Guild Wars 2

You can still dodge just fine you just have to predict better because the dodge will have a slight delay — just press the button earlier.

You can use berserker s/h anywhere. If you position properly and bring the right group comp then there should be no issues with the content. Especially if you brought a guardian.

Manekk.6981:

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

lLobo.7960:

You only self-root if you dont turn off auto-attack.

You’re still “rooted” during the leap animations though and there’s no way around that, but sure you can cancel the chain much faster of course I’m just wondering how much dps you loose by attacking manually might even be a greatsword or shortbow becomes better? atleast they should close the distance.

No dps loss because you can que attacks.

I’m not fully understanding this I think, so if you then manually attack as fast as the autoattack wouldn’t that mean you are atleast nearly as negatively affected by the leap “root”? correct me if I’m missing something but the only way I see manually attacking being at all times safer is by attacking more slowly.

I’m not arguing against it just to be clear but I think there must be atleast some dps loss from it, it simply doesn’t make sense for it not to, now that may be minor enough to just be completely disregarded from but it must still be there on some level.

0 dps loss because you can que the next attack before the current one ends. The reason its better is without turning it off is because if need to dodge or move you stop pressing one and regain control of your character quicker otherwise you have to press escape or wait until the current attack is done.

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

lLobo.7960:

You only self-root if you dont turn off auto-attack.

You’re still “rooted” during the leap animations though and there’s no way around that, but sure you can cancel the chain much faster of course I’m just wondering how much dps you loose by attacking manually might even be a greatsword or shortbow becomes better? atleast they should close the distance.

No dps loss because you can que attacks.

I’m not fully understanding this I think, so if you then manually attack as fast as the autoattack wouldn’t that mean you are atleast nearly as negatively affected by the leap “root”? correct me if I’m missing something but the only way I see manually attacking being at all times safer is by attacking more slowly.

I’m not arguing against it just to be clear but I think there must be atleast some dps loss from it, it simply doesn’t make sense for it not to, now that may be minor enough to just be completely disregarded from but it must still be there on some level.

0 dps loss because you can que the next attack before the current one ends. The reason its better is without turning it off is because if need to dodge or move you stop pressing one and regain control of your character quicker otherwise you have to press escape or wait until the current attack is done.

Now I think you misunderstood me I know all this I just said it myself, what I meant was you need to stop attacking for a second to reposition yourself and that would or should mean atleast some dps loss to me while for any other weapon you can continue to attack while you are positioning yourself, dodges are pretty irrelevant I suppose since a dodge would cancel any weapons attack during it.

Ultimately I’m surprised that the loss of control of your character has remained a feature of sword 1 for so long. Has there been any comment from the devs on why the weapon is built this way? AFAIK it’s the only weapon that does this out of all classes.

Eliteseraph.4970:

Ultimately I’m surprised that the loss of control of your character has remained a feature of sword 1 for so long. Has there been any comment from the devs on why the weapon is built this way? AFAIK it’s the only weapon that does this out of all classes.

It’s simple 2 of the attacks in the no1 chain are 400range leaps (or similar), when in melee range this gives the illusion of being rooted because you’re stuck in a leaping animation, as far as I know no other leaps can be canceled midway through to dodge so in that sense it works like anything else.

Manekk is correct. Its an advantage and disadvantage with the weapon.

Also yes if you stop to reposition its a dps loss but its still better than GS.

Greatsword’s auto is too bad damage wise, and curiously they’ve insisted putting bleeding on a power weapon with maul instead of something like 8-10 stacks of vulnerability or proccing fury instead of the bleed.

The 3 stack of bleeds in particular with the GS are negligible on a power build and the GS will never be used as a condition weapon because 4 of the 5 skills are power based.

Maul has bleeding so it does more damage on tanky builds while not making better than sword for pure power builds.

Sword/torch or sword dagger still achieves what maul supposedly does better. It brings in condition damage through the offhand weapons+poisoning that better works against longevity based builds over a weapon with just a bleed and inferior sustained damage due to the poor auto.

Greatsword is a weapon you need to stack berserker with to see offensive benefits (maul burst crits), otherwise it’s just a mobility weapon with projectile block.

