Guild Wars 2

the ‘1’ skill for sword auto attack has a very fast (.25sec maybe?) repeating cast time that basically stunlocks my character unless i can insert another ability in between casting ques.

it is very frustrating – especially when trying to stomp someone while being overriden by auto attack 3 or 4 times in a row or attempting a double tap dodge but cast instead.

I agree with this. It can be very frustrating sometimes when you want to dodge an attack, but the sword 1 skill locks you to your enemy. It can also look really glitchy when you target a new mob in the middle of a fight, as the character sometimes will jump back and forth all over the place. Further more, it also makes it next to impossible to avoid any damage, simply because you can’t move around your target while attacking. So if your enemy has a higher damage output then you, and you’ve already used your sword dodge skills, you’re pretty much dead.

Why not just disable the sword auto attack, it’s done by holding ctrl then click right mouse button(enables/disables). You can do this with every skill on the skill bar actually.

Because it can be awkward to do depending on your keybindings, and then you’d have no auto attack?

Lonewolf.9642:

Why not just disable the sword auto attack, it’s done by holding ctrl then click right mouse button(enables/disables). You can do this with every skill on the skill bar actually.

The auto attack option should be based on personal choice, not be used as a “bug” fix.

Yeah i just died trying to dodge away twice from a mob only to have my SS auto attack drag me back in. I’ll have to have a look to see if there is an unengage button to stop auto attacking.

Really quite frustrating.

Would be o.k. if I could press 1 again to stop auto attacking with it. Then I could 1 to use it, and if I needed to dodge press 1 again to stop. I would prefer they fix it, but that isn’t likely to happen soon. They simply have too many important issues to fix. Still love my ranger with sword/horn or sword/torch though.

Disable auto attack. Go to options, uncheck “Promote skill target.” Problem solved. You can also uncheck melee attack assist to help you have more mobility in combat.

It is a common misconception that this is a bug. It is simply people needing to read their options menu more often.

Here is the thing: Let’s say you turn off auto attack, the next time you use a skill on the target, Promote Auto Attack will turn auto attack on again. Please read over the controls portion of the menu, as they may help you with future issues.

I like your elitism, Lance. The implication that these people have no idea what they’re talking about? Classy. The auto attack itself IS the problem. The point is that we should be able to have autoattack and still be able to dodge or move around with it engaged, exactly like it is with ranger greatsword actions.

It is a common misconception that legitimate complaints are nothing more than undeserved complaining on the parts of lazy players. Here’s the thing: next time you want to play the “you’re doing it wrong” card, please read over the posts you’re critiquing a second time. Or a fifth. yeah.

Sorry Lance, but carpal tunnel is not on my list of “things to get this month”.

Disabling the autoattack would require you to mash 1 all the time, which is exhausting and unhealthy.

I’d rather have that Arenanet makes us able to dodge out of the leaps on Kick and Pounce.

LanceHavenbay.2067:

Disable auto attack. Go to options, uncheck “Promote skill target.” Problem solved. You can also uncheck melee attack assist to help you have more mobility in combat.

It is a common misconception that this is a bug. It is simply people needing to read their options menu more often.

Here is the thing: Let’s say you turn off auto attack, the next time you use a skill on the target, Promote Auto Attack will turn auto attack on again. Please read over the controls portion of the menu, as they may help you with future issues.

I’m sorry but disabling a key feature (auto attack) to fix something is wrong. That’s like the old “my car makes a funny noise. Then turn your radio up louder and you won’t hear it” type of fix.

I agree with the topic starter. I think the jump from “1” must be removed at all and replaced with something useful. With it character is uncontrollable and animation is terrible.

No, Just move the jump to the first attack in the skill chain, which effectively gives 1H Sword a much needed gap closing initiator

Swiftly.2385:

No, Just move the jump to the first attack in the skill chain, which effectively gives 1H Sword a much needed gap closing initiator

Moving it to the first attack will still keep it in the rotation not fixing the locking in place problem.

No, it’s not a bug.

No, it’s not designed well at all.

I really don’t want my 1 skill to root me in place. Regardless of if you have it on auto-cast, it WILL ROOT YOU IN PLACE while executing the 2nd chain and forcibly lunge you (whether you want to or not) while executing the 3rd chain. I don’t understand how anyone could think this is a good idea. I want control of my character please.

Create a bind for ‘Sheath Weapon’, I use ‘C’ personally. This should not only cancel your auto attack but also any spells that you might channel.

I agree with the sword auto-attack not being a bug, but also not being designed well. The animation locking does prevent split second dodges, which can be fatal in some circumstances. Taking the time to sheath the weapon or pressing any other button prior to hitting your dodge, is just too much of a delay.

I don’t recall any other melee auto-attack being this restrictive. Even the Thief seems to be much more responsive to interrupting the animation chain on their melee auto-attacks.

Yeah, i turned off my auto-attack for this purpose…. I found it too difficult to dodge or roll out of anything or even walk away from an enemy, since my character would just not stop attacking…. CTRL + right click skill one to disable autoattack during these times.

The sword 1 skill is what stops me from liking and using that weapon atm. Trying to use that weapon just gets you killed.

