Guild Wars 2

With the patch coming on the 26th. Sword aa is the main source of damage for that weapon and it punishes you for using it since it animation locks you. Keep the speed of the aa and change the final skill in the chain (pounce) to give 0.25sec of super speed when the skill starts (when you begins to swing) instead of making you leap. Also change the second aa skill (kick) to a normal sword attack (just copy the second sword aa from a thief or warrior) but keep the cripple and the speed of the current aa skill 2.

his way the auto chain will still be fast and allow you to stick to a target, but will not cause you to die because you are unable to dodge while swinging.

Great minds think (kind of) alike? What I posted before in previous topics.

• Reduce the range of Kick (1b) and Pounce (1c) to 130 range to allow free movement while executing the attack and dodging between casts of 1b & 1c.
• Add ¼s of Super Speed to Kick (1b) and ½s Super Speed to Pounce (1c) (equal amount for each cast time).

Taking into account movement speed while in combat with the cast time of the attack, assuming the player is moving forward during the entire chain, and including the attack range of each attack (130), Kick (1b) is reduced from 300 range down to 230 range while Pounce (1c) is reduced from 430 to 330.

Those 2 changes allows the current, unique animation to remain, while allowing free movement while executing the chain, max-melee range combat on sword, and the ability to dodge between casts of 1b & 1c, and retain about 80% (860 total current range vs 690 total new range) of the chain’s distance (chase-down ability/range).

Your post is better since it explains the numbers and sets up a new aa chain that closely mimic the ‘sticking’ range of the current aa chain. But the kick and pounce animations must be changed because they are the reason why you cannot move or dodge while executing the aa chain (the default thief, mesmer and warrior animations would probably be the replacement).

I believe the animations could remain the same since it seems the range has more effect on the actual skill than the animation itself. I could be wrong though since any developer response in the past that I can recall were very vague about it.

I’m not sure how it works over there, but there were a handful of skills in the past that used to root a character and were changed to be used while moving. Whatever behavior they used to apply to those skills before could possibly be applied to skills that force a character to stick.

That’s why I proposed the range to be reduced on 1b and 1c since it’s a hunch of range having some connection with thrusting a player towards a target. So far, the threshold seems to be 150 on a melee-oriented attack without a projectile attached to it for there to be no movement (1a & 1b of Guardian main-hand sword).

Again, it’s just a hunch. If the stick is truly tied to the animations of 1b & 1c, then I fully agree with your proposal of an animation change at that point, if sword were to be changed, that is.

foste.3098:

Your post is better since it explains the numbers and sets up a new aa chain that closely mimic the ‘sticking’ range of the current aa chain. But the kick and pounce animations must be changed because they are the reason why you cannot move or dodge while executing the aa chain (the default thief, mesmer and warrior animations would probably be the replacement).

Actually the animations are not the problem there but the skill itself being 2 consecutive leaps. No leap in game allows you to control the player when it’s executing.

But yes, your changes would be amazing for the Sword AA and also would fix the bug that weapon has. And also the leaps could behave like leaps and use the combo fields.

No

/15characters

Some people enjoy the fact that the AA is keeping the player on target. This is a very unique feature. It also allows for higher play (check these out : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0YdygHp1vKfJ6iu9ZIIeWOQYNVexSeJW)

Take AA off, manually aa to time the jumps/non-evades attack, and there you go!

i love the AA sticking auto matically. I just equip off hand dagger for forced dodge when i want it. or the dodge already on sword(skill 3). also those dodges dont use endurance so you can get a 10% damage buff from that AND my build needs me to dip into %50 health for 2 traits to trigger. then i use signet of stone heal, and run away when my health dips a lil low again

i dont think rangers are meant for sustained melee ranged, and cant you just use GS for that? (serious question havent experimented much on ranger)

Roman God of War.6953:

i dont think rangers are meant for sustained melee ranged, and cant you just use GS for that? (serious question havent experimented much on ranger)

Devs have said Rangers are meant for sustained damage. Our weapon skills were made for sustained damage, minus Maul on GS, the only burst-type the class has.