Zenith.7301:

Sword/torch or sword dagger still achieves what maul supposedly does better. It brings in condition damage through the offhand weapons+poisoning that better works against longevity based builds over a weapon with just a bleed and inferior sustained damage due to the poor auto.

Greatsword is a weapon you need to stack berserker with to see offensive benefits (maul burst crits), otherwise it’s just a mobility weapon with projectile block.

No Greatsword is a great defensive weapon. You pair it with sword/dagger.

And in how many scenarios can you run that setup, and with how many builds besides Cleric?

Zenith.7301:

And in how many scenarios can you run that setup, and with how many builds besides Cleric?

Greatsword is a great weapon as a defensive weapon for any Power Build.

Do you use Power?
Do you want a defensive weapon?

Take GS. GS has advantages even Sword + Dagger dont have. Swoop and #4 being 2 of them. GS is only useless if you are running condi.

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

And in how many scenarios can you run that setup, and with how many builds besides Cleric?

Greatsword is a great weapon as a defensive weapon for any Power Build.

Do you use Power?
Do you want a defensive weapon?

Take GS. GS has advantages even Sword + Dagger dont have. Swoop and #4 being 2 of them. GS is only useless if you are running condi.

If I run pve, I don’t use GS, period. My optimal melee is s/h, and my optimal ranged weapon is shortbow in berserker gear.

In spvp, I don’t use GS. I use shortbow+s/offhand.

The only place I might ever use greatsword is WvW for the projectile block and swoop mobility. Otherwise, swoop isn’t anything special in other formats if you use your monarch’s leap properly.

It’s got good utility skills like #4 and swoop, but the other downsides don’t make up for being overshadowed by mainhand sword or shortbow one way or another.

And I say this as a person who has loved the idea of the greatsword even since beta (when it was ridiculously OP and then they broke it with nerfs).

If they raised the autoattack more to match mainhand sword and spiced up a bit Maul, I’d use it a lot more, or even as my main weapon on my berserker builds. That way you’d trade GS as the more bursty offensive control/cc weapon with built in evade autoattacks, while mainhand sword is the weapon with more versatility (can customize with offhand choices, has more utility conditions) and active evades.

Using sword you should turn off both auto-attack and auto-target.

With the leap on the #1 chain if you have auto-attack on, you will be stuck to your target. If you turn it off you cancel attacks and move around to re-position. Other melee weapons don’t have the leap, so if you move away you just attack the air.
By turning both auto-attack and auto-target off you make the sword a great mobility weapon. You have so many dodges instead of 2! Even for pve this can be great!

#1-#1-dodge back-#1-#1-#2-#2-#3
with warhorn swiftness the range of your leaps is even greater!
the frequent movement might get you lost a bit in the beginning.
This utility is great in fights with bosses or packs of mobs that you need to dodge a lot.

Another good thing of turning off auto-attack and auto-target is the ability to use the 3rd attack of the #1 chain 2 times to gain distance.
#1-#1-turn around (or pass by your target) – #1-#1
You are now far far away and your target is cripled. Need more range?
face your target again – #2-turn around-#2…

Sword is an amazing weapon but needs FULL CONTROL of your character.
If you let the game control your character for you (auto target, target assist, auto attack) then yes, you will loose control of your character while attackig.
Its hard to learn, but amazing when well done.

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

And in how many scenarios can you run that setup, and with how many builds besides Cleric?

Greatsword is a great weapon as a defensive weapon for any Power Build.

Do you use Power?
Do you want a defensive weapon?

Take GS. GS has advantages even Sword + Dagger dont have. Swoop and #4 being 2 of them. GS is only useless if you are running condi.

If I run pve, I don’t use GS, period. My optimal melee is s/h, and my optimal ranged weapon is shortbow in berserker gear.

In spvp, I don’t use GS. I use shortbow+s/offhand.

The only place I might ever use greatsword is WvW for the projectile block and swoop mobility. Otherwise, swoop isn’t anything special in other formats if you use your monarch’s leap properly.

