Guild Wars 2

This weapon is so gimick as it is right now. The recent change from mauls bleed to vuln was not a buff but a NERF. The only way to make this weapon work is to run zerker and use moment of clarity. WTF!? I have to get interupts on my enemies with the 25 sec cd on hilt bash into maul AND the moment of clarity affect wont even stack with the skill itself? What kind of BS weapon is this. Everytime I switch to gs my opponents end up healing up until I switch back to s/d and even then Im pretty sure its the conds doing all the work, not the power. it simply doesnt have anything special about it aside from great escape and chase this weapon is just trash. I have spent countless hours trying to make this work and it JUST DOESNT.

I then tried condition s/t a/d with spirits, shamans ammy and face rolled everyone I came across( even phant mes) but lost to necro. But I have to say it was pretty OP and just straight up BORING for me. Look. Only reason I made ranger was so I can use GS and wear medium armor as the ranger is the only class that can do this. I dont even want to lvl to 80 when I know theres nothing to look forward to, I will always be SEVERELY underpowered as a power ranger compared to my condition counterpart.

Why am I so Underpowered? Hmm geez maybe cuz you devs at Anet decided to give 50% of my physical dmg to an unreliable AI. AND THEN you decided that if we wanted to ultilize such AI we must first spend points on a trait that gives “Qucikness to your pet when downed” WTF! This is the most hands down garbage trait in the entire game!

When I duel other OP cond spirit rangers and lose they tell me “hey some advice buddy, power on ranger is noob” WOW! THANKS ANET! GLAD YOUR TRYING REALLY HARD TO BALANCE THIS GAME AND NOT SHOVE ME IN A CORNER WHERE I DO NOT WISH TO BE. PLZ SHOW MORE OUTSTANDING DEVELOPMENT AND I WILL DEFINITELY CONTINUE TO PLAY YOUR GAME AND NOT ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE IN THE COMING FUTURE

If I duel a greatsword ranger, I want sword because sword is faster. I’m not even that good yet I can use dodges and sword to evade every attack on the greatsword chain.

The best reason to use greatsword—besides power builds like you mentioned— is in pve if you hate sword or in wvw if you want a block and mobility as well as an evade on autoattack (useful in a zerg clash to stay alive). Otherwise, particularly in condition builds, torch and dagger are probably better.

As you’ve seen, in gw2, weapons have a large effect on build decisions. The bleed to vulnerability change was definitely a controversial change. My guess is ANET didn’t want to make greatsword the default weapon to use in any given build. But maybe there’s more to it.

It would be nice to hear why devs make the changes they do but then they’d be putting themselves out there for even more criticism so I can see why they don’t do that.

Sami.7923:

When I duel other OP cond spirit rangers and lose they tell me “hey some advice buddy, power on ranger is noob” WOW! THANKS ANET! GLAD YOUR TRYING REALLY HARD TO BALANCE THIS GAME AND NOT SHOVE ME IN A CORNER WHERE I DO NOT WISH TO BE. PLZ SHOW MORE OUTSTANDING DEVELOPMENT AND I WILL DEFINITELY CONTINUE TO PLAY YOUR GAME AND NOT ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE IN THE COMING FUTURE

Poor little kitten, no one is yelling, I wager the caps key just got stuck on the guy’s keyboard. Tears do that to keys sometimes.

Its just terrible. I have no idea how anyone does it well.
lol Honestly elder scrolls is a different game entirely, its first person.
Good luck in a different game if you cant find the strengths in GS

Im sorry but theres simply no love for this weapon. Every other GS weapon for other classes are awesome, many people use the GS as their main like guardian, war or mes. They all have powerful skills. We have swoop and maul as our best and they really arent that spectacular. Id much rather spawn some dude thats gonna fight for me and do INSANE damage, Id much rather do 100b that hits for 3 times the dmg of maul, and Id much rather spin around in huge AOE immbolizing my enemies. but no, I have to land mauls, mauls that take a good about of time to hit the ground and give me vuln. Nice vuln there hmm what do I follow that up with? Oh some weak gs 1 chain? Some weak swoop? Some non-existant dmg super short-range hilt bash? I guess ill stop for a second before I throw my sword at them. When I switch to gs they chain all the moves in 4 seconds and then for the next 6 I am are slowly swinging around doing pitful 400 dmgs and lucky to get some evades in while my opponent is enjoying the nice breeze I am providing.

Sami.7923:

Im sorry but theres simply no love for this weapon. Every other GS weapon for other classes are awesome, many people use the GS as their main like guardian, war or mes. They all have powerful skills. We have swoop and maul as our best and they really arent that spectacular. Id much rather spawn some dude thats gonna fight for me and do INSANE damage, Id much rather do 100b that hits for 3 times the dmg of maul, and Id much rather spin around in huge AOE immbolizing my enemies. but no, I have to land mauls, mauls that take a good about of time to hit the ground and give me vuln. Nice vuln there hmm what do I follow that up with? Oh some weak gs 1 chain? Some weak swoop? Some non-existant dmg super short-range hilt bash? I guess ill stop for a second before I throw my sword at them. When I switch to gs they chain all the moves in 4 seconds and then for the next 6 I am are slowly swinging around doing pitful 400 dmgs and lucky to get some evades in while my opponent is enjoying the nice breeze I am providing.

