Guild Wars 2

This game is built around fast paced action and quick reflexes… Well, mediocre reflexes at least where you need to move accordingly to avoid being hit.

The one handed sword for the ranger doesn’t seem to be to fond of this idea and decides to go on it’s own little jumping dance killing spree where you get stuck in the animation till it’s done for attack two and three on slot one. Attack one is fine.

You can’t dodge an attack you saw coming miles away when you are stuck in animation, so you are basically a sitting duck just waiting for the attack to ram you no matter how much you tap the dodge mechanism.

Make us able to cancel any attack we were doing in order to dodge! Why can’t we?! If I can avoid getting hurt by sacrificing ONE attack outa a thousand then i’ll gladly do that!

I miss being in control of my character with this class. Can’t circlestrafe, can’t dodge, however get’s hit more frequently than needed.

Fix it. It might not be broken and it might be intended and if that’s the case it doesn’t require fixing… Then Tweak it!

Take the #1 off auto attack and the sword becomes a much better weapon. I no longer get stuck in the animations when I’m controlling the attack and the “stickiness” of the sword attacks is very nice. #2 and #3 are like 2 free dodge rolls.. one with a poison no less and make for some very interesting mobility scenarios (when you are strafing in line with someone to the right you can hit serp strike and pretty much it will roll you right on them).

Sword auto attack sucks.. but when you take off auto attack (I run sword/warhorn and I put the bird attack on auto attack) it is much more manageable and gives you a TON of mobility.

I will try that out…

I still think this sword issue needs either tweaking or fixing though.

no. sword is great. in fact, you can leap between targets like a ninja, on demand, once u get the hang of switching on the fly. just take it off autoattack people.

I’m not saying “Change the weapon patterns and get rid of the stupid jumping frenzy”!

I’m telling them to tweak it so that we can dodge anytime we want like any other class. Every other class i’ve played can dodge in the middle of an attack, effectively cancelling the attack and instead doing a dodge roll.

I’m all for keeping the weapon pattern, but the stupid LOCKED IN ANIMATION #¤&/ is what ticks me off since it doesn’t allow us to dodge roll on command!

I’m with the OP. It’s not a matter of “is the sword good or isn’t it”, it’s simply a matter of being locked inside a long animation. You should pretty much never be restricted from dodging or moving by an attack animation, it’s too much of a liability. The people saying it doesn’t need to be changed aren’t thinking too clearly.

Just want to add that if you try to use “F” to finish someone while the sword is in auto attack, you only have like half a sec window to press “F” if not you have to wait for the entire sword animation again.

I think the fast button smashing of WoW has also jaded people a little. IMHO the combat in GW2 is much more fluid and allows you to exercise a little patience when fighting. It isn’t he who smashes button the fastest wins.. it is he who presses the right buttons at the right time wins. Pay attention to the animations because instead of a casting bar type system GW2 uses animations to communicate what is the right button to press. And again.. the problem is the sword on auto attack.. so you take it off auto attack and MANY of the problems go away.. not to mention it will make you a better player especially in melee. As another poster said embrace your inner ninja with the sword because once you do you will have that enlightened moment.

^ that pretty much. you cant button mash the sword. it has a really nice flow to it if you know how to time your attacks.

^ Having to time every attack I do tend to be an insane waste to damage per second in comparison to other professions.

Instead of being capable of doing maybe 500 like every other profession stuck on auto-attack with better evasion capabilities than myself, I am forced to hold back my flow of attacks just to be given a chance to dodge…?

If I attempt to have a steady flow of damage constantly applied to my target, I will sacrifice survivability when the other professions don’t?

So basically the way you’re putting it is like this:

Sacrifice DPS unnecessarily for more control of your attacks, and you get to behave like a ninja. You can dodge easier at this rate.

Sacrifice survivability by having a constant flow of attacks on your targets giving you a higher DPS.

Other professions don’t need to do neither of these things, and can have a steady flow of damage on the target while having a normal amount of survivability since they are not LOCKED in animation… While rangers are forced to one over the other?

Where the hell are you guys coming from? I’m just asking? Because to me it looks like you’re not seeing things straight and just think about playing around like ninjas by timing your SLOT 1 attacks, the weakest attacks of them all if they are not chained constantly.

I repeat myself:
Make dodge cancel the animations and let us dodge ON COMMAND and not half a second after the command is given since then it will be TO LATE and you will have wasted an endurance bar for nothing, putting you on an even greater disadvantage.

For those of you who want to stick to timing your slot 1 attacks, BE MY GUEST. I’m not telling them to change the animation, i’m telling them to not LOCK us in them. This benefits you guys just as much as it benefits auto-attackers! Nobody’s losing anything on this, how can you not see this? I mean are you blindfolded when reading my posts or something? No offense intended, but it makes me wonder sometimes.

I love all the people in this thread telling the OP to take it off auto cast. I guess people like getting carpel tunnel.

Being able to dodge mid attack needs to be implemented.

