Guild Wars 2

just a general question. For those of you who use a main hand sword in WvW how do you use it to cover distance.

At the moment when i use it, i have turnaround bound to ‘z’.
So i press ‘z’ press ‘2’ press ‘z’ again and press ‘2’ again, some time even throughing in the occasions LR.

While it works i find i can’t reliably execute it in a panic to escape, i can usually get it as a disengage (as i don’t have to worries about the first spin) but while I’m running away i will eventually mess it up.

Does any one have a better way or do i just need to practice more?

It is a bit harder when you’r in combat, I sometimes target the enemy and then just jump right back into the fray, but it takes some getting used to.

it’s not the initial escape that i have a problem with, I am used to turning and clicking off in the distance from heavy use of the gs in roaming.

it’s the keeping it up when I’m being chased that i have trouble on the second or third rotation i will mess it up and get caught.

i big problem for me is the turnaround button doesn’t work when your holding down right click that is what often cause me grief.

when running between objectives i don’t have to many problems 1 because it does matter if i do and 2. I’m using auto run.

I’m in a “practice more” mode right now, as I did this almost by accident while dueling a warrior last week and now I’m hungry for more. At least it makes gathering mats more interesting by spin-dashing everywhere.

I’ve found that simply spinning in place isn’t quite good enough to set the direction if travel. On top of the spin you have to take a step forward or back to plant the direction of leap.

I honestly don’t have a key bound for turnaround. I just manually do it with my mouse every time. However, I have my right click speed sensitivity adjusted to the point where I can do it almost instantly. I actually end up accidentally turning my camera faster than my character turns to look and activating it too soon if I’m screwing around.

I do also run offhand dagger with Offhand Training though, so sometimes I’ll buffer turning around and leaping back with Dagger 4, that way there is only a few frames that I can actually get caught by an attack. Not saying it’s impossible by any means, but I start the dagger 4 animation, turn the camera during it so I can evade backwards, and then to the spin. It seems like a good safety first method, though it’s understandable that not everybody is running dagger.

Keep practicing, also, what pets are you running? Dogs are great for aoe cc, will help with your kite. I run spider/ wolf. Spider is a bit trickier but with right camera work you can pull off an immob on someone while leap is on cd.

It sounds like your troubles are in open spaces but I always look for somewhere I can LoS (this isn’t reality sometimes in wvw i know). When I get there, just dart around obstacles making life miserable for anyone who wants to chase me.

Oh yeah, if you slightly turn to the left and sword 3 you can evade and stay in your general line.

Sounds like you just need more practice.

The only tip I have is you can avoid having to turn around at all if you have something behind you targeted. You just use the first leap, while thats happening deselect your target and when the leap is finished you’ll still be running the same way and can leap again. So to that end, if you’re running past a lil critter or other random NPC, you can click on them as you go past and use them to leap of without use about turn at all.

Don’t use the about face button twice, it’s way faster to use it once, then use your mouse to turn your view as you leap. Before you land, start running forward, which will automatically point your character towards the new direction. Now use your second leap.

The advantage is not just speed, but also control. Your second leap will go in the exact direction you want it to rather than just 2 leaps in a straight line.

I found the hotkey for turning gets me into more trouble than getting me out of it, so I just do it manually with my mouse instead. Just remember to deselect your target when you want to jump the other way, use the terrain to lose line of sight and sometimes bouncing towards the enemy and running the opposite direction gets them more confused, which then helps you to get away. I’m also using Lightning Reflexes and GS Swoop to get some distance between me and the chaser, with just the 1h sword alone I suppose it’s a bit trickier.

I manually do the turns with my mouse. If you are super pro you can detarget the auto attack chain and leap twice away from your target.

I just use my mouse.

In the fighting game community there’s a term called ‘p-linking’ or simply ‘plinking’ buttons that means you press the buttons separately, but so close together that the game only registers them one or two frames apart.

EDIT: But yeah I just do about face -> Hornet Sting -> about face -> Monarch Leap. This game doesn’t really register inputs super fast so ‘plinking’ things is a very safe way to do it. The camera will turn and then the character will execute the attack.

So I basically practiced doing that with my about face and sword 2 keys. Just sit around until you can do it consistently out of combat when there is no threat. When you’re comfortable with that, force yourself to use it in goofy situations during combat so you get the clutch execution down.

Best way that worked for me is to use the mouse.

Use Hornet’s Sting and then as you are rolling back turn around with your mouse to face the direction you want and then hold both mouse buttons together to force your character to go in that direction and finish off by leaping.
During the time you are moving around with your mouse though you need to find time to click in empty space to deselect your target (or press ESC if you can either one works).

Good luck with practice, it feels great when you finally get it down.

thanks for the suggestions,

I have not problem with it being a need more practice thing i just wanted to make sure that was practicing a good way of doing.

think I’m going to practices a few of the different ways of turning with the mouse, i just feels slow at the moment

I totally disagree with those suggesting a second use of about face. There is a fraction of a second where your character will completely stop moving. If you rotate the camera as you’re pushing 2 the first time, your character will never stop moving. That makes a huge, huge difference, despite being an almost unnoticeable length of time you’re standing in one spot. Especially if you’re running for your life.

Reiven.2543:

During the time you are moving around with your mouse though you need to find time to click in empty space to deselect your target (or press ESC if you can either one works).

The best way to deselect targets:
Bind a key to “Lock Autotarget” – never struggle with finding an empty space to click to clear your target ever again (also way better than ESC).

The amazing thing about sword 2 is that its basically a gap closer split in two freely controllable parts. that allows for some really nice move. You can just disengage as far as possible from your enemy in one line, of course, but you can also you use it to close the gap or move in any other direction you want on the second jump. It allows for superior positioning control and some other adanced tactics. Its like Pikachus recovery move from the Smash series which is a really good move in competetive play.
I myself do have a key bound for making an u-turn however im not always using i dont always just want to get in the direction imf acing. For that i really helps to set your camera sensitivity high and control it per mouse manually. There is however no really good tip how to learn it other than practicing it, after some time you dont really think about it anymore

OGDeadHead.8326:

The best way to deselect targets:
Bind a key to “Lock Autotarget” – never struggle with finding an empty space to click to clear your target ever again (also way better than ESC).

Awesome advice! I have been meaning to go through the target menu to try and figure out a way to clear target with a key press, thanks for this!

As for jump-traveling these are the basic motions:
(first you probably want to clear target)

1 – mouse rotate 180 – think about your destination not necessarily right in the direction you were moving, since your jump is much faster than running.
2 – hit #2 – keep walking backward while animation running, it will keep your camera etc aligned and a few steps cant hurt
3 run – when you land run forward for 1-2 seconds, again this will ensure you are aligned properly. At this point you either want to sure your target is cleared or you will jump back!
4- hit #2 to jump again

All becomes automatic with a little practice and you will have perfect jumps every time!