 skill to 900
- Increased Sword damage by 10% (Mesmer only!)

Windwalker.7421:

Improved Blade Training:
- Recharge Reduced: 20%
- Precision: +50
- Increased range on #3 skill to 900
- Increased Sword damage by 10% (Mesmer only!)

I like this.

In addition, increase the iSwordsman’s leap range so both mainhand and offhand sword gain some benefit.

Perhaps playing into the boon theme, all sword skills have a chance of removing a boon on hit – say 20-30% chance? Maybe with a few seconds ICD or reduce the chance to balance it? I like the idea of all the skills including the iswordsman having the potential to rip boons when traited, providing it is carefully balanced.

The range on sword 3 should be base improvement or no improvement. If there’s one thing Anet has hopefully realised with the trait changes it’s that giving extra range in traits when it generally needs it anyway is bad. This is why we’re seeing a lot of things going baseline.

Chance to boon rip is a nice idea, if I wasn’t so selfishly PvE orientated I’d like it.