Guild Wars 2

Howdy folks,

I am currently running the 30/30/0/10/0 build for the interrupts and extra condi removal in the inspiration tree and I am struggling a bit. (sometimes I run the 30/20/20/0/0 as well, depends how awesome my day is)

My utilities are blink, decoy and mantra of concentration. My heal skill is the mantra heal (traited to have 3 charges.)

My weapon choices are GS for the damage and the interrupt and other set is Sword / X.
I am mostly a solo roamer, sometimes with 1-2 friends and I don’t know if I should pick the off hand sword or the pistol???

Could some1 tell me what is better in WvW roaming and why? Both have about the same range and both have a 1 second daze.

Thanks a lot guys

oh and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

If you trait into blade training, I’d take offhand sword. Swordsman recharges faster than duelist, and does only a bit less damage per hit. Blade training offhand sword has a lower cd on both riposte and swordsman than does duelist discipline magic bullet and iDuelist. That means more dazes/stuns and more phantasms for you overall, along with a very low cd block. Additionally, blade training affects both mainhand and offhand sword, and frees up a trait slot, allowing you to take something like deceptive evasion or phantasmal fury.

For an interrupt build i’d prefer the sword, otherwise i’m a pretty big fan of the (traited) torch for increased survivability and ambush attacks.

Thanks a lot for your input!

More suggestions about the off hand choice are greatly appreciated.

Edit : By the way, is the Grandmaster trait Confounding suggestions worth to take?

It has an extra possibility to cause an extra stun after a daze… what do you guys think?

I would go with sword, because Pistol has a lot of cons over the pros in my opinion

Pistol Pros:

2 second stun
Awesome bleeds
ranged phantasm

Pistol Cons
At least 4 bullets out of 8 bullets by the phantasm can be canceled out with 1 dodge
Stun pistol number 5 can also be canceled out with stun break and a dodge or aegis.

Well first of all would be good to know if you play a shatter mes or something else.

If you go for shatter I would consider using a Torch (but untraited) or a focus. Also when going shatter I would refer to the meta-shatter build. But if you like yours more stick with that.
Pros torch: nice stealth for some survivability and a ranged warden with some nice dmg + confusion
Pros focus: a pull attack with your mes, getting some swiftness etc. stationary warden dealing a lot of dmg.
Cons of torch: no stun
Cons of focus: the stationary warden..
I use pistol when I’m mad and want to go for a 6s+ stun on my enemy :P But you feel the lack of mobility/survivability alot when you fight more than 1 person :/

Edit Forgot to mention the sword you were asking for. I don’t particulary like the sword. It may have a daze but it’s not instant and you always have to decide whether using the block or daze. Also I don’t like the nr 5 skill of the sword because he is bugged regarding the atk-rate trait (his atk-cd is not lowered). So I stick with either pistol, torch or focus depending on the situation^^

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

I would go with sword, because Pistol has a lot of cons over the pros in my opinion

Pistol Pros:

2 second stun
Awesome bleeds
ranged phantasm

Pistol Cons
At least 4 bullets out of 8 bullets by the phantasm can be canceled out with 1 dodge
Stun pistol number 5 can also be canceled out with stun break and a dodge or aegis.

Sword has similar cons so I don’t completely understand this comparison. iSwordsman attack can be canceled out with a single dodge. The daze on the sword block can also be dodged or aegis’d. Pistol’s stun has the advantage of putting out a daze and blind on bounce where sword has a block.

with iDuelist, you know where that phantasm is going to be at throughout the whole fight, so you can keep a mental clock in your head of when the attacks will start. with the iSwordsman, it can be considered as just one of the swordsman clones, where it just runs around your opponent like crazy, and from my experience, my opponents can’t dodge the iswordsman if i put good offensive by myself, not the clones, so their attention is focused on me, and when they do dodge, its because of luck almost half the time, as in they are dodging my attacks, but then end up also evading my swordsman. also, with the Block with the sword, it’s not just about retaliation and using it as an offensive. It’s also meant solely for that 1 block. In wvw, against full geared opponents, that 1 block is negating almost 500-2000 damage. Its quite a good game changer.

As far as dodge tempo goes, consider this:

Duelist attacks every 7.5 seconds or so. Swordsman attacks every 4.5. With vigor, you can dodge once every 5 seconds. So, you can dodge every duelist attack, but the swordsman attacks will wear you down.

In addition to that, the swordsman attacks are, as menace said, much harder to track. The duelist is loud and obvious, and the swordsman attack is nearly impossible to predict if you aren’t tracking and watching the phantasm the entire time.

Offhand sword is also better from a traiting perspective, as you probably already have it traited, and that one trait affects both mh and oh swords.

Ok, you guys convinced me to use offhand Sword.

The block is very good and the phantasms hit squishy targets like thieves very hard.

I’ll use GS/sword+sword for now and sometimes swap to Staff/sword+sword if I want to play defensively.

Thanks for the advice!