Guild Wars 2

Yep, I’m a weirdo. I don’t like to pew-pew all day, but two toothpicks sticking out from the hands of my Charr don’t make me happy too (no offense, dual wielders). After some quite long messing with professions I decided that the Rangers Great Sword is a weapon for me, coupled with LB where ABSOLUTELY necessary.
Any advices to help me hold my resolve high (that is, how to efficiently use the Great Sword in PvP or WvW)?:)
Also, apologies for my phrases and expressions – English’s not my native, so, doing my best… um, relatively:).

Pve, pvp, or wvw?

Actually, I meant getting some general use tips. Like, I see that the weapon is quite strategic – so, how to best use this strategy? Also, concerning leveling – currently, I’m leveling in PvE, obviously, so I try to set my pet into passive mode (“avoid combat”, or what’s it called), because otherwise the pet draws all the aggro, and then I can leisurely pew-pew all day long, seems to me:). Am I doing right switching my pet off like that?

As to the game modes: I’m more interested in PvP or WvW (I did wright that, but repetition makes perfect:)… erm, did I screw the proverb?), however, since I’ve yet to finish story missions, any PvE tips would be welcome too.

I’d really like to learn something with Great Sword. Not troll, not whine, but really learn, because I like the weapon very much and the Ranger class, it seems, could make just the right use of it – close to some kind of fencing, not just rushing headlong swinging the weapon, hoping my target (targets? many targets? whole lotta targets?:)) fall before I do.

For PvE it’s pretty straight forward, just swoop maul and autoattack with as many enemies on you as possible.

Against humans, it’s mostly about getting the maul to land. Typically you set it up with hilt bash or pet CC. You can also bait their dodges and land it when they’re out of endurance. Another trick is to maul from stealth on longbow skill 3.

The block will defend against an infinite amount of AoE or ranged attacks until it runs out of time if you aren’t hit with a melee attack (which triggers counter attack.)

There isn’t a ton to the weapon, just don’t waste your skills, i.e. don’t spam 5 on recharge but use it on a heal or something.

Edit: Image attached. This is an extreme example, but the idea is to maul people with maul.

37000… Sorry, wha?.:) …eyes slowly opening ’till an unhealthy state… oh:).
I have to ask though, can you do that often enough to rely on it? Because it seems TOO appealing, truth be told:).
And surely your build has to have some disadvantages to make such hits possible?

Gwaymor.4835:

37000… Sorry, wha?.:) …eyes slowly opening ’till an unhealthy state… oh:).
I have to ask though, can you do that often enough to rely on it? Because it seems TOO appealing, truth be told:).
And surely your build has to have some disadvantages to make such hits possible?

Decent players will dodge your maul quite often, so yes, you need cc or stealth to hit them.
His screenshot was made before the crit damage nerf, not doable anymore.

That’s not my screenie, I just wanted to demonstrate that the end goal is to land the extremely telegraphed maul because it can hit so hard, and to use whatever buffs you brought to accentuate maul (moment of clarity, signet of the hunt, signet of the wild, whatever you want.)

Ya it’s a pretty old screenie, but even a “normal” maul will hit for like 6k.

Edit: I’m wasting time looking at maul builds on youtube. Pretty fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS_9IaxKHps

Gwaymor.4835:

Yep, I’m a weirdo. I don’t like to pew-pew all day, but two toothpicks sticking out from the hands of my Charr don’t make me happy too (no offense, dual wielders). After some quite long messing with professions I decided that the Rangers Great Sword is a weapon for me, coupled with LB where ABSOLUTELY necessary.
Any advices to help me hold my resolve high (that is, how to efficiently use the Great Sword in PvP or WvW)?:)
Also, apologies for my phrases and expressions – English’s not my native, so, doing my best… um, relatively:).

Gonna go through each skill and write tips for them:

1:
The Evade part of the skill can be used twice, effectively granting a 2 seconds evade. Just make sure the skill hits nothing and then use it a second time and hit something.

2:
Although difficult to land in PvP because of it’s obvious animation, you can make people waste their evades by using the skill and immediately pressing the STOW hotkey (which is not set by default). This will cancel the weapon swing, but the spiritual bear will still slam down. Note that it will not do any damage, but people will almost always waste their dodge. The skill will go on a 3 seconds cooldown which is pretty spammable. Otherwise only use it if you CC’d your enemy.

3:
Counts as a double leap finisher which means a lot of heal if you have healing spring. (Actually, healing spring + swoop > troll unguent if you can time it right), or double of any combo effect. Great for getting in/out of the action.

4:
Blocks any kind of attack for as long as the attack is not in melee range. Make sure to not press many buttons when using the skill because you may accidentally cancel the knockback effect.

5:
Not much to it, works great with moment of clarity but fairly difficult to land

General tips:
Greatsword is a very predictable weapon, which means that you have to think out of the box and mix your rotations a lot if you want to hit.
People often do Block→Knockback→Hilt Bash→Maul or Hilt Bash→Maul→Block if Maul missed. Use every skill when it’s the least expected.

