Guild Wars 2

I’m just finishing up 100% map completion and want to begin working towards the Legendary. My question is, which weapon do you guys think sees more time in a Mesmer who mainly does dungeons and WvW so that I maximize the usage/ on-screen-time of my Legendary, a greatsword or a sword?

Honestly I’d go Bifrost – my mesmer uses staff a heck of a lot.

But you should take this with a pinch of salt – I got Flameseeker Prophecies for my guardian, who now usually uses staff + hammer, so what do I know?

i would go with bifrost or bolt the animations on twilight dont show with skill 1only a hand full of skills

You have to carry sword if you play mesmer to it’s full potential. So Bolt.

Bolt.
COF: 1hs
Arah: 1hs
Tl:1hs
Sof: 1hs
Wvw: 1hs

So I going for bolt also twilight is so common as a drug bag on linsey lohan car.

I’ve forsaken both as I don’t use greatswords often and i absolutely hate all the electricity sounds coming from bolt. Bifrost seems more suited to elementalists than a mesmers so I’m saving all my legendary crafting materials and waiting for the next wave. Hopefully something will impress me.

Crossplay.2067:

I’ve forsaken both as I don’t use greatswords often and i absolutely hate all the electricity sounds coming from bolt. Bifrost seems more suited to elementalists than a mesmers so I’m saving all my legendary crafting materials and waiting for the next wave. Hopefully something will impress me.

Can I interest you in some illusionary weaponry?

I already have the Anomaly. The only thing that could make it better is if it gave off light and floated beside my character’s head. The sword isn’t quite what I’m looking for though. If it had the same effects as Ignus Fatuus, I’d be all over it.

The anomaly isn’ an illusionary weapon.

Bolt seems like the weapon that gets both a fair amount of PVE and WvW usage… I’m leaning towards it!

Bolt, but only because it makes whoosh-whoosh.

Dub.1273:

The anomaly isn’ an illusionary weapon.

It is now!

Velimere.7685:

Dub.1273:

The anomaly isn’ an illusionary weapon.

It is now!

Anom > any other focus.

I don’t like the look of bolt personally. I 2nd getting the staff.

Neither. Go with vision stuff.

The only legendary that fits mez nicely is the pistol and Bolt clips through ground lolol anet its amazing size adjusting skillz.

I have both. Unfortunately, the best mesmer 1v1 builds do not use Great Sword.

Phira.3970:

I have both. Unfortunately, the best mesmer 1v1 builds do not use Great Sword.

the best? i use GS as my damage dealer and i very rarely loose duels, not only that im part of a dueling guild, why arent they good?

I’m debating between Bolt or Bifrost right now, hard to choose, although I am constantly using staff, so that might just seal the deal.

Are there Vision weapons other than the Greatsword? I can’t seem to find any other ones.

@Zumi: Whisperblade is the one handed version.

In my opinion, Bolt is way cooler. It’s the best legendary in the game to me and actually the only legendary I consider getting.

Bolt

Greatsword and staff arn’t used in all builds, while sword is ubiquitous in all game mode and builds. It’s our highest DPS weapon, it’s also our best defence, it allow the use of offhand weapons and it can strike multiple targets.

In terms of getting air time, sword/offhand is the most common set when running around (so you can access your focus for swiftness), and in most situations it’s favourable to sit in sword for the DPS when you don’t need to swap for your off-set skills.

Situations where you won’t be using a sword are few and far between (Like, the lupicus battle using standard strategy)

All the good legendaries arent that cool looking, The Shield is sick, Hammer as well, Not keen on the greatswords they are just to big, i am a smallish character and it looks really stupid :/

Bolt for sure, the effects are coolest! Twilight and Sunrise are a little bland for legendaries…They’re like a piece of glass with a little fuzz around the edges lol, theres a blade trail but… that’s not all that spectacular. i like shiny glowy stuff, like my gs Vision of the Mists, so sunrise and twilight aren’t really shine, they’re more paintbrushes lol The bolt lightning makes it unique though.