It’s got good utility skills like #4 and swoop, but the other downsides don’t make up for being overshadowed by mainhand sword or shortbow one way or another.

And I say this as a person who has loved the idea of the greatsword even since beta (when it was ridiculously OP and then they broke it with nerfs).

If they raised the autoattack more to match mainhand sword and spiced up a bit Maul, I’d use it a lot more, or even as my main weapon on my berserker builds. That way you’d trade GS as the more bursty offensive control/cc weapon with built in evade autoattacks, while mainhand sword is the weapon with more versatility (can customize with offhand choices, has more utility conditions) and active evades.

Yes GS has much more use in WvW SB+GS is a great Combo to use in Hybrids.

I only use GS in sPvP when i want to bunker.

I don;t agree with increase auto attack damage, its perfect as it is.

Yeah, but it’s necessary in pve because defensive weapons are useless in pve. To go defensive in pve all you need is vigor and dodge your way into range and/or drop a reflection field.

If the autoattack doesn’t get increased, berserk builds that are used in pve will simply opt out of the weapon for mainhand sword.

At least until they fix the game overvaluing damage output in pve (part of what I love about spvp, where condi builds and bunker builds also get to shine).

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

And in how many scenarios can you run that setup, and with how many builds besides Cleric?

Greatsword is a great weapon as a defensive weapon for any Power Build.

Do you use Power?
Do you want a defensive weapon?

Take GS. GS has advantages even Sword + Dagger dont have. Swoop and #4 being 2 of them. GS is only useless if you are running condi.

If I run pve, I don’t use GS, period. My optimal melee is s/h, and my optimal ranged weapon is shortbow in berserker gear.

In spvp, I don’t use GS. I use shortbow+s/offhand.

The only place I might ever use greatsword is WvW for the projectile block and swoop mobility. Otherwise, swoop isn’t anything special in other formats if you use your monarch’s leap properly.

It’s got good utility skills like #4 and swoop, but the other downsides don’t make up for being overshadowed by mainhand sword or shortbow one way or another.

And I say this as a person who has loved the idea of the greatsword even since beta (when it was ridiculously OP and then they broke it with nerfs).

If they raised the autoattack more to match mainhand sword and spiced up a bit Maul, I’d use it a lot more, or even as my main weapon on my berserker builds. That way you’d trade GS as the more bursty offensive control/cc weapon with built in evade autoattacks, while mainhand sword is the weapon with more versatility (can customize with offhand choices, has more utility conditions) and active evades.

Yes GS has much more use in WvW SB+GS is a great Combo to use in Hybrids.

I only use GS in sPvP when i want to bunker.

I don;t agree with increase auto attack damage, its perfect as it is.

If it was perfect it would be better or equal to S/H in PvE. It isn’t. It’s not perfect.

Yes im aware GS is not better then sword in terms of DPS in PvE, it would be bad it it was since the auto attack has an in-built evade. I don’t think it should be either because of the single reason.

Who needs that built in evade in PvE? Last I checked warriors and thieves and mesmers and conjure hammer eles do just fine without a built in evade into their autoattack. That built in evade on a chain is just flavor in the current design of the game — it makes little difference if you’re playing optimized PvE.

PvE is usually dodging a few key attacks and reflecting the rest with the trivial splash damage outhealed either by shouts or the guardian or ele. They could take that evade out in the pve version of the skill and I would not miss it, because I do just fine without it when I play mainhand sword.

Zenith.7301:

Who needs that built in evade in PvE? Last I checked warriors and thieves and mesmers and conjure hammer eles do just fine without a built in evade into their autoattack. That built in evade on a chain is just flavor in the current design of the game — it makes little difference if you’re playing optimized PvE.

I could give 2 kittens about PvE balance since thats what ANet seems to be doing. I HATE it when they unbalance PvP with PvE “Balance”.

The only way GS would warrant a Damage increase is if they remove the auto evade, which you seem to be okay with. Why don’t you just ask to improve sword Auto Attack instead of making a great PvP weapon into a kittenty one.

BTW Until they nerf the crap out of crit damage nothing will match warrior ability to DPS and Burst. NOTHING!