TwiceDead.1963:

I’m not saying “Change the weapon patterns and get rid of the stupid jumping frenzy”!

I’m telling them to tweak it so that we can dodge anytime we want like any other class. Every other class i’ve played can dodge in the middle of an attack, effectively cancelling the attack and instead doing a dodge roll.

I’m all for keeping the weapon pattern, but the stupid LOCKED IN ANIMATION #¤&/ is what ticks me off since it doesn’t allow us to dodge roll on command!

The jumping frenzy on the one combined with it’s speed of autoattack is actually why you are locked in place on autoattack.

So yes you are.

The third skill in the #1 Sword chain used to have an Evade tied into it. Does anyone know why they ever took it off?

My Ranger is still a fairly low level, so I haven’t optimized my gear at all, but I likely will not be touching Sword at all now. In betas it was the mokittenn weapon, imo, and the animations for the auto attack are fantastic for human. I feel as though I am paper fighting scissors whenever I use it though; all I do is get torn to shreds before I have any real chance to do anything.

Arrys.7145:

TwiceDead.1963:

I’m not saying “Change the weapon patterns and get rid of the stupid jumping frenzy”!

I’m telling them to tweak it so that we can dodge anytime we want like any other class. Every other class i’ve played can dodge in the middle of an attack, effectively cancelling the attack and instead doing a dodge roll.

I’m all for keeping the weapon pattern, but the stupid LOCKED IN ANIMATION #¤&/ is what ticks me off since it doesn’t allow us to dodge roll on command!

The jumping frenzy on the one combined with it’s speed of autoattack is actually why you are locked in place on autoattack.

So yes you are.

No I’m not. Go back, read through all my posts, then come back attempting to make the same accusation.

Tell me specifically where I am telling them to get rid of the jumping frenzy. For that is not what I’m telling them to do, I’m telling them to allow us to dodge any #$^&* time we want. I love the animations myself, but I downright HATE to be locked in animation just sitting there like a duck tied to the ground about to get shot an unable to do anything about it. How many times do I have to repeat myself?

If you’re here to stuff words in my mouth, then I suggest you go elsewhere.

Shouldn’t have to augment the default mechanics of the #1 skill for 1 weapon for 1 class…it shouldn’t root you. Plain and simple. Turning off auto-attack is a stop-gap for now. The animation is great, but if I hit dodge or my leap out skill, I want to leap…now. I use sword/torch a lot and I like being able to drop #5 fire ring, leap out, & leap back in for the fire aura. It owns groups. If i can get the leap to work when I want it too.

Sword animation lock can only be a bug or oversight, I don’t think any dev actually meant for this attack to lock you in place, it directly contradicts the entire game philosophy. Even if it didn’t contradict the game philosophy, no game would ever have a skill work like this on purpose.

I don’t understand why it hasn’t been fixed yet, maybe the code is too complicated and they need more time? It’s such an obvious and debilitating bug that you’d think it’s one of the first things they fix, and why they haven’t fixed this during beta, where it would have been glaringly obvious, I don’t understand either.

maybe it’s just me…but i dont feel rooted when i use the sword =S

It’s not a matter of opinion heh, it’s a fact that the sword roots you, it’s just what it does, you can’t move or dodge at all while attacking with the sword. Which is deadly against anything but low level trash mobs. In melee range you can’t afford just standing still. I hope they fix this soon so it becomes a usable weapon.

Exactly my thoughts. I like the skills on the 1 h sword or at least what I think was the idea behind them. It’s a shame they don’t work as intended. The main skill prevents you from dodging while the second skill often misses the second combo part of it if you fight on uneven terrain: you basically jump back in the direction of the enemy…land on his head and miss…

Fix it.

I agree that the sword roots you, one of the awesome things about the sword is also the most annoying in the wrong situation: It locks you into a chain of events that you have to go with. The leaping is lovely if you time it right to launch between targets, but yes, it is inconvenient that dodging is so CLUMSY and ill-timed.

However, I have noticed, but haven’t proven (because this main issue is the cause of my relying more and more on my torch/warhorn), that you can dodge when you need to if you dodge or aim camera in just the right way. Yes, that shouldn’t be necessary, but I have just noticed that if you try to dodge in the general direction your player is already facing, they won’t, but I seem to have more success if I am spinning the camera to dodge in a different direction. It’s worth a shot, at least until the resolve they issue.

Makes me wonder though if it might make the sword a bit OP. I remember discovering the sword during a beta and I was BLOWN AWAY at its awesomeness, and so far the only thing that really brings it back down to earth is the dodge problem. Sometimes I just wonder if it’s kind of there as a small price you pay for an skillset that otherwise gives you more built-in maneuvering than the average skillset.

So to play devil’s Advocate…you may have more problems with the default dodge, but you have 2 skills that that serve as their own dodge, and not only that, but they do condition damage and can be paired with a combo field for extra damage. Ultimately I have just started to rely less on the standard dodge while using sword, and try to put my serpent’s strike and monarch’s leap to better use.