I’d honestly just go for other skins, like Vision of the Mists, Foefire’s Essence, Volcanus etc, those are pretty cool imo.

Bolt is alright though, can be nicer but yeah, bolt if you have to

Ryuujin.8236:

Bolt

Greatsword and staff arn’t used in all builds, while sword is ubiquitous in all game mode and builds. It’s our highest DPS weapon, it’s also our best defence, it allow the use of offhand weapons and it can strike multiple targets.

In terms of getting air time, sword/offhand is the most common set when running around (so you can access your focus for swiftness), and in most situations it’s favourable to sit in sword for the DPS when you don’t need to swap for your off-set skills.

Situations where you won’t be using a sword are few and far between (Like, the lupicus battle using standard strategy)

This is kind of a blanket statement. It largely depends on your builds/playstyle. A few months ago I used sword/offhand a lot, but the last 3 builds I’ve run don’t include the sword at all.

However, I’d say an average of about 98% of my builds use the Staff. For that reason I’ll most likely be shooting for Bifrost.

Bolt is a very cool Legendary, but I’d be careful suggesting it soley on the reasoning that it’ll be used in all your builds. That’s for the individual player to decide when the figure out which weapons they like using.

Bifrost would be my vote — too bad you’ll need 750 charged loadstones (more than 2000gp on the TP).

I’ve tried farming loadstones and I might get one drop in a two hour period… might.

Farming the specific mats seems worthless — better to farm the gold and just buy off of TP.

EDIT: nvm, I’m some sort of idiot — 750 not required.

Why do you need 750 Charged Loadstones? I don’t see those required anywhere on the Bifrost recipe…

umm… yeah I see that now too. Edited my original post. I was quoting from memory, and apparently I’m completely wrong.

Phew, that’s good to hear! For a second there I though the wiki might be out of date and my grind was gonna be a lot harder haha

Zumi.6384:

This is kind of a blanket statement. It largely depends on your builds/playstyle.

Saying the sword is our most powerful and versatile weapon is not a “blanket statement” it’s a simple fact; the sword is our best DPS weapon and argueably best defensive weapon. Period.

The numbers do not lie.

I guess if you have a thing for running sub-optimal builds you might not have a sword/offhand somewhere in your build in PvE/WvW – but that’s their prerogative, in the same way that at the end of the day the legend they enjoy looking at is theirs to decide. I’m just giving my analysis based on the functionality and usefulness of the weapon so they get both good use, and get to show off it off plenty in the field.

Ryuujin.8236:

Zumi.6384:

This is kind of a blanket statement. It largely depends on your builds/playstyle.

Saying the sword is our most powerful and versatile weapon is not a “blanket statement” it’s a simple fact; the sword is our best DPS weapon and argueably best defensive weapon. Period.

Fancy sharing the proof on this?
To me Greatsword best offensive and staff best defensive and i would like to see your “proof” that the sword is better

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Fancy sharing the proof on this?
To me Greatsword best offensive and staff best defensive and i would like to see your “proof” that the sword is better

Staff I can discount entirely in the DPS stakes. it’s strictly single target, the projectiles do low damage, as does Chaos Storm, iMage is good but again it’s single target and comparable to Duellist if you really must use a single target ranged phantasm so I won’t waste space here analysis staff DPS. As for the other two

Firstly – the quantitative, looking at the weapon’s primary attacks using the basic values.

Sword
#1 Sword Chain
Damage: (202 + 202 + 336/504) = 740 to 908 over ~2 seconds
DPS: |412| DPS

#2 Blurred Frenzy
Damage: 808 over 2 seconds
DPS: 404 DPS
DPS/CD: ~67 DPS

Greatsword
#1 Spatial Surge
Damage: 348 over 1.5 seconds (at 900 range)
DPS: 232 DPS

#2 Mirror Blade
Damage: 259 per bounce.
DPS: 345 DPS
DPS/CD: ~32 DPS

Now, as for phantasms, iZerker is a great phantasm for DPS, it’s powerful, it’s AoE – hence I personally use greatsword as my ranged swap weapon. However, Warden does considerably more damage when you’re in your sword swap – DPS counting is largely irrelevant on phantasms since they do not occupy the mesmer, once cast the phantasm does it’s own thing so total damage dealt and it’s cooldown is the only factor.