Unrelated Reply: My math was off in my calculation above because I thought Pounce (1c) on sword was a ½s cast time, but it’s ¾s. That said, Super Speed adjusted to ¾s attached to it while moving forward covers the same distance as the current Pounce (430).

So, with Super Speed attached to both 1b & 1c, the chase-down ability/range only ends up being a 10% reduction on a full chain, or 24% reduction for Kick (1b – 300 to 230). Not a bad trade-off for all pros mentioned above.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Devs have said Rangers are meant for sustained damage. Our weapon skills were made for sustained damage, minus Maul on GS, the only burst-type the class has.

Unrelated Reply: My math was off in my calculation above because I thought Pounce (1c) on sword was a ½s cast time, but it’s ¾s. That said, Super Speed adjusted to ¾s attached to it while moving forward covers the same distance as the current Pounce (430).

So, with Super Speed attached to both 1b & 1c, the chase-down ability/range only ends up being a 10% reduction on a full chain, or 24% reduction for Kick (1b – 300 to 230). Not a bad trade-off for all pros mentioned above.

You look like the only sane person on this forum. How can anyone defend an auto attack that animation lock you on a class (in a game) that is all about fast paced maneuvering?

Yes i know about turning off auto cast, it is mandatory to do if you want to use the sword in its current state, but it defeats the purpose of a fast attacking weapon if you need to pause between each swing to see if you should commence the next attack that will effectively disable you or if you want to dodge. This should not be a choice you should be able to go ham on a enemy and dodge mid aa chain if you need to without slowing down because of poor skill design.
Replacing the leap and kick animations with generic ones and allowing the new 2nd and 3rd aa skills to give you super speed (with their current effects of cripple and pet might) upon starting the skill will have the exact same effect as the current aa chain does. Only difference will be you will always have full free movement of your character while hammering your quick auto attacks and will still have the (as Wondrouswall posted the math) same chasing ability of the current sword aa!!!!

I detest ignorant people who refuse to look farther then their established perspective of things.

I assure you that the amount of rangers using the sword will exponentially increase if they fixed the terrible auto-attack.

We have no way of knowing Anet’s most current stance on this often REPEATING complaint because they do not communicate with us.

foste.3098:

…
Replacing the leap and kick animations with generic ones and allowing the new 2nd and 3rd aa skills to give you super speed (with their current effects of cripple and pet might) upon starting the skill will have the exact same effect as the current aa chain does. Only difference will be you will always have full free movement of your character while hammering your quick auto attacks and will still have the (as Wondrouswall posted the math) same chasing ability of the current sword aa!!!!

I detest ignorant people who refuse to look farther then their established perspective of things.

Super speed is not an auto leep to target…
thus it would not ensure the ranger sticks to it’s target like it does right now.

And I detest ignorant people who refuse to look farther than their desired perspective of things…

Sword AA is unique, it is the only skill that keeps the player tied to it’s target, which is a feature many people like and they have the right to like it. It’s OK for you not to like it, but it’s not OK from you to dismiss what others like just because you don’t.

It would be great to be able to dodge, but if allowing dodge means losing a great feature, I’d rather keep the great feature…

(nota, calling ignorant people who don’t agree with you is not an argument, and is unlikely to get any sympathy for you real arguments)

Actually, the auto-leap and stick is rather lazy. Free and active movement while executing the attack is much better. Anyone that has played other classes with their “non-stick/leap” melee weapons already do this.

There’s even math presented if the Super Speed was added to cover the cast times. Seriously, anyone not wanting to trade a small range reduction on the kick and the automatic leap towards a target (rather than doing it manually) in trade for dodging, free movement, complete control, and max-range meleeing is rather… Meh.

The auto leap stick isn’t lazy it come at a cost. Lazy is not finding a way for this cost to pay off for you. The suggested change would hurt ranger vs stealth classes.

Sword aa is the man up chain. It is one of the few time when a rangers full damage comes to bear. Stealth wont save your opponent (the proposed changes would do nothing one target stealths).

Those of you who play defensively can’t see it or understand. There is nothing more satisfying than being the predator. The animation that accompany your onslaught is just unbeatable.