For pve, Maul before the Evade attack on #1….

I wouldn’t just camp greatsword. Starting the fight in longbow can get some early dps in with RF and such.

If you’re using LB with GS you can use hunter’s shot to gain stealth to hide the animation of maul. The stealth can also hide SotH and SotW before you use maul. With the first maul in using HS, I’ll use hilt bash to set up the second maul. Use swoop to reposition yourself to swap back to longbow and repeat.

This is just excellent, all of this! Thank you, good people of Tyria, especially you, Solric: I thought I could attempt feinting with the Maul, just had no idea how. And Shanks – this is what I’ve hoped for, an amalgam between timely uses of Great Sword and Longbow, to work for them in tandem, so to speak.
Did I get the idea right?
Oh, by the way, stupid question for sure, but I can’t seem to find an answer by myself: is there any way to bind the Guard/Avoid combat command to a key? I kitten near learned not to use my mouse for skills…:)

Why do you want to bind the pet agression to a key? You can keep it on whatever setting you prefer, and then use hotkeys to have it either attack or heel. Calling a target for your pet overrides it being set on passive and recalling it overrides it being set on aggressive.

I tried doing it this way, but the problem is, to my knowledge, that enemies ALWAYS choose to attack my pet and NEVER switch over to me if I don’t set the pet on passive BEFORE combat starts. Hm, am I mistaken?

Yup, you are mistaken. If your pet runs in ahead of you obviously it’s going to pick up some aggro. Is that what’s happening? The enemy AI prioritizes the closest target, and then also considers high toughness and high damage when it thinks about what to attack. And finally it randomly switches targets just to keep everyone on their toes.

But consider yourself lucky if the AI is targeting your pets instead of you! If you’re pet swapping appropriately, they basically don’t die in PvE.

And as mentioned, it pretty much doesn’t matter what your pet is set on because you can and should (or at least be able to) control them with the attack and heel commands. Things like attacking different targets than yourself, getting them out of AoE, microing important skills like blast finishers or KDs via forcing the pet to move, etc. I wind up basically spamming the pet controls.

I like using GS with healing spring and lightning drake. You can drop healing spring, leap, and pet swap to drake for massive heal when in melee range. Drakes will almost always open with blast finisher in this situation. Massive heal on you and nice party heal if allies are nearby.

As for strategy, if you are using intelligence sigil, make sure to land 2,3,44 after weapon swap. Sword throw and leap have very high base attack damage so benefit greatly from critical hit. I think mastering Leap helps tremendously. It acts differently at different ranges. There is a sweet spot about 2 meters from foe, where you just pounce right on them without running. I find this weapon fun to play, as well.

Hiltbash – maul
Swoop – hiltbash – maul
Dodgeroll through opponent – hiltbash – maul
Counter attack – maul
Circlestrafe – maul
Crippling throw
All the offensive in ranger great sword is tied to maul. Its all about making it land.

Defensive, auto attack for free evades. Swoop for evade and double leap through water fields ( healing spring). Counter attack for lots of ranged/aoe blocking or disrupts a single melee opponent. Hiltbash to interrupt a nasty attack and prevent action briefly. Crippling throw to kite melee.

All this sounds EXACTLY like I was imagining (read: smart fencing). Sounds a little overwhelming though:). Do I have to train with a friend (or guildmate) to learn all of this or is this all a result of regular play with human opponents?

You’re over thinking it, just make an effort to land skill 2. Stealth, CC, whatever. And if you forget, who cares, it’s on a 6 second cool down.

Enemies will much more often than not switch to attacking your pet in PvE.

When you come to Orr, you will be screwed if you let your pet tank everything before Orr because in Orr, enemies don’t give a flower about your pet.

We can’t give you a step-by-step guide for every possible situation in the game. Just play the game and you will learn by yourself.

Of course, people, you’ve already given me more attention than I would ever imagine I’d get with my newbie questions:). Thank you.

When I went from my celestial warrior healing shout condi bunker (long name) to full blown zerker ranger it was horrid. But I kept throwing myself at thieves(even while still lvling) and lots of 1v2 or 1v3. I still die a lot in 1v2/1v3 but what I glean from those encounters makes 1v1 much easier, and vs thieves its gg for them before they are even in combat with me.

Get rid of the stacking sigils like bloodlust. The game is much more enjoyable.

For WvW or PvP:
Turn off auto attack.
Now, if you need to create distance, deselect target and use Swoop to get out of dodge. It works even better when combo’d with Lightning Reflexes, then Swoop

Yeah, I’ve turned auto attack off even in PvE, to get the hang on how to time the auto attack evades. Pity I can’t perform the full combo without a target hit by it. Or can I?
By the way, how do I deselect targets OTHER than mashing the ESC key? Yeah, I’m that newb:).

