Guild Wars 2

Hi there fellow Rangers,

I was hoping to get some feedback on which weapon set to use in conjunction with the Longbow. I have been playing with S/W for a while now and the buff thay came this week are really nice. However whenever I switch to this set from my LB, I cant help but feel Im forced on the defensive.

I have been experimenting with GS lately and I like the balance between offense and defense. My question is, which is more functional?

S/W Pro’s
– Can blast your own water field
– Can leap in your water field for extra healing
– Average Disengage
– Extra evade on Sword 3
– Gives Fury and Swiftness

S/W Cons
– Lack of mobility on auto attack
– Long Cooldowns (even after the buff)
– Low damage

Greatsword Pros
– Mobile Auto Attack
– Good Dps
– Shorter Cooldowns
– 1100 Range Leap
– Block Skill on 4
– Stun/ Daze on 5

Greatsword Cons
– No Blast Finisher
– No Fury/Swiftness

So what do you guys think?

If you are willing to go 4 into nature magic, you can have your greatsword grant fury on hit, so lack of fury isn’t really a con.

Also the 1h sword has higher dps than the greatsword, it just doesn’t have burst.

I am a big fan of sw/wh for my melee swap (LB for rest). I am taking for general wvw since pve you can play anything.

I run runes of the pack also. Open with WH4, swap to LB2. .big damage. Hold WH 5 for blast in heal. Swiftness is up 95% of the time (5 sec that is is down)..

Plus sword is fast, solid dps. not flashy big hits like GS2, but I like it. Also the leap on sword 2 can be handy.

All this is in the meta zerk build for ranger..

The warhorn is quite weak in a 1v1, borderline useless. Consider any of the other offhands, which are all outstanding.

Also your con that sword autoattack lacks mobility is not true at all. Lack of dodge, possibly, definitely not lack of mobility since 2 of the 3 skills are leaps.

Fluffball.8307:

The warhorn is quite weak in a 1v1, borderline useless. Consider any of the other offhands, which are all outstanding.

Also your con that sword autoattack lacks mobility is not true at all. Lack of dodge, possibly, definitely not lack of mobility since 2 of the 3 skills are leaps.

Ehh not really sold about that. Cond build, sure you use torch no question. Power though, axe 4 can be really nice. 5 is just niche and not that great.. WH is better then axe in many of those spots..

So to clarify this is most definitely for WvW focus, mainly roaming. Running a 6/6/0/2/0 zerk/celest combo. The issue with sword for me is the animation, for example sword or warrior you can walkk around and swing through the full combo where as you cant do that with ranger. The animation starts and you are locked into the distance you are traveling. Handy when chasing but not in a brawl.

Any thoughts on other off hand weapons to pair with the sword?

Sword for wvw is great. however you need to read up and see all the wonderful tips/tricks about it that is posted the boards.

If you are going to roam, GS won’t help out outside of disengaging. Any half way decent roamer won’t let maul hit.. Which is why you use GS

I use sword/warhorn in PvP as Thief/Mesmer hate. Especially combined with quickness, you can stick to a thief in stealth and push him out of a team fight entirely, or use quickness and sword 1 as your burst against an enemy who’s just used their heal.

EDIT: Something to note that most people don’t know is that Greatsword’s leap actually counts as two separate leap finishers between the “running” and “leaping” animations and will double your effective heal finisher through a water field if the transition between the two animations occurs inside of the water field.

Sword,gs,offhand Axe, dagger and warhorn are all viable lb swaps. Try them all and see what plays right for what you want to do.

And please don’t say “maul never lands on good roamers”. You have to set that up or ofcoarse you will miss big ole bear attack.

Lots of people think call birds skill sucks but it really is pretty nasty on a zerker spec.

If you like hoping around like rabbit then try sword and untarget your foe. You will hop all over.

Dagger is good evade and another poison, vital.

Offhand Axe is utility beast.

Siobhan.3582:

Ehh not really sold about that. Cond build, sure you use torch no question. Power though, axe 4 can be really nice. 5 is just niche and not that great.. WH is better then axe in many of those spots..

WH 4 does less damage than just autoattack and you have to maintain LoS. WH 5 is only useful if you have healing spring, and even then it’s only really useful if you have allies on your position.

Axe 4 is one of the hardest hitting skills in the profession as well as a hard CC, and axe 5 can be used against almost every build. Don’t forget you don’t have to wait out the entire duration. If you want to use it as a melee attack you might, but once the Killshot/RF/Sneak Attack (<— one of my personal favorites since thieves never seem to expect that) or whatever goes off, you can cancel it and start moving again.

My real point was that WH is not good in 1v1s, it’s more of a team fight for PvP choice. I personally take dagger 93% of the time.

Siobhan.3582:

Sword for wvw is great. however you need to read up and see all the wonderful tips/tricks about it that is posted the boards.

If you are going to roam, GS won’t help out outside of disengaging. Any half way decent roamer won’t let maul hit.. Which is why you use GS

Any half way decent ranger knows how to cancel maul if the opponent dodges or blocks so it goes on a shorter cooldown.

GS provides a block, ranged cripple, interrupt/stun/daze, double leap finisher, nasty burst, and multiple evades.

Claiming it is only useful for disengaging just tells me you don’t know how to use the weapon to its full potential.

I would take Jim’s point further and say the GS is not as useful for disengaging, s/d is better for that because of the high evade and mobility. GS is better for spiking, as is s/a.

Fluffball.8307:

I would take Jim’s point further and say the GS is not as useful for disengaging, s/d is better for that because of the high evade and mobility. GS is better for spiking, as is s/a.

Absolutely agree, I find GS to be better for chasing due to the ranged cripple and 1100 range leap and s/x better for evading around and escaping. Although there are a lot of times when the GS block is more useful than the evades.

I Tried the greatsword out last night. Honestly I quite like the balance of it. No issues landing Maul, especially from stealth! The block is awesome against ranged burst as the counter attack doesnt proc. The interrupt is sweet too. I do miss the evades though.

Try s/d. Best switch for berserker LB WvW IMO.