I’m not a thief main or some other class. I main a Ranger since day one. I don’t enjoy the direction the ranger has gone with the druid (there are some nice things but the overall concept is disappointing). I own bolt so not only do I have time invested with this class but with this weapon as well.

Those of you who cant understand how people can defend the aa need to understand (understand not agree) both side before you suggest changes.

P.s
Leaps are not effected by slow and cripple super speed is.

The sword only needs to speed up the cast time of the two leaps.
Both of them together takes 1 second in a rotation of 1 1/2 second, which leads to the lock in place problem and the absurd delay in executing dodges or anything else.

Either I can’t understand people that suggest to do the click fest disabling the autoattack. Really? What’s your problem?
The ones that use sword just for the evades and don’t care about the melee…. please use the common sense and think, wouldn’t be better to be able to do some damage and be able to use the evades?

So yeah, Aney could revert the kick to an small knock back. Or the kick is not a leap anymore increase the cast to 1/2 second and put the missing distance in the actual leap and reduce the cast of that leap to 1/2 second.
The order change to leap-slash-kick wich actually chang nothing in the animation cgain but alow the ranger to cleave from the first attack. The leap only triggers if you have an enemy selected otherwise it does the animation in place.

So with the kick and the slash we have 1 second of free action in a 1 1/2 second rotation. And we get to keep the cleave. And we solve the super annoying buggy leap at the end of the chain, that makes most of the times to break the chain or to make you jump off a cliff/bridge

This is a pretty divided issue. I also feel a bit split on the matter…
On one hand, Sword Auto’s gotten me killed a number of times when I misused it. Be it leaping off an edge or not being able to roll in time to avoid something. Ive never really had to turn off AA, and having to carefully time my attacks because of animation lock while still trying to maximize DPS isn’t very comfortable for me.

On another, I’ve seen other rangers use the leaps in clever ways; allowing them to disengage or travel in tandem with Hornet’s Sting. Its a unique auto attack, and in the right hands, it has utility others simply cant match.

Honestly, I’d rather keep it as it is for the sake of those who are able to use its leaps in clever ways, but also allow evades to cancel attacks and prevent animation lock ups, but that’s assuming we can have our cake and eat it, too.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The auto leap stick isn’t lazy it come at a cost. Lazy is not finding a way for this cost to pay off for you. The suggested change would hurt ranger vs stealth classes.

Sword aa is the man up chain. It is one of the few time when a rangers full damage comes to bear. Stealth wont save your opponent (the proposed changes would do nothing one target stealths).

Those of you who play defensively can’t see it or understand. There is nothing more satisfying than being the predator. The animation that accompany your onslaught is just unbeatable.

I’m not a thief main or some other class. I main a Ranger since day one. I don’t enjoy the direction the ranger has gone with the druid (there are some nice things but the overall concept is disappointing). I own bolt so not only do I have time invested with this class but with this weapon as well.

Those of you who cant understand how people can defend the aa need to understand (understand not agree) both side before you suggest changes.

P.s
Leaps are not effected by slow and cripple super speed is.

It is when depending on the stick. Unlike the people that defend it, all I have seen in 3 years is “don’t change it because I like it.” No suggestions that might meet a compromise, or thinking outside the box.

No such thing as a “man-up” chain, either. That’s such a load of garbage said to cover a clunky and faulty design. The change hurts Rangers against stealth classes? The main set of skills that damage them are long channeled ones, not a half-second kick or a three-quarters pounce.

The ones that use sword defensively use it for the evade and escapes, meaning 2 & 3, not the auto. And when the auto is used to escape, it’s a double pounce, and that’s at a risk of not being able to break the animations for evades.

Those that defend the auto seem to be the ones that are in need to understand a flawed design and what it is. Since the beginning, there has only been 2 suggestions for sword 1; a) change the animations to standard, and b) find a way to code pounce to be broken out of to allow dodging.

If any Ranger that has been here since the beginning, suggestion A completely negates the uniqueness of Ranger sword in terms of the animation and style, while removing the utility of pursuing a target. Anet already had their hand at suggestion B and failed for 3 years at it.