There will always be the best DPS weapon for a class and for Rangers it Sword (and a kitten good one).

That’s why they have split designs. They just did it with WvW and PvE confusion/retal. The idea that the GS would be made bad for PvP is a complete strawman.

Even then I don’t think an autoattack damage increase to match mainhand sword would make the weapon OP in PvP. There are a lot of more OP weaponsets in existence in PvP.

P.S. Warrior outdpses anything regardless of crit damage. It’s their base numbers and easy access to boons and debuffs relevant to damage dealing (outside HGH engineer, no other class can stack might and vulnerability by itself so efficiently) that puts them over the top.

Test your warrior with knight gear against any other class on knight gear. No berserker gear, and the warrior will still vastly outdamage most classes simply because his weapons have high base damage, their attacks cleave and are on a very low cd, and their traits give them several % damage boosts and increased crit chance.

And with the latest patch banners are easily the most powerful PvE damage increase utility outside Time Warp (because apparently warriors needed buffs in PvE).

Zenith.7301:

That’s why they have split designs. They just did it with WvW and PvE confusion/retal. The idea that the GS would be made bad for PvP is a complete strawman.

Even then I don’t think an autoattack damage increase to match mainhand sword would make the weapon OP in PvP. There are a lot of more OP weaponsets in existence in PvP.

Because 1 weapon is OP it doesn’t warrant making another weapon as OP.

#2. If GS Auto Attack matched Sword then GS would be doing more DPS since Maul is a DPS increase. Yes splitting weapon skills would be the right thing to do but GS does not need a DPS increase. Its like saying you need to increase Mesmer Staff to match GS. One is a defensive weapon and the other is an offensive weapon.

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

That’s why they have split designs. They just did it with WvW and PvE confusion/retal. The idea that the GS would be made bad for PvP is a complete strawman.

Even then I don’t think an autoattack damage increase to match mainhand sword would make the weapon OP in PvP. There are a lot of more OP weaponsets in existence in PvP.

Because 1 weapon is OP it doesn’t warrant making another weapon as OP.

#2. If GS Auto Attack matched Sword then GS would be doing more DPS since Maul is a DPS increase. Yes splitting weapon skills would be the right thing to do but GS does not need a DPS increase. Its like saying you need to increase Mesmer Staff to match GS. One is a defensive weapon and the other is an offensive weapon.

….No. Mesmer staff is a condition weapon (it’s an offensive weapon, just a different type of offense), and the only viable condition weapon mesmers have. It has defensive functions, just like GS has defensive functions for your team with an aoe cripple and knockback, and aoe boon strip (tkaing that might off an engi or stability off the people that are beating your face in so you can peel them).

And what use is a niche if the value of that niche is low? Great, GS is a defensive weapon that’s used scarcely by anybody in PvE or spvp outside bunker clerics. Maul would not make it do more damage, just like HB does not make the warrior GS do more damage than their mainhand axe (which actually does more damage).

What people are asking for is that when they are using the sum of the skills on that weapon that it do similar damage to mainhand sword instead of a 10%+ drop in DPS.

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

That’s why they have split designs. They just did it with WvW and PvE confusion/retal. The idea that the GS would be made bad for PvP is a complete strawman.

Even then I don’t think an autoattack damage increase to match mainhand sword would make the weapon OP in PvP. There are a lot of more OP weaponsets in existence in PvP.

Because 1 weapon is OP it doesn’t warrant making another weapon as OP.

#2. If GS Auto Attack matched Sword then GS would be doing more DPS since Maul is a DPS increase. Yes splitting weapon skills would be the right thing to do but GS does not need a DPS increase. Its like saying you need to increase Mesmer Staff to match GS. One is a defensive weapon and the other is an offensive weapon.

….No. Mesmer staff is a condition weapon (it’s an offensive weapon, just a different type of offense), and the only viable condition weapon mesmers have. It has defensive functions, just like GS has defensive functions for your team with an aoe cripple and knockback, and aoe boon strip (tkaing that might off an engi or stability off the people that are beating your face in so you can peel them).