1) You dont have to stop to throw your sword. They changed that last patch
2) GS has an evade every 3 hits, a knockback, 2 interrupts, and a block.
3) Provides opening strike to your pet. You can say OMG PET AI SUCKS, really, thats on you. You have the traits to increase its speed, abilities to do the same, and a plethora of abilities to slow enemies down to provide your pet the support it needs. You can control it as well.
4) “I use all the moves in 4 seconds” Youre doing it wrong. #5 is a counter, as is #4. You need to utilize them well with your endurance, lightning reflex timers to optimize this. in those 4s, youre never dodging or using other skills? Do you just lay your face across 12345 and hope for the best? This class is about finesse and timing. I can direct you to the warrior forums, if youd rather do that.

@ malpcractice I actually have seen that video and ones like but its nothing special. Hes just in wvw bunkering down using cleric gear with prob ascended gear picking on those who have less then him. Hes simply outlasting his opponents using rangers excellent healing through regen but the thing is a Cond spirit ranger in shamans(apothecarys) can and does do it way better. I used to run a build which was just like that long before I saw that video, it was obvious. But the thing was I didnt need the GS, in fact it hampered me bcuz when u switch to it you do no conds and its dmg isnt enuff to deal a sufficient amount outside critting or getting attack of opportunity with maul. Go to any duel server in spvp and you will never see a ranger with GS aside from me. And no from what Ive heard and seen ESO is actually copying the gw 2 engine, its both first and third person, you can switch between the two.

Regarding that 3rd point, you can hilt bash the air and it still gives the pet the buff as far as I can recall, unless it was changed in a recent patch.

Sami.7923:

@ malpcractice I actually have seen that video and ones like but its nothing special. Hes just in wvw bunkering down using cleric gear with prob ascended gear picking on those who have less then him. Hes simply outlasting his opponents using rangers excellent healing through regen but the thing is a Cond spirit ranger in shamans(apothecarys) can and does do it way better. I used to run a build which was just like that long before I saw that video, it was obvious. But the thing was I didnt need the GS, in fact it hampered me bcuz when u switch to it you do no conds and its dmg isnt enuff to deal a sufficient amount outside critting or getting attack of opportunity with maul. Go to any duel server in spvp and you will never see a ranger with GS aside from me. And no from what Ive heard and seen ESO is actually copying the gw 2 engine, its both first and third person, you can switch between the two.

You realize hes utilizing the strengths of his GS, right? The utility. Not the damage. His pet is doing more damage than him.
That insane regen would be nothing if it wasnt for the damage mitigation provided from our evades, blocks, and interrupts.

ppl can say counterattack is great but Id much rather have it do something else. Anyone who duels knows exactly whats going to happen when they go to attk u while ur holding ur sword up in the air. “you have to time it correctly blah blah blah” no. its just not that great. the KD kick is the best thing about it but half the time it will miss if the enemy is moving. If you could use the KD on command instead of crippling throw it would be way better. Your problem is you think I am some noob with this weapon but I assure you its not the case. I just dont want to force myself to use a weapon that in undeniably underpowered. The sword easily out dpses it and the chain is even better. 1 sec evade on every third attack? Yeah a chain that takes 3 seconds to complete for a chance to evade isnt that great when compared to 400 range kicks that cripple and give might to ur pet and much attacks faster for nearly the same dmg(give or take 10-20. really? freaking pathetic).

Sami.7923:

ppl can say counterattack is great but Id much rather have it do something else. Anyone who duels knows exactly whats going to happen when they go to attk u while ur holding ur sword up in the air. “you have to time it correctly blah blah blah” no. its just not that great. the KD kick is the best thing about it but half the time it will miss if the enemy is moving. If you could use the KD on command instead of crippling throw it would be way better. Your problem is you think I am some noob with this weapon but I assure you its not the case. I just dont want to force myself to use a weapon that in undeniably underpowered. The sword easily out dpses it and the chain is even better. 1 sec evade on every third attack? Yeah a chain that takes 3 seconds to complete for a chance to evade isnt that great when compared to 400 range kicks that cripple and give might to ur pet and much attacks faster for nearly the same dmg(give or take 10-20. really? freaking pathetic).

