Guild Wars 2

Honest, probably stupid question. How well do sword rangers do? Generally, what is the damage like? Can it burst people down quickly or not? Does it require being tanky? I’m pretty interesed in flipping in the air like some crazed ninja but I guess I can take up other weapons on the side. I’m probably asking for too much but I’d like to know if it’s mobile enough as well.

What weapon(s) go along with it? Traits? Utilities? Gears? Pets?

bonus question: what do you think are good sword skins? (aside legendary)

I’ve been using Sword on my ranger since Beta. It has moderate bursting ability (you’re never gonna get really raw burst on ranger weapons with the state of things) and does require a bit more timing, because your defense is evades instead of toughness/blocking and you can tend to be squishy. It’s a pretty mobile melee weapon; your #2 skill can be used to exit combat quite efficiently if you remove target and turn around before using the second part of the chain.

It has potential with pretty much all of the offhands a ranger has access to; the one you pick depends on your needs/personal taste.

I like running bursty pets like cats/birds with it; the combination of the cripple and pet might you get from your #1 chain has some nice synergy, but again, it’s up to your personal taste.

For gear I recommend at least some durability with a modest investment in power/precision/crit damage. In PvE I guess that would translate to some combination of Bsererker, Soldier, Knight, and Cleric stats (not necessarily all of them). Use a build creator to mess around and find some numbers you find ideal before investing in your stuff.

For traits, I would recommend at least getting 15 Beast Mastery, to help your pet not only do more damage but last longer in a fight. Wilderness Survival is also your friend. Your last trait choices will involve either Marksmanship or Skirmishing investment (I recommend picking one or the other); Nature Magic shouldn’t really concern you.

For healing grab Healing Spring (your #2’s chain gets a leap finisher, and you get get two of them in on one Spring) or Troll Unguent if you prefer to have some super strong regen during your attack instead of healing when you’ve taken a certain amount of damage.

Utilities are somewhat optional, but I consider Lightning Reflexes a must, since you need to have an emergency way to get out of melee if things get ugly. Signets of Renewal/Hunt are nice if you want extra passive condition removal or some extra speed to stick to your targets, the actives serve as a stunbreak/pet damage boost respectively. A trap couldn’t hurt to give you an extra combo finisher or some point blank damage if you know your target is going to be standing still for a second or two. Try some things out and see what you like.

My favorite sword skins..

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corrupted_Blade

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyphic_Edge

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lord_Taeres%27s_Shadow

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Gladius

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sword_of_the_Dragon%27s_Deep

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inquest_Sword

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Sword

Sword is a good weapon. Doesnt really burst because theres no big hit attack like on the GS, but it has our highest DPS and the #1 chain. Its probably best on power builds but is often used on condition builds just because it gives 2 great evades and a leap finisher, and it generally just a great weapon for survival and driving your opponent mad.

Its only real downside is the #1 chain is a bit fiddly to get used to.. its meant to be easier if you take auto attack off, but even so you’ll find yourself stuck to your target sometimes and if you dont have a target selected you can find yourself flying straight through a group of enermies sometimes :P

And:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whisper%27s_Secret_Sword

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ceremonial_Sabre

About skins, get Infinite Light Imo best sword ever.

Sword is good. Sword 1 = ranger’s best single target DPS (but also pain in the kitten sometime). Sword 2>GS3 when you get use to it. Sword 3 =an extra EV.
I will vote sword the #1 weapon (in current sate) of ranger.

If you can get used to sword’s quirky autoattack, it will become your favorite weapon. The key to dodging with sword is to turn off autoattack and hit 1 manually to cycle through the attacks. If you need to dodge, first hit a movement key, then dodge. There’s what seems to be a bug with the leap skills, where you cannot dodge for a fraction of a second immediately after a leap (the second and third skills in sword’s autoattack chain are leaps). But if you tap a movement key right after the leap, you can dodge immediately.

If you have autoattack on, move-dodge won’t work because you’ll automatically go to the next attack (which is usually a leap). And even if you do manage to dodge, if the next autoattack is a leap you’ll just jump right back to where you dodged away from.

Sword synergizes very well with lightning reflexes for getting out of Dodge. LR (stun breaker) instantly leaps you back and out of combat. Sword 2 leaps you further back. Then you spin around, clear your target, and hit 2 again to get even further away. So you can quickly open up a lot of distance (albeit backwards).

Sword 2 is not better than GS3. The leap in sword 2 happens after a half-second attack (you throw hornets at your target, then you leap back). So even without having to spin around, the leap doesn’t happen instantly like with GS3. That’s why I frequently keep LR loaded even though its leapback seems redundant with sword 2’s leapback.

Because of the half-second delay, sword 3 is better as your go-to evade skill even though its cooldown is nearly twice as long. Its evade seems to kick in a fraction of a second before sword 2’s. With sword 3 I can actually evade stuff. With sword 2 I can only evade skills with long wind-up times.

As for skins, I like Bonetti’s Rapier. Unfortunately rapiers are thrusting weapons while the sword animations are slashing. But the skin looks like it could be used for slashing so oh well.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bonetti%27s_Rapier
http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/gw2-bonettis-rapier-champion-weapon-skins-2.jpg

Haha, I find it hilarious that a ranger is faster than a lot of professions by going backwards.

I’m still a little skeptical. How much damage does a sword auto do on average with, say, a zerk build? (not that I’ll use one)

Perhaps a short vid in a dungeon or in WvW? Someone must suffer for science!

Azunai.5974:

Haha, I find it hilarious that a ranger is faster than a lot of professions by going backwards.

I’m still a little skeptical. How much damage does a sword auto do on average with, say, a zerk build? (not that I’ll use one)

Perhaps a short vid in a dungeon or in WvW? Someone must suffer for science!

that’s kind of hard to do cause being 100% melee gets you killed wickedly fast in a zerk build. they are one of the fastest hitting weapons ranger has though.

Criminal.5627:

Azunai.5974:

Haha, I find it hilarious that a ranger is faster than a lot of professions by going backwards.

I’m still a little skeptical. How much damage does a sword auto do on average with, say, a zerk build? (not that I’ll use one)

Perhaps a short vid in a dungeon or in WvW? Someone must suffer for science!

that’s kind of hard to do cause being 100% melee gets you killed wickedly fast in a zerk build. they are one of the fastest hitting weapons ranger has though.

Not if you know what you’re doing.

And sword is our top zerk dps weapon, however it does take some getting used to. Numbers vary from situation to situation, so we couldn’t say anyway. I do know however that it’s miles ahead of our other weapons (the rest are generally on par).

As stated above, swords are very solid weapons for a ranger, once you get used to movement mechanics involved (though some may argue somewhat situational). They really came to shine once the patch that removed rooting came into play.

Lastly, there’s a fair share of rangers out there that also prefer using the sword with the melee assist option set to OFF, as it prevents certain enemies from being pushed back (useful when stacking).

Terkov.4138:

About skins, get Infinite Light Imo best sword ever.

best ever?
(C’mon, I had to! ;p )

Liquid Rhino.7192:

As stated above, swords are very solid weapons for a ranger, once you get used to movement mechanics involved (though some may argue somewhat situational). They really came to shine once the patch that removed rooting came into play.

Lastly, there’s a fair share of rangers out there that also prefer using the sword with the melee assist option set to OFF, as it prevents certain enemies from being pushed back (useful when stacking).

Terkov.4138:

About skins, get Infinite Light Imo best sword ever.

best ever?
(C’mon, I had to! ;p )

Annnnnnd Jealous.