Guild Wars 2

Hello.

I wanted to ask others opinions of the behavior or one handed sword. The way the auto attack works in theory is great, a cripple and a jump build right in (since we dont actually have any real gap closers through utility skills). However the…useability I suppose leaves something to be wanted.

I’ve been working on finding more viable builds for a melee ranger as I think it has a lot of potential, but Im so very partial on one handed sword because of how dangerous it is for YOU. You might have noticed that when you’re leaping and spinning around you cant move, nor can you dodge roll or activate any other skills until your 3 hit combo is over. Sometimes, Ill even start to run strait away from whatever Im attacking and then begin again like its a magnet, even after hitting esc to cancel my auto attack.

I’m not sure if this is working as intended, but it seem s bit out of place. In PvE Ive sent myself flying off of cliffs a few times, or dying to a massive boss aoe I saw coming but couldn’t dodge roll out of the way for. Yes I know you have retreat and monarchs leap to get back into the fight, but most bosses have shorter attack times than the cooldown coupled with our 3 skill.

Same basic issue in PvP, where that split-second reaction time to get out or switch targets is crucial, but sometimes you just cant because your combo wont allow it.

Do other think this is working as intended? Or is there some way around this Im just missing?

Rangers have been complaining about this since beta, the only work around this is to disable auto-cast this way you wont be locked but then you will have to spam that first skill.

My idea would be for your pet to leap to the target and not the player him self, this way you would not be locked and it would be like a combo move between the ranger and his pet, but then it might screw with the pet attack animations and might conflict with ranged pets.

Welcome to being a ranger, If you want to melee you get stuck with mediocre damage or you self cc 90% of the time.

There’s no way the one-handed sword is working as intended. The skills and animations describe a highly mobile, agile, even acrobatic style of melee combat. But in practice the whole thing feels horribly clumsy.

Skill #1 chain — Locks you in place for a significant portion of the time. Why? For comparison, the #1 chain on the more tanky/brutish Greatsword (2-hander) allows unrestricted movement.

Fix: Skill #1 should not impede the player’s movement, period.

Skill #2 — Leaping backwards out of the fray sounds like a great evasive maneuver, right? Well, only if you can precisely control the timing of it, which you can’t. On the plus side, it’s a great way to accidentally pull adds.

Fix: Skill #2 should take priority over other animations (similar to dodge), or at least be allowed to interrupt the #1 chain.

Skill #3 — Very frustrating when this skill puts you where the mob USED to be.

Fix: This could be handled in a lot of different ways, but personally I’d like to see skill #3 do damage + poison along its path, rather than only at its destination.

The Skill #1 chain locked got me nailed on my first run of AC storymode. Very frustrating trying to dodge back out of AoE and being able to do nothing to save myself.

Then again, for a Melee ranger I like 1h Sword, Torch, Healing Spring, Flame Trap, Viper Trap, Regen Sig (forgot the name) and the Fury elite (forgot this too). I have the +5/kill condition stack on the torch and 30% bleed on sword. It seems to work nicely in most situations. I swap out to Longbow if needed at any time.

I usually use a Spider for a pet. The ranged attacks usually keep them alive.

Turn your camera 180 degrees. Run or dodge away. Problem solved.

I have been having a problem with dodge not triggering when trying to dodge backwards in melee. Very frustrating.

nldixon.8514:

Turn your camera 180 degrees. Run or dodge away. Problem solved.

No, that doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is two of the three attacks in the sword autoattack chain cause your character to jump at the target (even if you are already in melee range) and during the time when your feet are off the ground you can’t move or interrupt the attack except by switching weapons.

You can turn off autoattack so the chain won’t automatically proceed, which gives you a little bit more control about when you leave your feet, but it still doesn’t solve the fundamental problem that a ranger can’t deal effective damage with a sword without continually leaping at their target, and doing that severely limits your control over your movement and positioning.

Turning away from my target has never failed to work for me, so I’m not sure why it won’t work for you.

I run sword/warhorn and axe/torch and have no problems getting out of melee range.