Guild Wars 2

I started using the greatsword the other day. I had always wanted to use it on my ranger but i never did because i heard it was really underpowered, but since the buff it got in the patch i thought it was my time to try it.
Well, it turns out i love it and im a condition ranger. With superior earth on it, it stacks bleeds quite nicely and plus most of its attacks hit multiple targets resulting in Aoe bleeds.
So i was wondering, why dont i see more rangers using the greatsword? it seems like a pretty versatile weapon even though i’ve been lead to believe it should be only used in a tankier build. Oh and i use it alongside the shortbow, so i have the option to kite/ keep my distance if need be.

You answered your question in an earlier paragraph.

I’d rather use axe and torch to put out conditions over a gs. And the gs doesn’t give much damage or enough bleeds for my build. I use it to travel or if I can’t hit enemies with projectiles.

Greatsword has no condition damage at all besides Maul. All in all it’s quite horrible for a condition build. You’re much better off with a power build if you want to use it that badly. I’m not even entirely sure why Maul does bleed damage anyway. It’s almost as bad as the sword and the dagger.

Greatsword is good with a power build. It can be useful with a condition build, but you may have to sacrifice some points for Sharpened Edges and use a utility slot for Sharpening Stone if you want to make it your primary weapon.

Thinking outside the box sometimes leads to some really neat builds that are ugly on paper and beautiful in practice.

I’ve recently been using greatsword a lot for PvE (still stick with sword/dagger for PvP though).

Agadar.4931:

Greatsword has no condition damage at all besides Maul. All in all it’s quite horrible for a condition build. You’re much better off with a power build if you want to use it that badly. I’m not even entirely sure why Maul does bleed damage anyway. It’s almost as bad as the sword and the dagger.

Bears using maul do Bleed damage, and Maul is obviously based on that (considering the Bear graphic when using it) so… I think it fits perfectly well.

Electro.4173:

Agadar.4931:

Greatsword has no condition damage at all besides Maul. All in all it’s quite horrible for a condition build. You’re much better off with a power build if you want to use it that badly. I’m not even entirely sure why Maul does bleed damage anyway. It’s almost as bad as the sword and the dagger.

Bears using maul do Bleed damage, and Maul is obviously based on that (considering the Bear graphic when using it) so… I think it fits perfectly well.

I’m not talking about fluff, I’m talking about the technicality behind the weapon. Why make half of a weapon’s main damage attack do condition damage when neither the autoattack nor any other attack on the weapon applies any conditions at all? It’s absurd. What would be much more in line with the weapon’s technicality would be if it made you evade or block, or made someone knock down or daze.

The main use of a greatsword in a condition build is that you can be a stationary target. I actually use greatsword and axe/torch with flame trap, spike trap, and viper’s nest for general farming and it works great.

1) Pull everything with your axe and bunch them up.
2) Drop all 3 traps (Spike -> Flame -> Viper) and then Bonfire (Add entangle in there somewhere if you want).
3) Fire off Split Blade through as many enemies as you can.
4) Swap to Greatsword.
5) Swoop -> Maul.
6) 1 spam to win (usually takes 2-3 seconds). Edit: Pet swap here for more evades.

I AoE farm all areas of Orr that way. The only things that give me any problems are when there are too many ranged enemies and I can’t LoS to bunch them up nicely. Throwing out traps everywhere and spamming 1 on either axe or greatsword (depends on DE) makes mob tagging in DEs incredibly easy. I do swap out greatsword for shortbow on champions though.

Every other ability is situational and mostly used against veterans. I have a preoccupation with killing veteran risen giants. I just don’t like them.

Here’s the build if anyone cares: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAR3fjEV11tVyVo2Bi2DAYeMxeAAH9oXh0XwqG

The blank traits can be filled with whatever you fancy really. Empathic Bond can be swapped for Bark Skin without much loss and might be better depending what you’re farming. You might also prefer Martial Mastery over Off-hand Mastery but I like the bigger Bonfire more than lower CD on the Greatsword. Pets can be changed to whatever you like (Edit: I would use drakes if they worked right). For gear I’m currently using Apothecary armor with 5/6 pirate runes and 1/6 travelers (it’s a farming build) and a mix of berserker and valkyrie trinkets (left over from my old build) but I want to replace them with Apothecary trinkets as well eventually.