And what use is a niche if the value of that niche is low? Great, GS is a defensive weapon that’s used scarcely by anybody in PvE or spvp outside bunker clerics. Maul would not make it do more damage, just like HB does not make the warrior GS do more damage than their mainhand axe (which actually does more damage).

What people are asking for is that when they are using the sum of the skills on that weapon that it do similar damage to mainhand sword instead of a 10%+ drop in DPS.

Maul does would make it do more damage then spamming #1, just like HB makes GS do more damage then #1. And no Axe warriors don’t do more damage then GS warriors. Between HB/WW and Forceful GS an Axe/Mace warrior will never beat them even with a battle sigil. But anyways thats moot since any good warrior does a GS burst HB+WW then swap to Axe/Mace for 5 seconds.

Why do you want GS to do as much as sword when sword already does that much damage? Why have 2 weapons that do the same thing.

Puandro.3245:

Why do you want GS to do as much as sword when sword already does that much damage? Why have 2 weapons that do the same thing.

Because some people think the game should work as they want it, so they can min-max their min-max’ing.

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

That’s why they have split designs. They just did it with WvW and PvE confusion/retal. The idea that the GS would be made bad for PvP is a complete strawman.

Even then I don’t think an autoattack damage increase to match mainhand sword would make the weapon OP in PvP. There are a lot of more OP weaponsets in existence in PvP.

Because 1 weapon is OP it doesn’t warrant making another weapon as OP.

#2. If GS Auto Attack matched Sword then GS would be doing more DPS since Maul is a DPS increase. Yes splitting weapon skills would be the right thing to do but GS does not need a DPS increase. Its like saying you need to increase Mesmer Staff to match GS. One is a defensive weapon and the other is an offensive weapon.

….No. Mesmer staff is a condition weapon (it’s an offensive weapon, just a different type of offense), and the only viable condition weapon mesmers have. It has defensive functions, just like GS has defensive functions for your team with an aoe cripple and knockback, and aoe boon strip (tkaing that might off an engi or stability off the people that are beating your face in so you can peel them).

And what use is a niche if the value of that niche is low? Great, GS is a defensive weapon that’s used scarcely by anybody in PvE or spvp outside bunker clerics. Maul would not make it do more damage, just like HB does not make the warrior GS do more damage than their mainhand axe (which actually does more damage).

What people are asking for is that when they are using the sum of the skills on that weapon that it do similar damage to mainhand sword instead of a 10%+ drop in DPS.

Maul does would make it do more damage then spamming #1, just like HB makes GS do more damage then #1. And no Axe warriors don’t do more damage then GS warriors. Between HB/WW and Forceful GS an Axe/Mace warrior will never beat them even with a battle sigil. But anyways thats moot since any good warrior does a GS burst HB+WW then swap to Axe/Mace for 5 seconds.

Why do you want GS to do as much as sword when sword already does that much damage? Why have 2 weapons that do the same thing.

Nope, you really don’t get it. HB/WW is used to BURST during time warp. The axe will ALWAYS outsustained the greatsword no matter what over long periods of time.

Maul will not make it do better DPS because obviously you’d balance the auto upgrades with Maul in mind. You would just increase the GS auto to fill that ~11% DPS gap.

I know you don’t give a kitten about pve, but other people do. And a weapon being “different” doesn’t mean it’s good in pve. The offhand axe is “different” but not in a good way.

The reason the GS needs to match the DPS in pve of a mainhand sword is that otherwise nobody will use it. Get it through that head of yours — nobody in pve needs that built in evade. All you need in pve is to tunnel the most damage you can and time your dodges right.

The weapons wouldn’t be the same anyways. I’ve already explained the mainhand sword could offer the warhorn for group boons and a nice ranged attack in skill 4, while the greatsword would offer projectile reflection that’s nice for fights like lupicus and a daze.

lLobo.7960:

Puandro.3245:

Why do you want GS to do as much as sword when sword already does that much damage? Why have 2 weapons that do the same thing.

Because some people think the game should work as they want it, so they can min-max their min-max’ing.

Like you don’t. Keep believing that.