Thats just the thing. YOU’D rather have something else. Most rangers are fine with GS, and dont post here.
Only the vocal, angry ones really post here.
I never said you were bad. There are other options for melee, youre not FORCED to use the GS. Youre also not FORCED to play this class. As you said above, there are 3 other options for GS users.
You seem unhappy with the ranger in general. So try something else

@ chopps yeah u can do that but why would you? hilt bash is neccesary to proc moment of clarity and even if u dont use that trait its too invaluable to just miss on pupose for ur pet to do a stronger atk that may or may not crit.
@malpractice yes hes suriving Ive used counter attack plenty of times to block shots from duelist etc but the problem is its not doing enough dmg to cancel the mitigation from skills like regen or protection or god forbid the strong as hell healing signet. I can handle my pet fine, I use a naga mouse, its ez. Every BM ranger knows how strong cat is, cool. You know whats cooler? putting 0 into bm and still making ur pet work which is possible with skills like guard and carnivorous appetite. And your wrong about the gs doing all the work for insanse regen. Insane regen is insane regen, it doesnt need the assistance and even if it did s/d provides MUCH better damage mitigation. I actually picked up LR because the block on GS is not enough when you get illusionary leaped. In fact the block is usless when it happens because you attempt to kick the evading mesmer and take the full brunt of his attack.

Sami.7923:

Im sorry but theres simply no love for this weapon. Every other GS weapon for other classes are awesome, many people use the GS as their main like guardian, war or mes. They all have powerful skills. We have swoop and maul as our best and they really arent that spectacular. Id much rather spawn some dude thats gonna fight for me and do INSANE damage, Id much rather do 100b that hits for 3 times the dmg of maul, and Id much rather spin around in huge AOE immbolizing my enemies. but no, I have to land mauls, mauls that take a good about of time to hit the ground and give me vuln. Nice vuln there hmm what do I follow that up with? Oh some weak gs 1 chain? Some weak swoop? Some non-existant dmg super short-range hilt bash? I guess ill stop for a second before I throw my sword at them. When I switch to gs they chain all the moves in 4 seconds and then for the next 6 I am are slowly swinging around doing pitful 400 dmgs and lucky to get some evades in while my opponent is enjoying the nice breeze I am providing.

Two things. First, the GS is a defensive weapon for the Ranger. It helps you survive while your other weapon does damage. Its an amazing weapon. Secondly, Mesmer SUCKS with the GS especially in wvw/pvp. Its a horrible weapon. The Rangers GS is like the Mesmer Staff, its for defense and set ups. not disrespecting your skill, youre just not using the weapon right at all

Most rangers are not fine with GS which is why youll hardly ever see a power focused GS ranger. The other options for melee is SWORD and DAGGER which is I use on swap oh and Axe offhand if you like standing in place while being obvious.. You are not forced to post here either but you just enjoy polite trolling me. Very big pro you are plz teach classes or something. I have a warrior and a necro but AS I SAID BEFORE I play ranger because its the ONLY class that can use GS and wear medium armor. Whats wrong with you? are you a gs ranger? yes? how could you not want a buff? No? mad spirit ranger? f off.

Yeah ill be in Rethesis 1v1 dueling arena if some pro wants to come show me how its done.

Sami.7923:

Most rangers are not fine with GS which is why youll hardly ever see a power focused GS ranger. The other options for melee is SWORD and DAGGER which is I use on swap oh and Axe offhand if you like standing in place while being obvious.. You are not forced to post here either but you just enjoy polite trolling me. Very big pro you are plz teach classes or something. I have a warrior and a necro but AS I SAID BEFORE I play ranger because its the ONLY class that can use GS and wear medium armor. Whats wrong with you? are you a gs ranger? yes? how could you not want a buff? No? mad spirit ranger? f off.

I roam wvw using S/D or S/W and GS. I dont use spirits. Im not trolling, i simply see nothing wrong with the GS and it fits nicely into my play. I win far more often than i lose, and no, i dont have Ascended gear. Only one piece. I started 3 weeks ago.
The only buffs i’d like to see to rangers:
1) GS #2 a blast finisher, to make us more desirable in a melee train/gvg situation.
2) Pets take 50% reduced dmg from AoE in dungeons. Maybe even in all of the game, and nerf its base HP pool if that was the case.

Azure.8670:

Sami.7923:

Im sorry but theres simply no love for this weapon. Every other GS weapon for other classes are awesome, many people use the GS as their main like guardian, war or mes. They all have powerful skills. We have swoop and maul as our best and they really arent that spectacular. Id much rather spawn some dude thats gonna fight for me and do INSANE damage, Id much rather do 100b that hits for 3 times the dmg of maul, and Id much rather spin around in huge AOE immbolizing my enemies. but no, I have to land mauls, mauls that take a good about of time to hit the ground and give me vuln. Nice vuln there hmm what do I follow that up with? Oh some weak gs 1 chain? Some weak swoop? Some non-existant dmg super short-range hilt bash? I guess ill stop for a second before I throw my sword at them. When I switch to gs they chain all the moves in 4 seconds and then for the next 6 I am are slowly swinging around doing pitful 400 dmgs and lucky to get some evades in while my opponent is enjoying the nice breeze I am providing.