Warden
Damage: 3,816
DPS/CD: ~152 DPS

Zerker
Damage: 784
DPS/CD: ~39 DPS

…yeahhh. (I suspect the tooltip for zerker is broken, it does far more damage than this in practice. Dealing ~1/2 to 2/3 the damage of warden)

However you would be right in pointing out zerker is more likely to land it’s full chain of hits than warden. But I’m not contesting that warden and zerker both have their time and place. As I’ve said i use GS/Sword/Focus – because there are occasions where a sword doesn’t cut it (pun intended).

So, onto the qualitative.

GS1 only hits a single target at a time unless they kindly stand in a neat line, you might say “hey! – GS2 can bounce and hit multiple targets, why have you omitted that in your calculation” the answer is simply “Because sword can hit multiple targets too on every single attack” – not only is sword doing more straight DPS, it’s able to hit multiple targets as an inherent feature.

Additionally, Sword #2 can evade every attack thrown at you for 2 seconds every 9-12, seconds on demand so it boasts some serious defence in there whereas GS5 has a long cooldown and can scatter enemies making it inadvisable in teamplay. Both GS and Sword can strip boons (skill 1 and 3 respectively). Stakitten also has a long cooldown and only reliably blocks 1 hit through aegis, and since the nerf to chaos armour… it’s really just… bad. (before you say "but staff is better for party defence! – I should add i never claimed sword was better if you need to protect you party, staff is the way to go.)

As for phantasms, Zerker is good but it’s not the best – it’s still a GREAT choice, but it still doesn’t invalidate the analysis of sword because sword has even better phantasms to choose from.

In conclusion:

Sword exceeds the DPS of GS and Staff in every situation, boasts robust self defence options and provides a great deal of versatility.

The last i checked iWarden wasnt on the sword….you statement

“Saying the sword is our most powerful and versatile weapon is not a “blanket statement” it’s a simple fact; the sword is our best DPS weapon and argueably best defensive weapon. Period.”

Why exactly are you mentioning skills that are not part of the sword for?

I do agree, iWarden rocks, having not used it since leveling i gave it another whirl in my build it got 9+ stacks of Bleeding on the target on its own, that is pretty sick. It might even replace my pistol.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The last i checked iWarden wasnt on the sword….you statement

“Saying the sword is our most powerful and versatile weapon is not a “blanket statement” it’s a simple fact; the sword is our best DPS weapon and argueably best defensive weapon. Period.”

Why exactly are you mentioning skills that are not part of the sword for?

Now you’re just trolling…

Firstly – If I had omitted the fact that Greatsword has a phantasm and only compared their attack skills you’d have quite rightly said “Oh but most of the greatsword’s DPS comes from it’s phantasm”

Secondly – You don’t however use a sword in isolation, you mix and match and offhand in order to obtain a phantasm to go with your sword (Which is part of it’s versatility, you are not locked in to use just one phantasm), so if you’re going to factor in the Zerker, you need to consider the DPS added from offhand phantasms

Finally – If you look at the numbers, sword out-DPS’s greatsword no matter what angle you look at it, nitpicking this doesn’t change the conclusion one bit.

This is what we call in science “Oh snap”

Ryuujin.8236:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The last i checked iWarden wasnt on the sword….you statement

“Saying the sword is our most powerful and versatile weapon is not a “blanket statement” it’s a simple fact; the sword is our best DPS weapon and argueably best defensive weapon. Period.”

Why exactly are you mentioning skills that are not part of the sword for?