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

That’s why they have split designs. They just did it with WvW and PvE confusion/retal. The idea that the GS would be made bad for PvP is a complete strawman.

Even then I don’t think an autoattack damage increase to match mainhand sword would make the weapon OP in PvP. There are a lot of more OP weaponsets in existence in PvP.

Because 1 weapon is OP it doesn’t warrant making another weapon as OP.

#2. If GS Auto Attack matched Sword then GS would be doing more DPS since Maul is a DPS increase. Yes splitting weapon skills would be the right thing to do but GS does not need a DPS increase. Its like saying you need to increase Mesmer Staff to match GS. One is a defensive weapon and the other is an offensive weapon.

….No. Mesmer staff is a condition weapon (it’s an offensive weapon, just a different type of offense), and the only viable condition weapon mesmers have. It has defensive functions, just like GS has defensive functions for your team with an aoe cripple and knockback, and aoe boon strip (tkaing that might off an engi or stability off the people that are beating your face in so you can peel them).

And what use is a niche if the value of that niche is low? Great, GS is a defensive weapon that’s used scarcely by anybody in PvE or spvp outside bunker clerics. Maul would not make it do more damage, just like HB does not make the warrior GS do more damage than their mainhand axe (which actually does more damage).

What people are asking for is that when they are using the sum of the skills on that weapon that it do similar damage to mainhand sword instead of a 10%+ drop in DPS.

Maul does would make it do more damage then spamming #1, just like HB makes GS do more damage then #1. And no Axe warriors don’t do more damage then GS warriors. Between HB/WW and Forceful GS an Axe/Mace warrior will never beat them even with a battle sigil. But anyways thats moot since any good warrior does a GS burst HB+WW then swap to Axe/Mace for 5 seconds.

Why do you want GS to do as much as sword when sword already does that much damage? Why have 2 weapons that do the same thing.

Nope, you really don’t get it. HB/WW is used to BURST during time warp. The axe will ALWAYS outsustained the greatsword no matter what over long periods of time.

Maul will not make it do better DPS because obviously you’d balance the auto upgrades with Maul in mind. You would just increase the GS auto to fill that ~11% DPS gap.

I know you don’t give a kitten about pve, but other people do. And a weapon being “different” doesn’t mean it’s good in pve. The offhand axe is “different” but not in a good way.

The reason the GS needs to match the DPS in pve of a mainhand sword is that otherwise nobody will use it. Get it through that head of yours — nobody in pve needs that built in evade. All you need in pve is to tunnel the most damage you can and time your dodges right.

The weapons wouldn’t be the same anyways. I’ve already explained the mainhand sword could offer the warhorn for group boons and a nice ranged attack in skill 4, while the greatsword would offer projectile reflection that’s nice for fights like lupicus and a daze.

Warrior Axe will NEVER beat GS because of forceful Greatsword Trait. But anyways this isn’t the warrior forums.

Not every weapon needs to be useable in PvE. Im well aware no one really needs a built in evade in PvE because PvE is already easy mode. Who cares if no one ever uses GS for PvE DPS. The class does not need multiple high dps weapon options to be useful.

I prefer Power. Why? Because I feel useless when the bleed stacks are already at maximum.

Also, I played a S/A + LB Warrior since release, a GS + Rifle Warrior for about a month, and a Power D/D Ele for a few months. I’ve played other professions/weapon combinations, but those were the ones I enjoyed the most. I noticed that I enjoyed the Power-based playstyles a lot more.

It all comes down to personal style, I guess. Some people say that Power builds are superior, and some people say that Condition Damage builds are superior. I’m not sure who’s right. It really depends on the situation. I do know, however, that the Ranger can do well with both types of builds.

So according to some people GS on a Ranger is worthless…then why do I see so many good rangers running with it?

RyuDragnier.9476:

So according to some people GS on a Ranger is worthless…then why do I see so many good rangers running with it?

It’s a great defensive weapon.

RyuDragnier.9476:

So according to some people GS on a Ranger is worthless…then why do I see so many good rangers running with it?

It really doesn’t take much to be a “good” ranger, get gear and you can run terrible builds and still clear easy content. That would make people think you’re “good.”