It would be such a fun weapon to use if it could deal some damage. Swoop is extremely good and has the best animation of the game.

Agadar.4931:

Electro.4173:

Agadar.4931:

Greatsword has no condition damage at all besides Maul. All in all it’s quite horrible for a condition build. You’re much better off with a power build if you want to use it that badly. I’m not even entirely sure why Maul does bleed damage anyway. It’s almost as bad as the sword and the dagger.

Bears using maul do Bleed damage, and Maul is obviously based on that (considering the Bear graphic when using it) so… I think it fits perfectly well.

I’m not talking about fluff, I’m talking about the technicality behind the weapon. Why make half of a weapon’s main damage attack do condition damage when neither the autoattack nor any other attack on the weapon applies any conditions at all? It’s absurd. What would be much more in line with the weapon’s technicality would be if it made you evade or block, or made someone knock down or daze.

An on-demand evade in addition to the auto-attack evade and a block might be a bit much defensively. And having at least one damage-dealing attack is nice (Condition or not), considering auto-attack damage on the Greatsword is less than impressive, though I suppose maybe thats up to personal preference as to whether you want to go full defense or have at least some offense to speak of.

Preference or no, there are plenty of weapons that have a mix of conditions and non-condition related attacks, so I wouldn’t really consider it of the ordinary for a weapon to have one damage condition attack mixed in with defensive / non-condition attacks.

The way they changed the #4 block to work against ranged the GS is actually a very decent burn applicator on ranged enemies using the Runes of the guardian.

Proccing a 1 second burn on every block lets you export flame trap level damage abroad. Not great against slow attackers but against an unload, haste, rapid fire a pretty strong condition applying method.

Arrys.7145:

The way they changed the #4 block to work against ranged the GS is actually a very decent burn applicator on ranged enemies using the Runes of the guardian.

Proccing a 1 second burn on every block lets you export flame trap level damage abroad. Not great against slow attackers but against an unload, haste, rapid fire a pretty strong condition applying method.

That’s still way too situational, you will apply next to 0 conditions on a melee attacker as you are forced to kick them.

As much as I want to like the greatsword, I just can’t. It’s like trying to cut a tree down with a frozen tuna. The weapon just doesn’t have any bite. I also feel like rangers need a blast finisher. Drakes are supposed to have one, but since they never use the skill it’s tied to, it may as well not exist.

GS’s maul does 3 stacks of bleed, which pales in comparison to Axe + dagger (5+3 =8 stacks). Plus you get chill, weakness and poison. Or you can use axe + torch which will give you burning.

monepipi.5160:

GS’s maul does 3 stacks of bleed, which pales in comparison to Axe + dagger (5+3 =8 stacks). Plus you get chill, weakness and poison. Or you can use axe + torch which will give you burning.

You have 2 weapon sets, use both.

People also seem to be entirely focused on single target (which makes sense for PvP I guess) but Maul is an AoE and hits really hard, way harder than split blade on the axe even if you do hit with all 5.

But personally I carry around a Shortbow, Longbow, Axe, Horn, Torch, Sword, and Greatsword at all times. I use what is best for the situation and for general AoE PvE farming Greatsword is great.

GS is an utility weapon, it works with power or with condition spec, doesnt really matter. and compared to other melee variants, GS got strong mobility with swoop.
Talking about WWW here now, I just need some fast travel/escape tool, thats why i hate running with SB and axe/dagger/torch.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Arrys.7145:

The way they changed the #4 block to work against ranged the GS is actually a very decent burn applicator on ranged enemies using the Runes of the guardian.

Proccing a 1 second burn on every block lets you export flame trap level damage abroad. Not great against slow attackers but against an unload, haste, rapid fire a pretty strong condition applying method.

That’s still way too situational, you will apply next to 0 conditions on a melee attacker as you are forced to kick them.

I tend to agree. Against melee attackers it was weak. Against ranged strong. But if you were using GS in a condition build it gives you another condition applicator of varying power. And stacking multiple @600 damage burns on a ranged attacker isn’t chicken feed when it comes to damage.