Two things. First, the GS is a defensive weapon for the Ranger. It helps you survive while your other weapon does damage. Its an amazing weapon. Secondly, Mesmer SUCKS with the GS especially in wvw/pvp. Its a horrible weapon. The Rangers GS is like the Mesmer Staff, its for defense and set ups. not disrespecting your skill, youre just not using the weapon right at all

A lot of our weapons are defensive, honestly. We’re a class of attrition and pet utilization, imo.
But this guy here doesnt want it that way. He wants it to be full zerker LET ME SEE NUMBARS.

Sword has better defense, almost the same movement, and much better damage and pet buffing using just 3 skills. I would love too see gs#2 be a blast finisher but that will never happen. You would be able to blast finish 3 times in healing spring with reduced cd. Im not zerker by choice but because crit dmg and precision along with moment of clarity is a neccessary to turn the GS into something other than an oh kitten Im in trouble weapon. Look at the trait for GS 5% dmg? wow Very original should def pick that up. Srsly just not enough love for this weapon. Every other class you with gs avialable to them you will see plenty of them using them. You will barely come across rangers who GS. Not because they dont want to but because they found better and settled. Us however were just trying to make the best of an already bad situation. Your happy with it but you dont spvp so you dont know whakittens like to be set to certain amount of stats while other builds and classes tower above yours because your too stubborn to let it(the gs) go.

I’m on the fence with this. Greatsword has an enormous amount of utility and in the hands of any other class would probably be overpowered. On the flip side, GS has so much utility I don’t know why ANet felt they needed to put so much utility on every other weapon when we could just use GS as an offweapon and be set and the vast majority of the weapon options for this class wouldn’t be awful.

I really don’t think you’re going to get GS’s damage increased. I’d be fine with attaching a blast finisher to Maul and that’s about it really. You also have to remember that a lot of other classes do so well with their weapon options due to might stacks and the ranger doesn’t have a real option for this.

Just imagine how much better this class would be if Fortifying Bond read “Any boon your pet gets would be shared with you”.

I really like my GS, especially for WvW.

It is a great defensive weapon and the mobility with swoop is great.

It does lack offensively but mainly because of the slow attacks. The damage coefficients are actually pretty kitten good for most the attacks at least for a ranger weapon that is.

To make the most of them I think you really need to focus on Crit Damage and other sigils/traits that help boost the damage. You also need heavy CC to help you land attacks (utility and pet CC skills are a must).

Even if you do the above it can still be very hard to land the bigger slower hits with the GS especially against other dodgy/mobile opponents like other rangers. Stealth professions can make thing more difficult as well since you have less up time to land the hits.

It would help if they sped up the maul attack and added extra distance to hilt bash. I really don’t think we need more damage but things to help land the hits. The change to Counterattack/throw GS helped but it doesn’t seem to be enough.

I am drooling at the thought of a blast finisher on maul….

I’d like to see a damage increase on the auto-attack of the greatsword. 203-203-240 damage is really low, even with the pet. Not to mention the 1/4 activation time on the third hit, which just makes the dps even worse. Increasing the damage to around 240-240-283 would be fair, and would help separate the greatsword from the sword, making it more of a burst weapon, while the sword would remain a control weapon.

50% evasion uptime on autoattack with the ability to maul up to 5k with a trait, a counter attack that hits up to 5k on squishies, and an escape? Sounds OP to me. Though the base damage should be a hair higher than the swords.

Azure.8670:

Two things. First, the GS is a defensive weapon for the Ranger. It helps you survive while your other weapon does damage. Its an amazing weapon. Secondly, Mesmer SUCKS with the GS especially in wvw/pvp. Its a horrible weapon. The Rangers GS is like the Mesmer Staff, its for defense and set ups. not disrespecting your skill, youre just not using the weapon right at all

Just have to chime in here and say you are completely 100% wrong about the gsword sucking for mesmer, especially in WvW/Spvp, there are thousands of mesmers that would disagree with you, for a phantasn mesmer it is arguably the best weapon to use.

On topic, i love gsword with ranger running my 100% zerker build, the defense it brings, and mobility with swoop have saved me so many times when i am small man roaming.

Xel

Hey so heres what I did. I took moment of clarity and isntead of GS s/d im now running gs sb. This has helped me fix some gaps as I can now drop movemoent speed and kite when I need to. I no longer have to run in and take AOE in the face as full melee. the SB #5 also helps me proc moment of clarity and if Im close enough I just wep switch and maul, continue fighting and wait for maul to come off cd before I go for hilt bash into maul for another moment of clarity proc. Overall I am a little happier but till still SB doing the brunt of the work. I think maybe all this might need is some increased dmg the the auto chain and change maul back to what it was with bleeds or provide something cool like blast finisher. Still have not figured anyway to counter healing signet warriors. I can stand behind them with SB in full zerker for a full 30 seconds only to take them to 75% hp.

want to be epic with GS?

turn off “melee assist” and manually spam 1111111111111111111111111111 while running back and forth through your enemy. Not only does it annoy the enemy, but it makes reading your chain harder.