@Puandro
You act like rangers already do good DPS. In PvE, rangers are lower-middle of the pack. Raising GS 1 by 10% of damage still won’t even put us in the top 3 for DPS builds. In PvP, most of the ranger’s damage will come from either pets or condition. Raising GS1 damage affects neither of those things. You act like rangers will be the strongest prof by such a wide margin if a trivial part of our damage in PvP is increased. Has it ever occurred to you that shifting damage from pets to the ranger would increase our quality of life, make it easier to balance, and could solve the disparity between PvE and PvP?

Not every weapon needs to be useable in PvE.

Why not? If all weapon builds were equivalent in damage, wouldn’t that solve this “min maxing” that you claim to hate so much? You’re trying to justify pigeonholing PvE rangers into one build and weapon choice. After you were proven wrong about GS being viable in PvE you changed subjects and tried to say that we were wrong in wanting PvE buffs. I don’t understand why you’re so inclined to being contrarian and argumentative just because you don’t like PvE. You’re not trying to find a solution to the problem, you’re just denying there’s a problem to begin with, all the whole making nonsensical points about why we’re wrong.

I’m talking WvW and PvP. Though I do see a lot of the GS used in dungeons and fractals.

You cannot remove min-max. There will always be the BEST weapon unless you make all attacks identical. What you need a diverse set of weapons to pick from. Guardian being one of the best ones as an example.

I don’t hate min-max or hate PvE i partake in both a great amount. Rangers already do good dps but the problem doesn’t rely on the weapon itself but on the pet. The ability for pets to dodge would pretty much fix it. Mesmers are the lowest PvE DPS class atm and they are wanted because of their ability to increase grp dps and utility.

Rangers are already very good in PvP and they don’t need a GS damage increase. Other weapons do for sure. I think its just that you like GS over sword and want to make it as viable and it isn’t.

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

That’s why they have split designs. They just did it with WvW and PvE confusion/retal. The idea that the GS would be made bad for PvP is a complete strawman.

Even then I don’t think an autoattack damage increase to match mainhand sword would make the weapon OP in PvP. There are a lot of more OP weaponsets in existence in PvP.

Because 1 weapon is OP it doesn’t warrant making another weapon as OP.

#2. If GS Auto Attack matched Sword then GS would be doing more DPS since Maul is a DPS increase. Yes splitting weapon skills would be the right thing to do but GS does not need a DPS increase. Its like saying you need to increase Mesmer Staff to match GS. One is a defensive weapon and the other is an offensive weapon.

….No. Mesmer staff is a condition weapon (it’s an offensive weapon, just a different type of offense), and the only viable condition weapon mesmers have. It has defensive functions, just like GS has defensive functions for your team with an aoe cripple and knockback, and aoe boon strip (tkaing that might off an engi or stability off the people that are beating your face in so you can peel them).

And what use is a niche if the value of that niche is low? Great, GS is a defensive weapon that’s used scarcely by anybody in PvE or spvp outside bunker clerics. Maul would not make it do more damage, just like HB does not make the warrior GS do more damage than their mainhand axe (which actually does more damage).

What people are asking for is that when they are using the sum of the skills on that weapon that it do similar damage to mainhand sword instead of a 10%+ drop in DPS.

Maul does would make it do more damage then spamming #1, just like HB makes GS do more damage then #1. And no Axe warriors don’t do more damage then GS warriors. Between HB/WW and Forceful GS an Axe/Mace warrior will never beat them even with a battle sigil. But anyways thats moot since any good warrior does a GS burst HB+WW then swap to Axe/Mace for 5 seconds.

Why do you want GS to do as much as sword when sword already does that much damage? Why have 2 weapons that do the same thing.

Nope, you really don’t get it. HB/WW is used to BURST during time warp. The axe will ALWAYS outsustained the greatsword no matter what over long periods of time.

Maul will not make it do better DPS because obviously you’d balance the auto upgrades with Maul in mind. You would just increase the GS auto to fill that ~11% DPS gap.

