Guild Wars 2

As you can probably imagine from the title, meta builds aren’t for me.

You run them and yes, they work well, but after not too long I get bored. In this game, for me fun means tweaking builds, experimenting, proving that I can be good even with odd builds. I don’t know you guys, but I have changed tons of builds: power, hybrid, condi, phant, shatter, different amulets, weapons and sigils, and I keep changing builds because it keeps the game interesting, fresh even after all these years.

Anyway, let me state my focus is 80% in spvp.

Despite I never been a huge fan of sword off-hand (even in the old good days) I wanted to make it work, with all its pros & cons. I considered it a good challenge to wash this boring period away.

I was ready to trash the idea after the first few matches, sure that off-hand sword cannot find its place in this game anymore (pvp wise, of course). But the result was… quite interesting to say the least. Light armor professions looked like needle cushions, but even the sturdy ones had to back off, so it intrigued me and kept playing it. This is for the past couple of weeks, anyway.

The interesting thing is that swordsman goes almost unnoticed, compared to the noisy duelist. His damage per hit isn’t “WTF did it just hit me?!?”. It is on a high level anyway, but not crazy. You need to pull out 2 of them and with phantasmal haste is like two of them hitting every 2 seconds +/-. Sort of what you would do in pve. By the time the foe realizes his on low HP, it’s too late because of the constant “picking” from the phantasm/s.

I haven’t got a video to back me up yet, although I will add one soon. However, I wouldn’t mind someone to try it and let me know what you say. Of course, you cannot go all dandy to mid and face tank all the AOEs. Swordsman benefits from sigil and talent. It wont die immediately, but you still need to play carefully. It’s a good build for far, close, skirmishes, harassing but not mid, unless you know what you are doing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRArc8ensICdohlpBOqBEgilnj6sACgDreQT0FFdx+gHD-TpBBwAx2focZAAnAgNHEAIPAAOHBAA

PS: I have been able to do well and felt that when I lost (vs a particular engi for the most) it’s because I was outplayed rather than because of the build wasn’t effective. I guess someone better than me could have won where I lost.

PPS: messiah called a build with this weapons choice “the blocker” but I do not remember the traits and I am pretty sure it wasn’t berserker

PPPS: I got inspired by Hiro Yasha (check him on youtube), although he favors pistol over sword.

Sorry for the wall but I’m relaxing and wanted to share some ideas

video plx……………

I always motivated people to do their own thing. So i like what you have been doing here. Not saying meta is bad or something, but often i hear people saying “go meta, and everything outside of that is wrong”. Going back to your build i would make a few tweaks tho. How about you use sword/sword in one set and scepter/shield in other. Swap Persistence of Memory for Compounding power in illusions and Improved Alacrity for Illusionary Reversion in Chronoline. This way you have high illusions uptime so might want to swap healing too. And finely swap Divinity rune by Scrapper?

I still love lockdown gs + s/s mesmer most ! even playing it from time to time, however it is not as effective as it used to be pre-spec patch, since some traits have been merged or divided and you no longer can accept them all since you have to run chrono …

Loving my full boon duration power S/S mesmer. Tanky, boon duration, decent condi clears but also packs a few hits.

Nothing special, but here is a short vid https://youtu.be/LGJz4yQrxQw
I would like to add more and better ones but unfortunately, my slow connection requires 5 to 7 hours just to upload 1GB video, that is why I am not that active on the side

@GWMO
I appreciate your post. Reason why I do not sw/sw is because I like casting swordsman and stay ranged, a little. Eventually, I go contesting point/melee when using sw/shd which I believe to be a better tanky set than sw/sw.
Switching persistance for compounding is something I may do. Switching Improved alacrity is something I wont do. I am not condi and my dps do not benefit from having so many illusions to shatter, while improved alacrity helps so much more with general CD. Signet Healing is very important for doubling phantasms, which I often do at beginning of the fights.
I may try Scrapper runes, but I fear it will boost my power but loose that (little) survivability Divinity provides.
All in all, thank you for your feedback

@Blackari
So do I, but I am not the greatest mesmer and thieves give me trouble when I am on my GS. The build I am running let me deal with them toe to toe and I still have to loose to those pesky backstabbers

@Zephyra
I’d love to check it out. Can you share it?

Nice video and a good example of why videos help a lot in getting the point of a build across. I have to admit I was highly skeptical of the build the first time I saw this thread, but came back to it and you make it look pretty good in the video. ;-)

Also a great example of adapting your own play-style to a build.

It’s way too squishy for my tastes and I don’t think I could make it work as well as you do, but still I really like it and it has given me more ideas to play with. ;-)

GG!

@Trooper yeah Thieves are indeed pain in the kitten while on GS so you jsut have to outdodge their burst

Hi Guys, just wanted to post a new video

https://youtu.be/DQZ5jtS-fHQ

Still focusing on off-hand sword but I moved away from Illusions line. Often, phantasm swordman does not live long enough to hit twice and this jeopardize my original idea.

In these videos, I am still using Persisting Images and SoI, yet swordman gets wrecked by thieves Bound, for example, or DH traps too easily so I might as well focus on different skills.

I was thorn between dueling and domination and kept swapping (not in the video, though. Build in the description).

Evenatually, I went with both and dropped inspiration and used a similar build Windwalker is using, but sc/sw instead of GS. I will post more videos later. The result is: very fun to play when you win. A nightmare if you get countered (which can happen very often since any condition looks scary). It might be that I am still getting used to not having the sustain from inspiration so, I will keep using it and see how it goes.

And for the videos, any feedback/criticism is welcome.

Funnily enough it is your build I started with, and went with Dueling and GS, plus personal adjustments here and there. ;-)

Will watch the video later!