Now you’re just trolling…

Firstly – If I had omitted the fact that Greatsword has a phantasm and only compared their attack skills you’d have quite rightly said “Oh but most of the greatsword’s DPS comes from it’s phantasm”

Secondly – You don’t however use a sword in isolation, you mix and match and offhand in order to obtain a phantasm to go with your sword (Which is part of it’s versatility, you are not locked in to use just one phantasm), so if you’re going to factor in the Zerker, you need to consider the DPS added from offhand phantasms

Finally – If you look at the numbers, sword out-DPS’s greatsword no matter what angle you look at it, nitpicking this doesn’t change the conclusion one bit.

This is what we call in science “Oh snap”

well the fact that it was said the SWORD and not the SWORD/FOCUS is the key word. I agree you dont use the Sword on its own, but you have other options to use with it and again i will repeat what was said:

“Saying the sword is our most powerful and versatile weapon is not a “blanket statement” it’s a simple fact; the sword is our best DPS weapon and argueably best defensive weapon. Period.”

See the difference between sword+Focus and just saying Sword? Now if he said “Sword+Focus” then that would be different, you can only go by what was written and not the invisible intended words that unfortunately some of us are unable to read due to noe being telepaths.

Read the numbers again. Even if you discount the offhand, sword still does higher DPS than GS + zerker combined

Therefore it is still our most powerful and versatile weapon.

Moving goalposts and invoking logical fallacies does nothing to refute my arguement, position nor evidence

Ryuujin.8236:

Read the numbers again. Even if you discount the offhand, sword still does higher DPS than GS + zerker combined

Therefore it is still our most powerful and versatile weapon.

Moving goalposts and invoking logical fallacies does nothing to refute my arguement, position nor evidence

To be fair, most melee weapons do more damage then the range counterparts its the risk you take going in close. You taking into account the conditions and boons from Mirror Blade?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

You taking into account the conditions and boons from Mirror Blade?

No because the mechanics get a bit muddy at that level. How many times the weapon bounces, whether it bounces to allies or onto enemies, whether the same target gets hit multiple times – sword clones stack vulnerability too. So it’s swings and roundabouts, the difference we’re looking at is 1-3% at most and this is more likely to go in swords favour since sword clones can stack vuln quite quickly across multiple targets and do so without a cooldown.

I should also stress that my assertion has never been that sword renders greatsword irrelevant, rather that sword is optimum and very few builds should eschew it.

Ryuujin.8236:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

You taking into account the conditions and boons from Mirror Blade?

No because the mechanics get a bit muddy at that level. How many times the weapon bounces, whether it bounces to allies or onto enemies, whether the same target gets hit multiple times – sword clones stack vulnerability too. So it’s swings and roundabouts, the difference we’re looking at is 1-3% at most and this is more likely to go in swords favour since sword clones can stack vuln quite quickly across multiple targets and do so without a cooldown.

I should also stress that my assertion has never been that sword renders greatsword irrelevant, rather that sword is optimum and very few builds should eschew it.

whats the sword auto attack combo? i know the first strike gives Vul, but does it have any more part of a chain like the Scepter does?

Thinking about replacing the Pistol for the Focus in build Bleed condition build, it can stack 9+ bleeds after ONE attack which is more then the Pistol 12 attacks Vs 8, though its 5second longer cooldown. But the Scepter + Focus combo doesnt seem to gel very well

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

whats the sword auto attack combo? i know the first strike gives Vul, but does it have any more part of a chain like the Scepter does?

Yes, the first two strikes apply 1 stack of vuln each. The 3rd strike strips a boon from the target, if the target has no boons, it instead strikes for 50% more damage

Jackums.3496:

If you’re looking purely at numbers, yes, the sword has higher DPS. If you’re putting both weapons into real combat situations, however, it’s going to put out inferior damage to the greatsword due to the fact that it requires you be in melee range.

How’s that logic work?

In PvE warrior’s put out the highest DPS in the entire game and melee combat is their modus operandi, and sword has a blink/root built into it that allows us to catch and close instantly into melee range from a distance. Swords are frequently fielded in PvP as well (Including the major tPvP metas), to brutal effect

Furthermore, dungeons parties frequently use stacking strategies where the entire team is forced into melee range; in which circumstances greatswords are at an even greater disadvantage.

i had all the stuff for bolt…i sold everything and went for a twilight.