These suggestions have been the closest medium to appeasing both sides for retaining most of the pursuit range and unique animations, while being able to freely move and dodge. So, the sword chain on 1b and 1c will now be affected by conditions. That’s a good thing some sort of counter-play would be introduced. Give and take.

Whatever, though. Peace.

Sword auto is and always has been by far one of the most clunkiest mechanics in the entire game, the only time it doesn’t feel as punishing is when you have quickness and the animation lock doesn’t last as long.

People have been asking for a change for 3 years, nothing ever happened so far cause apparently it’s their “design” for the weapon. The “design” is flawed and everyone knows it, yet you keep defending this pile of kitten.

Yes, sword does have a unique feeling to it and sometimes it works out well, but for the most part its mechanics are working against the player.

The suggestion of adding mainhand dagger has been around for a bit and I’m very much in favor of it. We can get an actually working power mainhand weapon and the guys that keep defending sword can use it as they please, along those who praise its “design”.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Stealth wont save your opponent (the proposed changes would do nothing one target stealths).

Sword auto does NOT follow stealthed targets. You will leap forward regardless of the enemy’s position. It is for example impossible to cleave a stealthed downed body with sword, because you will jump away instead of sticking to the target. So manual movement control would be actually better against stealth than the current state.

Also keep in mind, that the “stickiness” of sword autoattack is very limited. If the opponent uses movement skills, he will get away anyways. If he is just running, you can stick to him without those “auto leaps” (cripple helps, additional superspeed, as proposed by some, even more). Of course it would require the use of movement buttons instead of just smashing 1. But if you are able to perform super skillfull maneuver with current sword autoattack this shouldn’t be an issue at all.

Overall the animation lock is more harmful than advantageous in most cases and just because it is possible to make it work somehow, doesn’t mean, it is good.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The auto leap stick isn’t lazy it come at a cost. Lazy is not finding a way for this cost to pay off for you. The suggested change would hurt ranger vs stealth classes.

Sword aa is the man up chain. It is one of the few time when a rangers full damage comes to bear. Stealth wont save your opponent (the proposed changes would do nothing one target stealths).

What do you mean with this? Explain please.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The auto leap stick isn’t lazy it come at a cost. Lazy is not finding a way for this cost to pay off for you. The suggested change would hurt ranger vs stealth classes.

Sword aa is the man up chain. It is one of the few time when a rangers full damage comes to bear. Stealth wont save your opponent (the proposed changes would do nothing one target stealths).

What do you mean with this? Explain please.

Have you ever watch two brawlers stand toe to toe and trade punches. The man who starts to back up or defend is the man that usually going down. This is what I mean by man up chain.

If you try to run your done if he runs he’s done. Can you dodge sure but normally you have a 10 second window before some bs passive defense trait kicks in again. So every second counts. Those of you who manually click the aa are really hurting yourselves. The attack chain is about 1 1/2 seconds. While this is do-able, it becomes harder when you add quickness. Rather than furiously tap your aa hotkey you can actually watch his animations and buffs.

1h melee is one of the few times that ranger and pet can unload as one . The cripple make escape harder coupled with the leap and ensure your pet land his attacks. This with quickness, stab and what other boons and utilities you have and not even a trazmania devil can rival your onslaught.

While in the current meta this tactic doesn’t work as well not because of the tankiness (for the ranger Knights amulet is doable) of many of the classes and builds, but mainly because slow and chill.

No!

I understand the problems many have with it in PvE, but the weapon is designed for PvP where it ends up being a high damage weapon that sticks you to a fleeing/kiting opponent. It is nearly impossible to kite a Ranger when he pulls it on you. The long leap is the key to this working as intended.

Coupled with quickness 1h sword can cut opponents down very fast, and is quite difficult to escape from.

Everything with a movement ability with more than 430 range, some CC or stealth can escape easily. We aren’t talking about rev’s UA here.

I’m not opposed to adding a main hand dagger, but really i’d rather just have sword cleaned up, mostly cuz i want to use my fiery dragon sword. Cant use that if im on dagger. Just remove the leap and it would be fine, keep the same timing, the pet might and what not, just drop the leap… I really dont get what is so hard about this…

Serraphin Storm.2369:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The auto leap stick isn’t lazy it come at a cost. Lazy is not finding a way for this cost to pay off for you. The suggested change would hurt ranger vs stealth classes.

