Guild Wars 2

I realize the sword probably has the highest skill cap for a Ranger weapon, the main challenge being how to deal with the self root of the auto-attack. I’ve been doing some research and ‘in the field’ training to try to feel at least somewhat comfortable with the sword. So far I can’t get a handle on it.

It seems the first step is to take off auto-attack on skill one for the sword. This allows you to control each stage of the attack chain. This gives you a small window of opportunity to dodge or heal or whatever, without being locked into the continuous self root/partial self stun of the attack chain.

What I’m not understanding is how to handle the timing. Is the trick to sword to simply not attack until you see the need to dodge/evade, get a couple hits in afterwards and then stop in case you need to dodge/evade again?

Since the attack chain can’t be interrupted and there is a cast time to each of the evade skills, does one have to anticipate each dodge/evade by 1-2 seconds? And if so, how?

I’m sure I’m doing this all wrong but I can’t seem to find the ‘secret’ of Ranger swordplay. Sword being the highest DPS of any Ranger weapon it seems like if part of the technique is to interrupt the attack chain this brings the DPS way down, maybe even below mainhand Axe. If that’s the case what’s the strengths of the sword at all?

Any tips and tricks about how to master the Ranger sword would be extremely appreciated.

It just takes a lot of practice and is more about feeling the rhythm and timing of the AA chain. It’s also about learning which fights to not bring the sword to. Sword usage is also very dependent on how well you know a specific boss encounter, you’ll generally have a bad time if you are not familiar at all with said boss fight.

You can interupt the AA chain btw, it requires a weapon swap or cast-cancel.

See the sword section in my guide for more details.

Thanks TurtleDragon that helps, I’ll check it out.

Re-posting this section of TurtleDragon’s post about Ranger swordplay

Sword:

Tips for dealing with the animation locking

• Don’t get animation locked in the first place. This means not pressing 1 when you know you need to dodge soon. This mostly requires knowledge of the encounter.

• Dodge earlier or predictively dodge. Basically, account for the delay in your dodges. Not too reliable because sometimes your #2/#3/dodge will fire instantly.

• Skill/swap cancel. Interrupt yourself with a weapon swap (into GS preferably, not Longbow) or use WH#4 and dodge during the cast time.

Here’s a video by GK explaining how to do this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUwHpIxY52U

• Be aware of your surroundings (cliffs)

• If you need to, you can turn off the auto attack for more control over your AA chain. This is mostly a matter of personal preference. (ie. I play with the auto attack on, but I turn it off for certain fights). Be careful not to slow your auto attack too much, otherwise you’re better off just swapping to GS briefly.

Holy smokes this is exactly what I was looking for. It’s even showing fighting the same vet I was practicing my sword on.

Thanks again Turtle

Edit: I like how the solution to the self root of the auto-attack is a self interrupt.

Brilliant advice there, once you get over the learning curve of using the sword, you’ll never look back Eventually, once you’ve learnt the rhythms of the auto attack, you’ll rarely need to use the self interrupt and will be able to time the attacks to allow yourself to dodge. Have fun and I hope you have success with the sword!

I learned sword by doing 100% world completion using nothing but the sword. Pretty hard to not learn the timing after using it that long.