You should be able to click somewhere else on the screen (that isn’t selectable) and that’ll deselect your target.

Justine.6351:

Get rid of the stacking sigils like bloodlust. The game is much more enjoyable.

this is gold, i have always done this with zerker builds. but i have even started doing this with bunker builds you are correct way more fun with out them.

Gwaymor.4835:

By the way, how do I deselect targets OTHER than mashing the ESC key? Yeah, I’m that newb:).

so you options for this are:
- Escape key
- Randomly clicking on the screen (you will get used to doing this but it takes awhile)
-When following a commander or a group leader etc, put a target mark on there hear use the select target key.
- there is a de-select target hot-key that you can bind, I’m and work so i cant look up exactly what is called

mostly its clicking randomly on the screen.

Justine.6351:

All the offensive in ranger great sword is tied to maul. Its all about making it land.

While Maul is the most important skill, don’t underestimate counterattack and crippling throw. Maul has a 1.5 damage coefficient. If you know an enemy attack is coming, a block + counterattack has a 1.3 damage coefficient. If you know you won’t need the block (common in PvE), double-tapping 4 will go straight to crippling throw which has a 1.0 damage coefficient.

Both do a good deal more damage than autoattack. If you have a sigil of intelligence equipped (next 3 attacks are crits after a weapon swap), you can get a lot of mileage with a Hilt Bash to freeze the target, a guaranteed Maul crit, and a guaranteed counterattack or crippling throw crit.

Your pet attacks your current target. Because the GS autoattack skills and Maul cleave, you don’t need a target to land them. You can use this to have your pet attack a different target than you are attacking. Target one mob so your pet attacks it, then manually hit 1 and 2 to attack other mobs with GS. So you can send the pet to distract a boss while you clear out trash mobs. Or if someone needs help but you can’t move to them (e.g. brazier room in CoF), you can send you pet to assist them while you continue to fight the mobs nearby you. You just need to be aware that your attacks will be pointed towards your target, and position yourself appropriately.

Gwaymor.4835:

By the way, how do I deselect targets OTHER than mashing the ESC key? Yeah, I’m that newb:).

Ah, this one again, this games’ best kept secret it seems.

Anyway, best way by far to deselect a target is by binding a key of your choice to “Lock Autotarget” in Control options. Personally, I’ve got this locked to my Alt-key.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Ah, this one again, this games’ best kept secret it seems.

Anyway, best way by far to deselect a target is by binding a key of your choice to “Lock Autotarget” in Control options. Personally, I’ve got this locked to my Alt-key.

What exactly does that do? Drop target and autotarget for you, then you immediately turn that back off to have both dropped the target and not autotarget?

At any rate, a drop target key would be life changing. Please go on.

It drops the target, yes, so there you have it for life changing. If you hold the key, you can select targets with it as well.

As many people have said, counterattack will block an infinite number of ranger attacks. However with some clever positioning you can also block infinite melee attacks.

The range of most melee weapon skills is larger than the activation range for the kick from your greatsword block. If you stand near the max range of your opponents attacks, the kick will not activate and you can continue blocking.

Just yet another reason it’s my favourite weapon set in the game!

Solandri.9640:

Justine.6351:

All the offensive in ranger great sword is tied to maul. Its all about making it land.

While Maul is the most important skill, don’t underestimate counterattack and crippling throw.

Im uploading a new roaming vid currently, in it I have seen myself criting a warrior for 3k with counter attack kick :-) Also a clip against a condi engi criting for 1.7k with the throw skill.

A trick I love to utilize is Sigils Hydromancy + Leeching (weapon swap sigils) on my greatsword. The hydro sigil hits from 500(non crit) to over 2k crits on a 240 radius aoe(big) also chilling 2 sec. The leeching sigil dmgs and heals for ~900 and is triggered by hydromancy sigil on weapon swap (1 target ofcoarse) if it hits someone. Ranger minor traits Tail Wind + Furious grip (weapon swap =swift+fury) make this combo so smooth ;-)

Crippling Throw does not require line of sight, so you throw that sucker behind you if you’re trying to create space for a hit and a cripple; And as others have mentioned, it actually does solid damage.

I think the biggest buff to GS in the 9/9 patch was that we can now use Signet of the Hunt without needed to trait for it. It synergizes unbelievably well with our greatsword. You can risk it all on a big maul, you can react to a counter-kick and activate it before the attack connects, or you can use it on a swoop/crippling throw to deal big damage to people trying to get away.

I popped a mesmer for about 4.5K + Air proc as he was retreating into stealth via mass invis (if you press throw before the stealth goes active, the blade will track,) and it put him on his kitten . It was pretty awesome.

Oh, and it’s been said a million times, but leeching sigil is awesome for bursting with maul out of longbow stealth.

I have a sneaky feeling that this post has the potential to become some sort of compendium. Thanks SO MUCH, people:).