I know you don’t give a kitten about pve, but other people do. And a weapon being “different” doesn’t mean it’s good in pve. The offhand axe is “different” but not in a good way.

The reason the GS needs to match the DPS in pve of a mainhand sword is that otherwise nobody will use it. Get it through that head of yours — nobody in pve needs that built in evade. All you need in pve is to tunnel the most damage you can and time your dodges right.

The weapons wouldn’t be the same anyways. I’ve already explained the mainhand sword could offer the warhorn for group boons and a nice ranged attack in skill 4, while the greatsword would offer projectile reflection that’s nice for fights like lupicus and a daze.

Warrior Axe will NEVER beat GS because of forceful Greatsword Trait. But anyways this isn’t the warrior forums.

Not every weapon needs to be useable in PvE. Im well aware no one really needs a built in evade in PvE because PvE is already easy mode. Who cares if no one ever uses GS for PvE DPS. The class does not need multiple high dps weapon options to be useful.

If all people do is PvE, and they only got a single set of viable weapons, it gets old pretty fast.

I’d like to see how fun it would be for you going around in pvp and the only optimal weapons you could use were the shortbow and longbow. It would get old really quick.

It’s ok to have a bit of a gap if in exchange you get something useful due to that gap. However, the gap between greatsword and sword is not trivial, and the built in evade is hardly a good trade off as it’s not useful at all in a pve setting. So, either add other pve relevant utility to justify the gap, or just buff the kitten weapon in pve because some other people would like to put their legendaries to use.

I was guessing is was because you wanted to use a GS because of the looks. As for it being boring using the same weapons all the time, thats really a personal opinion. Built in evade is good for GS because of PvP and ANET doesn’t want abilities to be any different other than tooltip damage from PvE/WvW/sPvP so i highly doubt you will see it being removed and upping the damage just for PvE.

Guys the greatsword has become a decent offensive weapon in PvE, I run it all the time on my zerker build. Maul hits like a truck, and with Moment of Clarity you get a 150% damage maul every 25 seconds. Add traited Signet of the Wild to that, and you’re critting for around 8-9k. Sword is clearly superior for condition damage as you can pair it with a torch, but you could certainly be forgiven for playing GS on a power build in PvE.

Daemon.4295:

Guys the greatsword has become a decent offensive weapon in PvE, I run it all the time on my zerker build. Maul hits like a truck, and with Moment of Clarity you get a 150% damage maul every 25 seconds. Add traited Signet of the Wild to that, and you’re critting for around 8-9k. Sword is clearly superior for condition damage as you can pair it with a torch, but you could certainly be forgiven for playing GS on a power build in PvE.

Could you provide spreadsheet and/or parsed data that shows the GS is superior to the S/H for zerker builds, as others have to prove the contrary?

Leetsaws.2108:

Daemon.4295:

Guys the greatsword has become a decent offensive weapon in PvE, I run it all the time on my zerker build. Maul hits like a truck, and with Moment of Clarity you get a 150% damage maul every 25 seconds. Add traited Signet of the Wild to that, and you’re critting for around 8-9k. Sword is clearly superior for condition damage as you can pair it with a torch, but you could certainly be forgiven for playing GS on a power build in PvE.

Could you provide spreadsheet and/or parsed data that shows the GS is superior to the S/H for zerker builds, as others have to prove the contrary?

Why would he do that? you’re asking a question regarding something he didn’t say

Did I say it was superior? I said it was a decent offensive weapon. Sword/horn might still do slightly more damage, but GS is definitely an offensive option now with the recent buffs to maul and reduced cooldown on the attack of opportunity. You do need moment of clarity though, otherwise I’d go with sword/horn.

For Pve, I like running Power build with LB and axe/wh 30/30/10/0/0 with divinity runes and celestial and beserker trinkets. LB #3 is great team skill as well as Warhorn #5. This pairs nicely with warriors and guardians. Use a mix of soldier and clerics Armour. You’ll end up with high team damage and decent defense. Fractals is a breeze till level 38 with this. BM bunker is totally different than this, but works just as we’ll, btw. Bunker is easier when you are lacking decent heavy Armour allies.