Why? because i didn t like bolt, but if it had a better skin i would go Bolt for sure.
Sword is the best weapon for a mesmer.

GS is situational.

Bifrost and Bolt for me.

Jackums.3496:

Try duel someone in PvP using only the sword, then do the same using only the greatsword.

Funnily enough not more than a few hours before my posting that message that very thing happened; caught a mesmer with a noob-stick heading towards the guild lord in sPvP.

We both disagree with your assessment (pro-tip: He didn’t reach the guild lord)

Anyway, I’ve done my part, I’ve posted the evidence and given my analysis. If you wish to reject reason for the hidebound notion that cloth-caster cannot melee safely (Something d/d necros and eles disagree with) sure… whatever floats your boat.

Ryuujin.8236:

Funnily enough not more than a few hours before my posting that message that very thing happened; caught a mesmer with a noob-stick heading towards the guild lord in sPvP.

We both disagree with your assessment (pro-tip: He didn’t reach the guild lord)

Anyway, I’ve done my part, I’ve posted the evidence and given my analysis. If you wish to reject reason for the hidebound notion that cloth-caster cannot melee safely (Something d/d necros and eles disagree with) sure… whatever floats your boat.

I am guessing that by noob-stick you are meaning the Staff, well as you said the Staff shouldnt be considered, its very low damage and more of a defensive weapon. Try it against a GREATWORD user.

The fact that you have to be in Melee means that the dps WILL be higher for obvious reasons, but whos going to do more damage against say a Ranger? a Sword or a Greatsword….

The dps might be higher on paper, that only accounts for certain classes and situations though. Such as fighting against another Melee, against a Ranged player the Greatsword will out dps and out damage someone using a sword.

Ryuujin.8236:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Fancy sharing the proof on this?
To me Greatsword best offensive and staff best defensive and i would like to see your “proof” that the sword is better

Staff I can discount entirely in the DPS stakes. it’s strictly single target, the projectiles do low damage, as does Chaos Storm, iMage is good but again it’s single target and comparable to Duellist if you really must use a single target ranged phantasm so I won’t waste space here analysis staff DPS. As for the other two

Firstly – the quantitative, looking at the weapon’s primary attacks using the basic values.

Sword
#1 Sword Chain
Damage: (202 + 202 + 336/504) = 740 to 908 over ~2 seconds
DPS: |412| DPS

#2 Blurred Frenzy
Damage: 808 over 2 seconds
DPS: 404 DPS
DPS/CD: ~67 DPS

Greatsword
#1 Spatial Surge
Damage: 348 over 1.5 seconds (at 900 range)
DPS: 232 DPS

#2 Mirror Blade
Damage: 259 per bounce.
DPS: 345 DPS
DPS/CD: ~32 DPS

Now, as for phantasms, iZerker is a great phantasm for DPS, it’s powerful, it’s AoE – hence I personally use greatsword as my ranged swap weapon. However, Warden does considerably more damage when you’re in your sword swap – DPS counting is largely irrelevant on phantasms since they do not occupy the mesmer, once cast the phantasm does it’s own thing so total damage dealt and it’s cooldown is the only factor.

Warden
Damage: 3,816
DPS/CD: ~152 DPS

Zerker
Damage: 784
DPS/CD: ~39 DPS

…yeahhh. (I suspect the tooltip for zerker is broken, it does far more damage than this in practice. Dealing ~1/2 to 2/3 the damage of warden)

However you would be right in pointing out zerker is more likely to land it’s full chain of hits than warden. But I’m not contesting that warden and zerker both have their time and place. As I’ve said i use GS/Sword/Focus – because there are occasions where a sword doesn’t cut it (pun intended).

So, onto the qualitative.