Sword aa is the man up chain. It is one of the few time when a rangers full damage comes to bear. Stealth wont save your opponent (the proposed changes would do nothing one target stealths).

What do you mean with this? Explain please.

Have you ever watch two brawlers stand toe to toe and trade punches. The man who starts to back up or defend is the man that usually going down. This is what I mean by man up chain.

If you try to run your done if he runs he’s done. Can you dodge sure but normally you have a 10 second window before some bs passive defense trait kicks in again. So every second counts. Those of you who manually click the aa are really hurting yourselves. The attack chain is about 1 1/2 seconds. While this is do-able, it becomes harder when you add quickness. Rather than furiously tap your aa hotkey you can actually watch his animations and buffs.

1h melee is one of the few times that ranger and pet can unload as one . The cripple make escape harder coupled with the leap and ensure your pet land his attacks. This with quickness, stab and what other boons and utilities you have and not even a trazmania devil can rival your onslaught.

While in the current meta this tactic doesn’t work as well not because of the tankiness (for the ranger Knights amulet is doable) of many of the classes and builds, but mainly because slow and chill.

Long answer, but I still don’t understand the connection between sword#1 and an enemy in stealth?

All of the sword hate, and all of the 3 yrs of not changes…

Just started playing a Ranger and I thought this was the oddest thing. I couldn’t figure out why my character wasn’t responding. It was seriously frustrating until I figured out that the AA was doing it.

Not sure why this hasn’t been addressed yet. Just another one of those millions of things in this game that are just weird and will probably never be fixed.

+1 to the first and second posts. The Sword AA has been complained about since closed beta. It screams terrible design left and right. Now that Jon Peters doesn’t work at Anet anymore we may finally have a chance at this being changed.

With our complaints combined we can summon captain balance!

daniellepierce.9718:

With our complaints combined we can summon captain balance!

:D

Anyway. Count me part of the crowd that’d like to see the leap removed from sword AA. When using the ranger sword I am working around the auto-attack leaps, not “with” it. In other words, doing things such as using another ability like Sword 2 or 3 to break the auto-attack chain, swapping weapons, and other things like to regain control when it’s clear I gotta bail from melee distance as if I was Saitama suddenly realizing I was gonna miss the supermarket bargain.

I remember well my first experience with sword auto-attack; it was not love at first sight because it felt so crippling against the evasion & mobility entailed by GW2’s combat system. The auto-attack as it stands goes against the grain in a way which takes the game away from you, so to speak. In this case I consider first impressions infinitely more important here than what’s possible with later experience.

Yeah i agree, Sword aa needs change. It needs to not lock you in place, makes it feel very stiff and un dynamic. Dont care if the leap gets to stay or yada yada but let me control my own movements please

You look like the only sane person on this forum. *How can anyone defend an auto attack that animation lock you on a class (in a game) that is all about fast paced maneuvering?

I detest ignorant people who refuse to look farther then their established perspective of things.

Your literally being close minded.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Roman God of War.6953:

i dont think rangers are meant for sustained melee ranged, and cant you just use GS for that? (serious question havent experimented much on ranger)

Devs have said Rangers are meant for sustained damage. Our weapon skills were made for sustained damage, minus Maul on GS, the only burst-type the class has.

Unrelated Reply: My math was off in my calculation above because I thought Pounce (1c) on sword was a ½s cast time, but it’s ¾s. That said, Super Speed adjusted to ¾s attached to it while moving forward covers the same distance as the current Pounce (430).

So, with Super Speed attached to both 1b & 1c, the chase-down ability/range only ends up being a 10% reduction on a full chain, or 24% reduction for Kick (1b – 300 to 230). Not a bad trade-off for all pros mentioned above.

I said MELEE range, they can have sustained DPS. which they should. I just argued for the range of that should not be within 200units.

I LOVE when I try to dps in Teq burning phase and sword aa fly me straight into the ocean. Kappa