Its always fun trying to convince people that the problem is really themselves when they really can’t admit it. I wonder how long this post will go on. <drinks tea>

The only buff the GS needs is to Hilt Bash, make it a 450 range rush without that quarter second root thats lets your enemy get out of range 90% of the time. Otherwise the GS is pretty good imo.

Just so long as they DONT TOUCH the #3 skill…. I use that as my “Mount”.

If they ever mess with the #3 then I’ll be demanding that they let us ride our Pets instead.

ilr.9675:

Just so long as they DONT TOUCH the #3 skill…. I use that as my “Mount”.

If they ever mess with the #3 then I’ll be demanding that they let us ride our Pets instead.

anything that doesnt involve upping the damage on that skill is a big NO NO.

and i wanna ride the piggy

Sami.7923:

Hey so heres what I did. I took moment of clarity and isntead of GS s/d im now running gs sb. This has helped me fix some gaps as I can now drop movemoent speed and kite when I need to. I no longer have to run in and take AOE in the face as full melee. the SB #5 also helps me proc moment of clarity and if Im close enough I just wep switch and maul, continue fighting and wait for maul to come off cd before I go for hilt bash into maul for another moment of clarity proc. Overall I am a little happier but till still SB doing the brunt of the work. I think maybe all this might need is some increased dmg the the auto chain and change maul back to what it was with bleeds or provide something cool like blast finisher. Still have not figured anyway to counter healing signet warriors. I can stand behind them with SB in full zerker for a full 30 seconds only to take them to 75% hp.

Sounds like you are learning to play.

You could add more damage to GS. Just compare GS to spear. They’re practically the same weapon, but spear #1 hits so much harder, with a longer evade, and I still wouldn’t call it OP.

Ok, let’s sum this up.

Yes, it is clear the Greatsword is used defensively for Rangers. Your pet will likely be doing as much if not more damage than you are. The Greatsword’s defensiveness comes from it’s utility, and skill from timing the skills;

Auto) a simple damage mitigation chain. If timed right, you can sync it with your opponents power attacks. The evade’s duration is pretty decent, allowing you to simply ignore many attacks without having to spent endurance. That being said, the evades are less precise than the Sword/Dagger. It would be nice to have another effect in this skill’s second swing to buff the pet in some way, but that’s unlikely to happen. Would be nice if the damage was buffed somewhat, since this really is the only damaging attack next to Maul.

Maul) this is likely the skill that needs the most work. It’s simply sub-par. The vulnerability needs to be buffed to 10 stacks, and it would be awesome if it was a blast finisher. Giving this skill the ability to apply fury to your pet would be nice too, but not at the cost of a longer CD. Bottom line: needs work.

Swoop) generally positively viewed skill. It is one of the best gap closers in the game, has decent damage for its purpose, and is a leep finisher to boot. Its long range also makes it equally amazing for escapes. Lighting Reflexes shares good synergy here. Because the auto’s evades aren’t always reliable, having that extra active evade makes all the difference. Swoop allows you to immediently re-close the gap created. Much like Monark’s Leap re-closes Hornet’s Sting on Sword #2.

Counter Attack) while many may not find this skill to their tastes, it is actally very versatile. It’s primary function is to disarm and riposte with an unexpected knockback. This can be used to counter pesky thieves, raging warriors, and determined guardians from doing anything tricky. In PvE, many newer enemies have big wind-ups, which this counters nicely. As a bonus, it can be used for near immunity to damage at ranges out of melee. It can allow you to dust off the initial volleys from engineers, elementalists, and pistol thieves. Even AoE is nothing to this skill. Furthermore, when necessary, it can be changed to a ranged cripple with decent damage. This is often a big help against kitting eniemes. Thankfully, a recent patch now allows us to move while tossing — a great change.

Hilt Bash) this skill is similar in purpose to Counter Attack, but more pro-active in use. It is used to stop skills before they happed [such as a heal], or momentarily root an enemy in place. While not much, it is also worth to note that this skill can function as a mini-mini-gap-closer. The 50% damage boost on next pet attack can be synced with some nice pet attackd as well.

To be clear, yes: the weapon does need more buffs. However, many fail to see the versitility of the weapon. From my experience, it works even better when you are coupled with high amounts of regen. And taking the Martial Mastery trait from the Wilderness Urvival line makes the CD’s, and the number of situations you can counter, much better.

It’s just maul that I find sorta iffy really. The bleed was never amazing, and neither is the current amount/duration of vulnerability.

Like, even just buffing up the number of vulnerability stacks and their duration, would probably be ok with me. Bring it in line with the vulnerability stacks from Longbow.

