Guild Wars 2

With the small buffs greatsword is getting in the upcoming balance patch, does it begin to shorten the gap between sword and greatsword for pve? Having another option other then sword would be nice.

It might actually be worse depending on how much chill and cripple your dungeon group puts out (probably close to zero, but I’m not intimately familiar with the minor traits of non-ranger meta builds.)

The GS buffs are all aimed at competitive formats.

How much did they say they were increasing the damage by on each attack?

There isn’t much of a gap between the 2 weapons as it is.

IIR, the only damage increase is the 3rd attack on the autoattack chain by 10%. Or maul hitting 5 targets instead of 3, but that’s not important for dungeon bosses.

On the other hand the 1-hand sword is getting a 10% damage increase via the new trait.

The new trait will help 1 hand sword but in order to work it in say with a 6 5 0 3 0 build you will lose a 5% damage minor trait Bountiful Hunter. So yes, Great sword will close the gap a bit. It still wont be as good though.

Mr Pin.6728:

The new trait will help 1 hand sword but in order to work it in say with a 6 5 0 3 0 build you will lose a 5% damage minor trait Bountiful Hunter. So yes, Great sword will close the gap a bit. It still wont be as good though.

That still puts the sword up an additional 5% from where it is now. Not sure how much the 100 extra power instead of 100 vitality is worth too.

I agree. That will be the test of it, great sword could run the 6 5 0 3 0 build or the current 4 5 0 5 build and still benefit from both. How much is up in the air. Things like the fury will allow flexibility in foods etc. But for the record I completely agree that 1 handed sword will just get better and still be the optimal choice. I just think great sword will be less, less optimal. If that makes sense.

It doesn’t make sense as I’m seeing it. For dungeons, the GS is getting a (my guesstimate) 3% damage increase via the autoattack, while the sword is getting a 10%, or maybe.. (my guesstimate) 6.5% damage increase via losing bountiful hunter but gaining more power. So the greatsword should fall further behind than it already is.

I guess that’s compounded by the sword doing more damage in the first place, so a bigger % increase of more is bigger than smaller % increase of less.

For dungeons it is very likely that the boss will have some sort of cripple/immob/chill from other players and from your pet so GS can get the same benefit as the sword.

In my opinion the GS will just get a bit of buff + the new trait and sword will just have an easier access of the new trait bonus.

I don’t see how great sword is falling further behind. The new trait isn’t exclusive to sword so great sword will get the 10% damage benefit from it as well. Assuming the same build the only damage increase would be the 10% from the new GM trait which BOTH sword and great sword would receive and the damage increase to the auto attack of great sword. Soft CC shouldn’t be difficult to apply even for just the ranger. Snow leopard has a chill, Alpine wolf has a chill and cripple, great sword has a cripple, owl has chill, etc. So all things being equal the only difference is that great sword gets a 3% buff, sword does not. Which would make great sword something like 9% less effective rather then it being 12% less effective or there about as it currently is.

My understanding is that it’s since the sword can chain c
ripples to maintain permanent it’s only getting benefit in the calcs tho realistically you could definately time your best gs attacks ( maul) to receive the benefit either by the gs cripple#4 or something like hydromancy. It’s just easier on the sword since you basically do nothing different.

Fluffball.8307:

IIR, the only damage increase is the 3rd attack on the autoattack chain by 10%. Or maul hitting 5 targets instead of 3, but that’s not important for dungeon bosses.

On the other hand the 1-hand sword is getting a 10% damage increase via the new trait.

Bear in mind that GS is already superior to sword against 2+ targets. Maul currently contributes about 20% to GS DPS (untraited). Allowing it to hit up to 5 targets will just boost it more.

Untraited GS will fall just behind sword with the new 10% trait against 2 targets. GS + either martial mastery or 2H training will stay just ahead of sword with the new 10% trait against 2 targets. GS will still always be better against 3 targets.

Sword for bosses, GS for clearing trash with AOE and defense/mobility.

I really wish they’ll take the time to give us an option other than sword, where you don’t get that nagging feeling you -should- be using something else. It’s cool and all but variety is the spice of life.

Greatsword 4 can cripple. So can your team. Also, the new entangle.

GG.

Time to crank out our Volcanuses, Foefires, Twilights, and Eternities, YEEHAW!

Everyone is listing a ton of CC that is not applicable to dungeon runs. Alpine wolves? Entangle? Those have horrific uptime even if they were not MASSIVE damage penalties to begin with.

What is a realistic uptime of soft CC in a meta dungeon run? I’ll have to keep an eye out for it next time I run a dungeon, but I’m guessing it’s pretty low (or even effectively zero). Do any meta builds apply chill at all? Even eles mostly avoid water magic.

I don’t think GS is a good candidate for the new trait.

Fluffball.8307:

Everyone is listing a ton of CC that is not applicable to dungeon runs. Alpine wolves? Entangle? Those have horrific uptime even if they were not MASSIVE damage penalties to begin with.

What is a realistic uptime of soft CC in a meta dungeon run? I’ll have to keep an eye out for it next time I run a dungeon, but I’m guessing it’s pretty low (or even effectively zero). Do any meta builds apply chill at all? Even eles mostly avoid water magic.

I don’t think GS is a good candidate for the new trait.

Necros provide extremely high cripple uptime on their meta PvE build :p

Necros new meta to give rangers a 6% damage boost. I can see it now!

Fluffball.8307:

Necros new meta to give rangers a 6% damage boost. I can see it now!

Who knows? Necros could get the patch preview that they’ve been waiting for just like we did for the Longbow lol.

jcbroe.4329:

Fluffball.8307:

Necros new meta to give rangers a 6% damage boost. I can see it now!

Who knows? Necros could get the patch preview that they’ve been waiting for just like we did for the Longbow lol.

And now I am terrified. Necros might be the one class in a worse position than rangers right now so what kind of nightmare buffs are they going to get? :-O

Would be hilarious to get ranger and necros as the new dungeon meta haha

Hahaha I’d honestly die of happiness if necromancers got melee cleave and higher autoattack damage on axe (makes sense as its probably their least used weapon outside of zerging) as well as some sort of post might DPS buffing, except that won’t happen because Anet wants necros to have only burst AoE but not sustained AoE (cleave) as a weakness, in addition to the CC/focus fire burst weakness.

Right now necros are in a great place in WvW, and I doubt anything they could do would hinder that, and I’d sort of expect them to buff DS defenseively to deal with focus fire better.

Like with ranger, I’d see necros mainly getting trait line changes and buffs to lesser used weapons, so probably axe.

As for the other classes I play, the changes anet makes to mesmers will determine whether or not I delete that purple piece of bugged garbage.