It is a broken ability, people can say turn of auto attack etc… but the fact that it locks you in place in order to do the attack is broken. No other class has that with any weapon #1 skill. Remember this is the #1 skill, the spam attack, the auto attack. A.Net by design made the #1 skills the ability you want to set to auto attack because of the spam nature of them.

If this was some skill like Flurry or Hundred Blades then fine go ahead lock me in place while using it but no its the spam skill.

It is sad that it is broken because I really like everything else about the sword and would love to try a Sword/Dagger or Sword/Warhorn build. In the end when they fix it and I can strafe while using the #1 skill I would then love the sword and use it a lot.

I understand people saying this is not a bug, BUT if that were true then they intentionally designed a skill to negate your own dodge rolls. Why would they go through the trouble of telling us how awesome dodge is, just to turn around and say “o.k. but on a melee ranger who will need it more than most anyone else, you can’t use it kittenol”.

There is no way they purposely designed it to CC you in place. Right now sword/horn is my favorite, but it’s just really unplayable in most areas. I’ve ended up switching to 2hs because the skills all work for that beast.

I don’t think that disabling the auto-attack for Sword skill 1 is really a viable solution. As mentioned above, skill one is supposed to be a spammy skill, which is why it was supposed to have been designed to work on auto. It does for any other profession/weapon combo I’ve tried. And really, if you have to spam that ‘1’ key, you aren’t going to be as mobile as you should be and you won’t be outputting the DPS as efficiently, as you would be if the auto worked correctly.

I’ve used sword and warhorn for about 40 levels, and have also used it extensively at 80. It’s not an effective weapon. I’ll be switching my melee set, as soon as I can acquire a decent axe.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

I understand people saying this is not a bug, BUT if that were true then they intentionally designed a skill to negate your own dodge rolls. Why would they go through the trouble of telling us how awesome dodge is, just to turn around and say “o.k. but on a melee ranger who will need it more than most anyone else, you can’t use it kittenol”.

There is no way they purposely designed it to CC you in place. Right now sword/horn is my favorite, but it’s just really unplayable in most areas. I’ve ended up switching to 2hs because the skills all work for that beast.

I agree man I highly highly doubt it is intended because well look at every other #1 weapon skill. Does any other one lock you in place while the auto attack is on? Nope none that I can recall and I have played pretty much every weapon with every class in the game.

I bought 3 extra character slots and have one of every profession.

No other profession weapon #1 ability has this effect.

I really like the sword. It feels very active, with all the leaping around. However, that is all flash, the actual mobility is severely limited by the animation-locking.

For now, I mostly get around it by letting my pet tank and attacking from behind. For mobs with large AoE, like Ettins, I just switch to ranged.

They really do need to let you use swords while circling around a mob, though. A really fun weapon is made far less viable by this bug.

Issue still exists, and was not fixed in 12/14 patch.

Please fix this game breaking bug. It affects all Rangers who want to use a sword.

Just look at how many Rangers just in this post won’t use a sword (a few still do, but knowingly gimp themselves) simply because of the crappy rooting mechanic of the auto-attack.

Since launch I’m waiting for it to be fixed. And every month I read the patch notes and think to myself: ‘wtf? they fixed this and that unimportant issue, but still didn’t bother fixing the almost unusable ranger sword? – WHY ANet, WHY?!’
So is this a bug or a feature after all…???
I would really love using the sword on my ranger, but like this it just seams impossible to me…

Btw: If I’m not mistaken, in the beta state of the game that issue wasn’t there jet. So they introduced it shortly before the launch? … why?… just… why?!

STOP SAYING THE SWORD IS BAD, its the best weapon we got, please don’t use it if it feels uncomfortable to you just because you didn’t take the time to practice with it.

If you want to complain about something for rangers: Auto attack on greatsword lacks in damage, auto attack on longbow SUCKS in game, spirits die to easily, ECT ECT

If you actually take the TIME to practice with the sword and see its dmg out put and its uses you WOULD NEVER COMPLAIN.

BTW if any of you want to 1v1 in spvp for me to show you feel free to msg me in game. ONE OF THE BEST WEAPONS WE GOT.

I totally agree with you in one point: it IS one of the best weapons we got. but at the same time it seams not useable, simply bugged to me. i would love to use it, so if it actually is useable in its current form, please tell me how you do it?

I don’t think bugged, just a feature of the weapon. i don’t personally like having auto attack on for any character unless i’m attacking a boss, and i have sheath weapon key-bind to stop attacking, i don’t find it a big enough to deal imo.

What would actually be nice is if sword 1 would work like greatsword 1, I don’t see why the attacks have to be chained and if there is a reason for this, well a developer should explain… it just makes no sense to me.

Yeah. This is a huge issue, and though disabling auto-attacking is a solution it is not very viable in the long run.
The absolute worst is when wanting to finish a target, pressing F and then seeing your character continuing to spam the auto-attack. So many important seconds lost right there. It is horrible, and i personally only use it for the 2 seconds of cripple, which is very nice.

So tired of hearing this. If you don’t like it turn off auto attack, auto attack is an aid NOT a requirement in the same way you should be turning off auto target.

