Guild Wars 2

Is sword OH bad for a shatter build?. currently i use sc/p and s/t but i dont find pistol to be working for me so i was looking for an alternative.

What Jackums said, torch is really useful for bailing yourself out after a close in shatter. However I do find sword useful in its own way.

Illusionary Riposte can save a dodge and counter blade is a very useful interruption skill if enemy decide to ignore your block. Counter blade is especially useful in zerg fights, because when enemies are crowded together it can interrupt much more enemies than magic bullet. However you’ll lose chase ability due to lack of stuns. To lock people you might have to trait chaotic interruption instead.

iSwordsman provide rapid damage, whereas opponent will try to dodge iDuelist’s pistol barrage after taking a few hits. iSwordsman also attack more frequently than iDuelist if you leave them be. Sometimes if you shatter early, iDuelist may not deliver enough hits to deal significant damage, but iSwordsman don’t really have that issue. But the downsides is that it takes time to run towards enemy and they can’t apply bleeding that well. So compare to pistol’s iDuelist, iSwordsman are useful against non-stealth opponent that likes to play at melee range.

What I find most valuable in OH sword, however, is its relatively short cd compare to the rest of OHs. When I trait illusionary celerity or 20% sword cd reduction, I was able to constantly interrupt people and summon iSwordsman. If I play trait chaotic interruption I can land shatter much easier as now I can immobilize people with 12s cd interruption as well as ileap/shatter combo.

EDIT: Forgot to add why iDuelist is more useful against stealth opponent. Well other than it can hit further or iSwordsman have to chase reappearing opponent. Once iDuelist start attacking you can follow the bullet track and hit stealthed opponent couple of times with AA, provided that you’re close enough.

What hasn’t been mentioned yet is the focus. It brings great utility; swiftness, cripple, a pull which can be used to interrupt, to close a gap or to, well, pull people off cliffs. Since the iWarden is a whirl finisher, it can also cleanse conditions in combination with temporal curtain, which is a light field. Besides, it does good damage and serves as a little sanctuary from enemy projectiles.
I play Shatter myself, and the focus works rather well I must say.

Like the others have said, any offhand can work well in a shatter build. Sword has the most damage; the phantasms are comparable damage-wise but the sword 4 counter hits very hard (as hard as blurred frenzy if I’m not mistaken). Pistol offers ranged damage, condition damage, and a ranged nice stun/interrupt. Torch, despite its garb phantasm, has the best defense via stealth. Focus has the most varied uses and utility, but can be tricky to use effectively.

The main reason I haven’t really liked sword for shatter builds is that it doesn’t provide any real tools for dealing with people at range, whereas you can still threaten and hurt someone at range with the pistol (not to mention set up a shatter easily by stunning them).

However, the counter blade cancel from illusionary riposte can actually be extremely useful, especially if you have vuln on interrupt. If you take confounding suggestions, it will stun them, so you can actually have a stun on a 15s cooldown instead of a 25s cooldown that the pistol offers. You can also take the blade training trait to reduce all 5 of your weapon skills instead of having to decide if you want the sword or pistol cooldown reduction. This means you can basically set up an illusionary leap with a stun almost every single time since the cooldown on counter blade would only be 12 seconds.

However, that means you have to put 30 in domination and 20 in dueling to do that, which is not common at all for a shatter spec since you lose things like illusionary persona and deceptive evasion.

Yamsandjams.3267:

The main reason I haven’t really liked sword for shatter builds is that it doesn’t provide any real tools for dealing with people at range, whereas you can still threaten and hurt someone at range with the pistol (not to mention set up a shatter easily by stunning them).

However, the counter blade cancel from illusionary riposte can actually be extremely useful, especially if you have vuln on interrupt. If you take confounding suggestions, it will stun them, so you can actually have a stun on a 15s cooldown instead of a 25s cooldown that the pistol offers. You can also take the blade training trait to reduce all 5 of your weapon skills instead of having to decide if you want the sword or pistol cooldown reduction. This means you can basically set up an illusionary leap with a stun almost every single time since the cooldown on counter blade would only be 12 seconds.

However, that means you have to put 30 in domination and 20 in dueling to do that, which is not common at all for a shatter spec since you lose things like illusionary persona and deceptive evasion.

Confounding Suggestions has a 50% chance to turn a daze into a stun, not 100%, but I imagine you probably see it occur frequently.

skcamow.3527:

Yamsandjams.3267:

The main reason I haven’t really liked sword for shatter builds is that it doesn’t provide any real tools for dealing with people at range, whereas you can still threaten and hurt someone at range with the pistol (not to mention set up a shatter easily by stunning them).

However, the counter blade cancel from illusionary riposte can actually be extremely useful, especially if you have vuln on interrupt. If you take confounding suggestions, it will stun them, so you can actually have a stun on a 15s cooldown instead of a 25s cooldown that the pistol offers. You can also take the blade training trait to reduce all 5 of your weapon skills instead of having to decide if you want the sword or pistol cooldown reduction. This means you can basically set up an illusionary leap with a stun almost every single time since the cooldown on counter blade would only be 12 seconds.

However, that means you have to put 30 in domination and 20 in dueling to do that, which is not common at all for a shatter spec since you lose things like illusionary persona and deceptive evasion.

Confounding Suggestions has a 50% chance to turn a daze into a stun, not 100%, but I imagine you probably see it occur frequently.

Oh that’s right, for some reason I thought it always triggered. Well that makes that combo 50% less useful.