Guild Wars 2

whatever they call it, the specialization that uses greatsword will be a pseudo-shadowknight.
I have my guesses(still holding out for a spear-o)it might be more of a ranged specialization. hoping it’s geared toward power instead of conditions, as far as the specific weapon it’s given, i’m drawing a blank.

what do you think?

We have already had confirmation that there will be no spears and it will only be one specialisation per class for HoT release. More specialisations will come in the distant future as a way to expand classes.

I think greatsword doesn’t really fit the class (as well as I think all greatsword – mage combos are a little bit weird) but my guess would be that it’s going to be a weapon set designed for power necro to get more viable as a dungeon class. Necro players always called for some features for their class, like cleave, being more viable in dungeons and the mobility issue was always present. So anet trys to address these problems. I don’t think it’s going to be a ranged weapon.

It has chill on AA, it is all but officially confirmed. It is extremely unlikely that it will be paired with high AA DPS. Weapons aren’t our only problem with PvE, in fact I’d argue weapons are the least of our problem behind traits and utilities.

I guess one thing we should discuss is what advantages we think vanilla Necro will have over the specialization. Given it’s highly likely Marjory is the new specialization, I think we can assume it will still have access to minion skills.

Im going to guess standard necro will be better for condition builds.

My personal hypothesis is that the greatsword will be a life stealing weapon. That its auto will steal health along with several of its other attacks as well. So it’ll benefit greatly from power and healing. This would let the weapon scale greater with more enemies and be less effective against lone targets. It would make it so it doesn’t step too much on the toes of the dagger.

I don’t want the greatsword to be our melee condi weapon because I feel that that title should be reserved for a much more interesting weapon. Aka, scythe or mace.

Lily.1935:

My personal hypothesis is that the greatsword will be a life stealing weapon. That its auto will steal health along with several of its other attacks as well. So it’ll benefit greatly from power and healing. This would let the weapon scale greater with more enemies and be less effective against lone targets. It would make it so it doesn’t step too much on the toes of the dagger.

I don’t want the greatsword to be our melee condi weapon because I feel that that title should be reserved for a much more interesting weapon. Aka, scythe or mace.

i’m guessing it’ll be a siphoning weapon as well for the GS specialization,hoping scythe is a standalone weapon independent of a spec.
there are certain things the GS needs to cover if it’s going to be worth picking up for necro though. some sort of evade on a skill, a leap(needed no matter what) or a block. there’ll probably be a ‘burst’ related to the siphoning, maybe a whirl attack like guardian. and hopefully more stability comes with this spec.

Guys… we already know what the very basics of the GS is going to be, there is no need for speculation when we can see the auto attack in game already.

Necro could use a long range power weapon instead of staff, which is more of an AoE utility weapon. Against single, high value targets, staff makes Warrior’s rifle look pretty good.

Bhawb.7408:

Guys… we already know what the very basics of the GS is going to be, there is no need for speculation when we can see the auto attack in game already.

Ive learned to ignore people who live in fantasy land and who choose to not see evidence we have already. Fairly certain i have replied to the OP 3 times saying spears have been confirmed to not be coming but he still made a new thread about them.

I personaly hope it will be made in a way you could build power or condi on it. Beside also think melee (1-autoattack) is better since then you can hit invisible targets. Other spells (2-5) could be long or medium range. Thats my wish list.

Bhawb.7408:

Guys… we already know what the very basics of the GS is going to be, there is no need for speculation when we can see the auto attack in game already.

What will those mechanics be like? Where can this information be found? I’ve seen the video with the auto attack but it didn’t really enlighten me about the other mechanics of this weapon.

An auto attack with ONLY chill on the third hit suggests that the weapon is power control based. If it was a siphon weapon we would probably see something else on the auto or no conditions on the auto. We can already rule out conditions and range simply on the auto.

The other skills are anyones guess. But seeing as the auto attack suggests melee control then im going to say we will probably get some decent aoe burst skill on the number 2 like every classes greatsword. and then maybe some debuff attack which works in a similar way a leap would (so an immobilise as an alternative gap closer). Then for the 4 i would guess some kind of aoe field similar to guardians. Maybe a dark field, maybe an aoe blind. It would be something defensive so it could be debuff conditions or it could be a block. And then the 5 will probably a CC skill of some sort (hopefully AOE). That would be my best guess based on the hints weve had, the design of other class greatswords and along with keeping to our classes core design principles.

So in keeping with power control. Id imagine we would get mechanics and utilities which increase our debuff support and group control/utility options.

Obviously this is all speculation. I could be completely wrong. But I would be quite surprised if I was. This assumption is based on the hints we have such as common complaints and desires, the chill auto and marjorys bone walls.

spoj.9672:

An auto attack with ONLY chill on the third hit suggests that the weapon is power control based. If it was a siphon weapon we would probably see something else on the auto or no conditions on the auto. We can already rule out conditions and range simply on the auto.