There is a reason you can turn off auto attack for one weapon set and leave it turned on for another.

Do NOT touch my sword #1.

turn off the autoattack . click 1 manually. It will help ALOT. Alternatively break away with hornet sting before other actions

It’s annoying…

Sword is a great weapon, it’s #1 chain is amazing – It’s high DPS (I did math comparing it to other weapons/classes and it’s really strong) it has cripple on it that can be kept up permanently and the leap allows you to stick to a target like glue.

Unfortunately the downside is either being screwed over by the #1 chain due to auto-attacking (Preventing evades, limiting mobility etc) or turning auto-attack off and manually pressing 1 thousands of times per hour…

I can’t use the sword as it is at the moment, due to the fact that having to manually press 1 so many times (I’ll not get into how insane it is if you use Quickness as often as possible, though at least the last patch helped with that somewhat) causes my wrist to ache after several minutes.

It’s strange, on my necromancer I manually press 1 with my dagger (Even though it’s on auto-attack, I just do it) and it’s fine, but due to the attack speed of the Sword #1 combined with the situational #2 and #3 abilities it really does cause problems (Lots of spamming of #1 necessary, or if I really wanted to try and annoy myself toggling Auto-attack on and off).

So the thought process I have is either lower the attack speed (Increase the damage dealt proportionately) or to make it so the leap can be cancelled via dodging/moving (Though I don’t see how that’d work) or leave it as it is and just build around not using Sword (Which is what I have done, I’ve gone for Greatsword, even though it does a lot less DPS)

I love the sword,the other two skills are evades so I rarely have a problem with the auto attack,I’d rather they buffed my longbow than change the sword.

It’s the leap animations that lock you in. I would like it better if they got rid of the leaps, upped the cripple duration it applies to the target, and had the chain give you permanent swiftness as well. That would allow you to stick to your target and still dodge.

The other thing I would ask for is to change the number 2 skill so that the first part only makes you leap back if you are in melee range of your target. That way you could use it as a gap closer if you’re far away from your target. You just hit it twice while you’re far away. The first part doesn’t move you back since you’re outside of melee range of your target and the second part functions like it always has. Once you’re in range it has the same effect that it does now.

When people complain about having to turn off auto-attack, it just makes me wonder how they deal with projectile reflection when using ranged weapons.

You can make sword kinda work if you really want, but it feels like the most awkward weapon in the entire game by a wide margin. A few people are going to stubbornly cling to it, but for the majority the autoattack chain makes MH sword extremely unappealing.

It might be okay if it was some niche warrior weapon that nobody used since there are plenty of other warrior weapons to go with, but it is a full half of the ranger’s melee options, and the other option is a very low dps set focused on personal defense which aren’t qualities that many people are interested in (you sure don’t see any mace warriors around, ever). It’s also a full half of the ranger’s options for dual wielding, so I hope you don’t like any of the offhand abilities.

The sword is easily the weapon that takes the most skill to use. It takes a ton of time to even START to feel comfortable with it.

But, once you do, you will find that the “rooting” can be used very, very effectively to your benefit. Especially if you take the time to set up your targeting to fit your playstyle. My general rule of thumb with the sword is to use the first two parts of the chain on one enemy, and use pounce to get to a different part of the zerg. It can also be directly followed by hornets sting->monarchs leap to immediately put good distance between you and your opponent.

What works best for me was to go to the heart of the mists, and practice where the “zerg” of NPC golems are just standing. It allowed me to get more familiar with the strengths of the weapon. It also helps to frequently not use targeting at all. When you are going against a large group of enemies, this allows you to surf the zerg, very literally. You will be on the other side of the group by the time they even queue up an auto attack. On the way through, if you drop things like traps/muddy ground/etc, it can be extremely effective. Pop rampage as one before you dive in, to gain stability, and have healing spring ready to take off any immobilize.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

When people complain about having to turn off auto-attack, it just makes me wonder how they deal with projectile reflection when using ranged weapons.

By hitting the sheath weapons key. (after assigning a key to it)

Switching to melee

Or turning in a different direction when you can afford to.

Let this poor thread rest in peace? No meaning to revive such and old thread and the sword “skill 1” works perfect^^

kesuh.3891:

Let this poor thread rest in peace? No meaning to revive such and old thread and the sword “skill 1” works perfect^^

I would honestly rather see an old thread revived than constantly see new ones!

I agree though, while it takes some getting used to, how the main hand sword works is extremely useful once you get the hang of it.

i agree it need to be fixed, when i use a sword i have to turn off auto-attack, but that lowers your dps as you can’t be constantly mashing 1 through a fight, or maybe you can but it’s no fun.

It may not be a ‘bug’ per se, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be changed. It needs to be changed, period. Being the only weapon in the game that you have to turn off autoattack to avoid deathtraps for is not acceptable.

Einlanzer.1627:

It needs to be changed, period.

Opinion.

Einlanzer.1627:

Being the only weapon in the game that you have to turn off autoattack to avoid deathtraps for is not acceptable.

Honest question, do you guys all play on T8 servers or something? Sometimes people just type things on the Ranger forums and I just honestly shake my head.