I would not cry if they made it a blast finisher though. Would open up quite a few nice synergies for us and our groups. Lets something like a Signet Ranger really hang and bang with the warriors and guardians in the ball.

i love my GS in wvw, swoop and counterattack are amazing, the auto attack is much better at zerg clashing than swords and hilt bash interrupts are still amazingly useful without traiting for moment of clarity

… though it could use some love (counterattack root on hit in melee range… ARGH) i do think its an extremely useful weapon

Fordel.3208:

I would not cry if they made it a blast finisher though.

i would be strongly strongly against this
swoop/leap every 10s
maul/blast every 4/5s(?)
15s duration healing spring
2 leaps,2/3 blasts = 1,320*4/5 = 5280/6600 healing
… thats on top of healing springs base 4920 heal, 2.3k regen and condition cleanses

TL;DR – This is not a TL;DR post. Please skip.

I think that as a utility weapon, GS has its uses. However, it lacks any abilities that would make it a threat in higher level play due to bad implementation. This post will be broken into two parts since it’s going to be too big for one.

GS 1: Chain – This skill is fun. You get an evade every 3rd attack. This is easy to break down into numbers in a shallow debate and come to the conclusion that this is effective damage mitigation. However, this skill runs into multiple barriers in execution. It has no inherent numerical synergy with the pet, the ranger’s “passive”, which punishes you if you decide to spec more into pet damage while remaining in melee, limiting your build choices with the recent changes to pet damage. This doubly punishes you because the ranger has rather bad base damage on GS 1 to begin with. The bad base damage is then made to look worse by the fact that it’s an extremely slow chain. In an effort to increase the utility of the weapon by increasing evade time and then “balancing” it with slow build up into said evade, Anet effectively kitten the weapon for any major damage at a basic level when compared to many other weapons. Your opponent basically has little reason to dodge your auto attacks just to prevent you from getting an evade.

The knee-jerk response to this line of reasoning is to simply build for more damage. After all, evasion spam is effective damage mitigation. However, this argument fails to address rampant blocks/dodges/evades across the rest of the professions, as well as the trade off between damage mitigation via auto attack spam and the potential dps you are losing by either not weapon swapping or just not using your other skills. GS 1 is not what I like to call a self-fulfilling chain, which conceptually makes sense if you want to keep the evasion balanced, but the slow base speed of the chain means you lose out on enough dps to simply allow your opponent to look for your obviously telegraphed burst/combination skills.

GS 2: Maul – A typical bread-and-butter pseudo burst skill. It has decent damage on a relatively short cooldown. Comparatively, it does a little less damage than a full GS 1 chain (ignoring crits/crit chance), but takes about 1/2 of the time to do so. It also applies 3 stacks of Vulnerability as a result of recent changes. This is a GS user’s only real option if they wish to burst an opponent down. If used on cooldown, the skill effectively keeps an opponent slightly vulnerable. However, this skill has extremely obvious telegraphing (telegraphing is not a bad thing; MORE skills should be this telegraphed) and is really the only thing an opponent has to look out for to effectively mitigate your damage via dodge/block-counter/evade.

Although I haven’t done testing to verify if the condition is applied before or after the damage, this skill brings up a flaw with the rest of the weapon, which is its inability to follow up. Vulnerability needs to be generously applied before sustained dps or burst for maximum efficacy, but GS lacks the ability to do so, since it neither applies a threatening amount of vulnerability for a short period or a modest amount for a long period. I’ve already addressed GS 1’s damage sacrifice for the utility of evasion, but the GS has no other options to pump out damage, leaving you stuck between the decision of waiting for Maul to come off cooldown or switching weapons to continue real dps. We want the GS to be a self sufficient weapon to some degree; having it be nothing but a defense spam or pseudo-setup into real damage isn’t really acceptable when you look at the capabilities other Ranger weapons have and what other professions have. GS is also not a remotely effective counter to the condition meta.

GS 3: Swoop – Swoop is a great gap closer with good range and pretty good pathing ability on a pretty good cooldown. Comparatively, it does slightly less damage than the first two attacks from GS 1 chain, and has no inherent numerical synergy with the pet. When used in melee range, the casting time is slightly decreased, but not enough to warrant an increase in actual dps, leaving this skill as nothing but a gap closer, which it does pretty well, but is not always necessary. This is also slightly counter-intuitive to the GS’s defensive melee nature, meaning that once you are comfortably staying in melee, this skill becomes an escape tool, and nothing more. This skill lacks the damage or secondary utility to make it useful in a prolonged melee fight.

Numerically the equivalent to this skill on a Warrior’s GS does almost twice the damage with a slightly longer cooldown. I’m aware that Rush has animation problems that make it less than ideal, but numerically it is more sound and more useful than Swoop.

GS 4: Counter/Throw – Counter attacks are always fun; they punish unsuspecting foes who don’t pay attention to your animations, and set you up for potential combo damage. This skill has three basic potential outcomes: prolonged block, counter, and throw, none of which have any inherent numerical synergy with the pet. The first potential outcome is extremely useful and in my opinion very well-implemented. It is telegraphed, giving your opponent counterplay options while giving you an effective ranged defense on a good cooldown.