GS1 only hits a single target at a time unless they kindly stand in a neat line, you might say “hey! – GS2 can bounce and hit multiple targets, why have you omitted that in your calculation” the answer is simply “Because sword can hit multiple targets too on every single attack” – not only is sword doing more straight DPS, it’s able to hit multiple targets as an inherent feature.

Additionally, Sword #2 can evade every attack thrown at you for 2 seconds every 9-12, seconds on demand so it boasts some serious defence in there whereas GS5 has a long cooldown and can scatter enemies making it inadvisable in teamplay. Both GS and Sword can strip boons (skill 1 and 3 respectively). Stakitten also has a long cooldown and only reliably blocks 1 hit through aegis, and since the nerf to chaos armour… it’s really just… bad. (before you say "but staff is better for party defence! – I should add i never claimed sword was better if you need to protect you party, staff is the way to go.)

As for phantasms, Zerker is good but it’s not the best – it’s still a GREAT choice, but it still doesn’t invalidate the analysis of sword because sword has even better phantasms to choose from.

In conclusion:

Sword exceeds the DPS of GS and Staff in every situation, boasts robust self defence options and provides a great deal of versatility.

I have to giggle every time I see some theorycrafters throwing around some numbers and tell other people whats best.

Ok, not a big fan of gs, I like sword better. BUT I’m with ArmageddonAsh on this one. Since Ryu-something is so obsessed with Dps numbers, I’m just gonna go out of my way and call bs. Gs gives you 5 skills, that’s more than enough to outDps swords 3 skills. Especially when MH sword does not give you a phantasm. Sure you can argue that you can use an offhand, but thats 2 weapons against gs, which surely invalidates the comparison.

Weird, I still have to meet a mesmer without off hand.
Or someone that cant afford a white focus/torch/pistol/sword.

@keenlam: Your logic is that you cant compare 2 weapons with 1 weapon. However, You can compare 5 skills with 3 weapon skills. The first thing invalidates the comparison, the second one does not. Im impressed.

Posts like “you said sword/focus now but before you said sword well its different because…” are also BS. As well as “on paper this is better but against this one its weak and then…”. Everything is situational, I can pop feedback on a stupid ranger and dont touch him with a weapon, i can melt him with a single mind wrack or i can die. This discussions are pointless.
Sword is probably the best bet and my next legendary (after a GS) but at the end of the day choose the skin you like.

Btw, with noob stick he means GS.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I am guessing that by noob-stick you are meaning the Staff, well as you said the Staff shouldnt be considered, its very low damage and more of a defensive weapon. Try it against a GREATWORD user.

In PvP “the noob-stick” is the derogatory term for mesmer greatsword

Levitas.1953:

Weird, I still have to meet a mesmer without off hand.
Or someone that cant afford a white focus/torch/pistol/sword.

@keenlam: Your logic is that you cant compare 2 weapons with 1 weapon. However, You can compare 5 skills with 3 weapon skills. The first thing invalidates the comparison, the second one does not. Im impressed.

Posts like “you said sword/focus now but before you said sword well its different because…” are also BS. As well as “on paper this is better but against this one its weak and then…”. Everything is situational, I can pop feedback on a stupid ranger and dont touch him with a weapon, i can melt him with a single mind wrack or i can die. This discussions are pointless.
Sword is probably the best bet and my next legendary (after a GS) but at the end of the day choose the skin you like.

Btw, with noob stick he means GS.

Levitas, thanks for totally understood my point.
You simply just can’t compare these two weapons in any way. It’s like comparing apple to orange.

keenlam.4753:

Levitas, thanks for totally understood my point.
You simply just can’t compare these two weapons in any way. It’s like comparing apple to orange.

By that logic no weapon can legitimately be compared to any other weapon.

Yet at the end of the day, a mesmer running Sword/Focus/Greatsword, will do infinitely more damage (The main currency of importance in PvE) than Sceptre/Torch/Staff – so clearly there must be something here we can compare. And yes, it turns out there is, it’s DPS

Bolt! Bolt and Anomaly go so nicely together, by the way.