The other skills are anyones guess. But seeing as the auto attack suggests melee control then im going to say we will probably get some decent aoe burst skill on the number 2 like every classes greatsword. and then maybe some debuff attack which works in a similar way a leap would (so an immobilise as an alternative gap closer). Then for the 4 i would guess some kind of aoe field similar to guardians. Maybe a dark field, maybe an aoe blind. It would be something defensive so it could be debuff conditions or it could be a block. And then the 5 will probably a CC skill of some sort (hopefully AOE). That would be my best guess based on the hints weve had, the design of other class greatswords and along with keeping to our classes core design principles.

So in keeping with power control. Id imagine we would get mechanics and utilities which increase our debuff support and group control/utility options.

Obviously this is all speculation. I could be completely wrong. But I would be quite surprised if I was. This assumption is based on the hints we have such as common complaints and desires, the chill auto and marjorys bone walls.

You make it sound like the Guardian GS skills

I hope not honestly… so boring

I wanted something closer to Mesmer GS skills

Im sorry my realistic speculations arent what you want. To be honest ill be thankful with anything completely different from mesmer greatsword. That weapon is totally useless. Whereas the guardians greatsword is the most useful greatsword in the game.

spoj.9672:

Im sorry my realistic speculations arent what you want. To be honest ill be thankful with anything completely different from mesmer greatsword. That weapon is totally useless. Whereas the guardians greatsword is the most useful greatsword in the game.

Mesmer GS is useless? Guardian GS is useful? oh… you’re talking about PvE? lol who cares

Oh i dunno. Only most of the playerbase.

I could live with all that, but there better be a leap.

Narkodx.1472:

spoj.9672:

Im sorry my realistic speculations arent what you want. To be honest ill be thankful with anything completely different from mesmer greatsword. That weapon is totally useless. Whereas the guardians greatsword is the most useful greatsword in the game.

Mesmer GS is useless? Guardian GS is useful? oh… you’re talking about PvE? lol who cares

in wvw guardian GS is great.

We already know the GS is melee, so it won’t be much like mesmer GS. i just hope it has synergy with wells or some other power necro mechanics that are unused or not yet in game.

As others have said GS already chills on 3rd auto attack. Based off some observations of Morjory last night, so far it’s a 1 second or so frontal cleave, repeat frontal cleave then a quick AoE Spin for 2 seconds of chill. That leads me to believe that GS will be a hybrid cleave weapon. A 66% increase on enemy CDs and 66% less movement is a pretty big deal for an area auto attack that most likely cleaves in a 360. So the question becomes should it and will it be mainly a Power/Soft CC weapon, a Power/Soft CC/Support weapon or true hybrid Power/Condi/Soft/Hard CC weapon?

We already have existing access to a good amount of poison, vulnerability, weakness and bleeds. I would like to see one or more of the Necro GS skills apply torment with a pull and/or leap for a true hybrid weapon, with medium-high power DPS. More importantly it would make the new specialization appealing to Power, Condi and Hybrid builds. For example something like this as a skill two on Greatsword:

A pull with a quick or medium recharge time. Pulls up to 5 targets in a 300-400 range cone on a 10s-20s CD (leaning towards 10s) applying stacks of torment per each target pulled. The number of stacks would be based on final cooldown duration (like 2-3 stacks if a 10s CD or 4-6 stacks if a 20s CD) .

The combination of a hard CC, torment stacks and chill AA could really slow down enemy kiting and mobility in PvP, giving us some of that “zone of control” that was talked about by Anet but never delivered. In PvE the torment stacks will be far less likely to hit the stacking cap and a pull will allow us to help stack mobs better.

^^.

Yeah, it looks like greatsword is the cleaving weapon that Necromancers have always desired for the dungeon pack & stack meta. DPS will not be better than dagger either.

So the only real question remains: what are the other skills other than the auto attack.

If they are DPS skills, then the weapon is garbage. If there is no way to root an enemy, then the weapon is garbage. I expect land trident until proven otherwise.

I think spoj is pretty spot on with how GS will likely work. I’m expecting power melee AoE control. And that is actually pretty good in my book. No it won’t fix PvE, but then again no weapon could really be expected to when the main issue we have is lack of support (traits/utilities) and not DPS (not that it is amazing, but mediocre DPS isn’t a problem with high support).

Bhawb.7408:

I think spoj is pretty spot on with how GS will likely work. I’m expecting power melee AoE control. And that is actually pretty good in my book. No it won’t fix PvE, but then again no weapon could really be expected to when the main issue we have is lack of support (traits/utilities) and not DPS (not that it is amazing, but mediocre DPS isn’t a problem with high support).

honestly, that’s what i want with greatsword. comparable dps to our other melee options, and control. hopefully the predicted chill on the auto attack doesn’t mean the damage will be closer to the axe auto chain. i’m also hoping there’ll be a ton of whirl attacks, maybe a ‘well’ unique to the greatsword, and an aoe pull. basically a necro version of guardian’s.

I am still kind of annoyed that necro is the ranged nuke-caster pretty much on every viable pvp build and elementalist holds the bruiser status like a boss.
I am hoping for pbaoe debuffing and control as a playstyle option coupled with enough survivability to stay in the center of attention.

So these “realistic speculations” sound really good, apart from guard gs-comparisons. It is a good weapon but not much fun for me.