The second outcome, the counter is a nice function to have but falls off extremely hard in higher level play, where the telegraphing from the block allows players to bait your counter attack with less powerful abilities because the speed at which the counter executes is pathetic, and does not follow the target it selects effectively. This speed of execution is doubly detrimental to the ranger because it’s exceedingly vulnerable to skills that deal multiple packets of close-range damage in either a short amount of time, deal it while moving, or both. In these situations the ranger will a) counter attack, hitting the foe but receiving much unwanted damage in the process, b) attempt to counter attack, but miss due to bad targeting and then receive much unwanted damage or c) block, realize that the counter will not be effective, and attempt to do a clunky dodge during the counter attack animation.

The third basic outcome has also received some QoL changes, but still fails because of the speed of activation vs. damage/utility when compared to other skills in the game. Because it is a single target strike, it can be intercepted. Because it activates and travels slowly, on top of having a small hit box, it can be very easily dodged at the range you will probably need it to hit if your opponent is that scared of a snare. If your opponent doesn’t mind the snare, or has enough condition removal to not care about it, the damage leaves much to be desired.

GS 5: Hilt Bash – A daze/stun that has numerical synergy with your pet sounds nice; it even follows targets that are in range fairly well, but this is yet another skill that falls off in higher level play due to ease of avoidance and lack of synergy with other skills/traits that should otherwise benefit from it. You receive an effective movement debuff while activating this skill, making it less ideal for catching fleeing foes. Its most powerful effect, the stun, cannot be effectively utilized against skilled foes unless you happen to catch them by surprise, meaning the cc you would likely combo into Maul is not there most of the time to help you land highly telegraphed damage. Its own telegraphing makes it easy to avoid from the front, effectively leaving you with an obvious daze on a decent cooldown. It lacks synergy with abilities like Moment of Clarity, since your pet cannot have both damage buffs at the same time, discouraging the clearest route a hopeful GS user would take if they wished to do higher amounts of damage.

Buff this kitten. Come on meow.

First I just want to throw out there that TES Online was suppose to be 3rd person only but that caused an uproar amoung the TES fans (myself included) and they made the change to include 1st person.

I look forward to playing it.

A ranger’s physical damage has always been weak. That’s nothing new. The pets stop to attack and that attack is too slow and so the enemy simply runs out of range before it lands. I avoid traits that make the pet run faster because I know it doesn’t matter how quickly the pet catches up to the enemy, what matters is how quickly the enemy is moving.

1 on 1 the GW is and has always been a defensive weapon for the ranger. 3rd auto is an evade, skill 4 blocks ranged attacks, skill 3 is a gap opener/closer and skill 5 interupts (dazes/stuns).

People talk about the benefit of skill 5 to the pet but the pet is too unreliable.

Zerg busting is where the GS really shines though. Use pets that will buff me and nearby allies, use RaO for the stability (the other buffs are bonus), and throw up TU, then charge right through swinging. Go full power trait line and go with signet mastery, you can add 6 sec of invulnerability to both you and your pet once your TU expires.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

i love my GS in wvw, swoop and counterattack are amazing, the auto attack is much better at zerg clashing than swords and hilt bash interrupts are still amazingly useful without traiting for moment of clarity

… though it could use some love (counterattack root on hit in melee range… ARGH) i do think its an extremely useful weapon

Fordel.3208:

I would not cry if they made it a blast finisher though.

i would be strongly strongly against this
swoop/leap every 10s
maul/blast every 4/5s(?)
15s duration healing spring
2 leaps,2/3 blasts = 1,320*4/5 = 5280/6600 healing
… thats on top of healing springs base 4920 heal, 2.3k regen and condition cleanses

I don’t see the problem.

It’s not like we are getting a 6k heal in one big chunk.

It’s 6k potential healing over 15 secs while putting every GS cooldown into that healing instead of using them for movement/damage and restricting yourself to that water field area.

You also still have the same healing ‘downtime’, when your field is on CD.

Like, how many times do you get 2 swoops per spring in actual fights vs. how many times you need it for positioning or gap closing?

Yea, it would be really nice to have the blast finisher, but it’s still not “We got a Blaster finisher, HealingSpring does DOUBLE HEALING WOO!”

Leuca.5732:

TL;DR – This is not a TL;DR post. Please skip.

I think that as a utility weapon, GS has its uses. However, it lacks any abilities that would make it a threat in higher level play due to bad implementation. This post will be broken into two parts since it’s going to be too big for one.

wow. that was in every possible way 2 separate posts that were definitely tl;dr.

Fordel.3208:

Linguistically Inept.6583:

i love my GS in wvw, swoop and counterattack are amazing, the auto attack is much better at zerg clashing than swords and hilt bash interrupts are still amazingly useful without traiting for moment of clarity

… though it could use some love (counterattack root on hit in melee range… ARGH) i do think its an extremely useful weapon

Fordel.3208:

I would not cry if they made it a blast finisher though.

i would be strongly strongly against this
swoop/leap every 10s
maul/blast every 4/5s(?)
15s duration healing spring
2 leaps,2/3 blasts = 1,320*4/5 = 5280/6600 healing
… thats on top of healing springs base 4920 heal, 2.3k regen and condition cleanses

I don’t see the problem.

It’s not like we are getting a 6k heal in one big chunk.

It’s 6k potential healing over 15 secs while putting every GS cooldown into that healing instead of using them for movement/damage and restricting yourself to that water field area.

You also still have the same healing ‘downtime’, when your field is on CD.

Like, how many times do you get 2 swoops per spring in actual fights vs. how many times you need it for positioning or gap closing?

Yea, it would be really nice to have the blast finisher, but it’s still not “We got a Blaster finisher, HealingSpring does DOUBLE HEALING WOO!”

put it against a wall> drop target>swoop
maul>swoop also still leaves 3(ish)s to get back into the healing spring

this kind of change would end up like the terror nerf if not considered carefully
(in case any of you dont play necro… terror wasnt changed at all, but the addition of dhuumfire, spectral wall fears and a 0.5s increase on doom ended up getting it nerfed… which if you go to the necro forum most people are annoyed about) 13k heal could easily pull a ranger up to full from near dead, the strongest heal in game atm is either

healing surge at nearly 9k… IF at full adrenaline (wasting its other property of insta adrenaline) with a 1s cast time… and then you compare it to warriors health pool, which is… whats high health base? is it 12k-15k-18k? icr but its 50% health at best
or
healing turret
2.5k heal on place
2.5k heal on overcharge (and 2 condi cleanses)
1.3k on detonation(if done in overcharge field)
1.3k from shield or rifle finisher (yes i know utility finishers… but utilising only one weapon and a heal skill)
5k+2.6k=7.6k… is engi medium health? is that 15k? if it is then again thats only 50%
or
signet of… whatever guardians signet heal is
8.1k heal out of a (base)12k health pool… which i suppose is a high %, but its also a 40s cooldown and 1s cast (what guardian runs this anyway? even in pve i much prefer the block heal)

i forget why i was comparing heals… hmmm… nope gone

It’s not a 13k heal.

It’s 13k potential healing in that 15 second window, if you dedicate all your GS finishers to swooping into walls and junk.

If it was Spring+Maul bam full health, yea I’d agree with you, that’s nerf bait no doubt. It’s clearly not that though.

Fordel.3208:

It’s not a 13k heal.

It’s 13k potential healing in that 15 second window, if you dedicate all your GS finishers to swooping into walls and junk.

If it was Spring+Maul bam full health, yea I’d agree with you, that’s nerf bait no doubt. It’s clearly not that though.

its a potential solo 13k heal, couple that with counter block from GS and evades (vigor on heal trait procs on each pulse of healing spring) you also easily have the ability to mitigate a ton damage until you are prepared to super heal again
same as healing turret being a potential 7.6k heal (but its base heal is only 2.5k)

Raven.9603:

wow. that was in every possible way 2 separate posts that were definitely tl;dr.

Is there any way you could address the actual post instead of its length? I think there is a valid discussion to be had here and I’d welcome criticism of my own criticism.

The warrior and guardian can just go from zero to 8-9k in a second at baseline and it isn’t like they don’t have their own survival shenanigans on top of that.

I don’t pretend to understand how engineers work, I’ll take your word on that.

Like, how often right now, do people count on the double swoop for their healing from healing spring? Where they can save swoop just for the spring and not need it for gap closing or fast travel or positioning.

My bet would be that 95% of the time, it would be Maul, Swoop then the fight moves on from the field till the next one, 30 seconds later. That’s my experience at least, trying to linger near the field too long just gets you out positioned and/or counter fielded.

Swoop’s primary advantage over the Warrior’s Charge skill is that Swoop isn’t affected by movement impairing skills. When they nerfed Ride the Lightning into the ground I thought for sure Swoop would follow.

Atherakhia.4086:

Swoop’s primary advantage over the Warrior’s Charge skill is that Swoop isn’t affected by movement impairing skills. When they nerfed Ride the Lightning into the ground I thought for sure Swoop would follow.

Definitely untrue. I cannot fathom the number of times my swoops has just flopped due to cripple or chill. You will go barely half distance. I have no idea where you came up with this Idea.

Atherakhia.4086:

Swoop’s primary advantage over the Warrior’s Charge skill is that Swoop isn’t affected by movement impairing skills. When they nerfed Ride the Lightning into the ground I thought for sure Swoop would follow.

It most certainly is.

As for healing spring, ill be lucky if my opponent steps in it so I can swoop at them and continue to fight but usally I am swooping out to them losing valuable regen and more importantly cond removal.