Guild Wars 2

this is another thread about improving the CORE ranger profession. we all know how good sword is in pve, and defensively in pvp. sadly for competitive builds, the sword only really belongs on a condi bunker build as a defensive/mobility tool. these suggestions would make sword relevant in many builds, and much more interesting

- sword #1: keep more or less the same. add animation canceling if possible (we’ve talked about this before)

- Hornet’s Sting: as ranger rolls backward, he leaves a swarm of hornets behind him that pulses 2 stacks of torment for 3 seconds in an aoe.

- Monarch’s Leap: simply make it a nuke that would scale well with power builds. it should be a ground targeted skill shot that pierces up to 3 targets. it should crit for about 4.5k+ on, lets say, marauder stats. at least. because it’s a skillshot with a hefty cast animation, it’s very much dodgeable

- Serpent’s Sting: just make it “spray” the poison in a cone.

these changes would make sword a super viable weapon and not OP, on multiple builds.

Disagree with these suggestions. Besides the auto attack being able to be broken to evade, sword 2 and 3 need minor tweaks overall.

• Kick on 1b auto attack chain needs to cleave. Either strike 2 or up to 3 targets. It’s limiting and also flawed when an Ascalonian Ranger (NPC enemy) can do a roundhouse kick and strike up to 3 players but player Ranger can only hit 1 target.
• Hornet’s Sting needs to have the cast time removed. Plain and simple. Hornet’s Sting & Monarch’s Leap also need to cleave up to 3 targets.
• Serpent’s Sting needs to cleave up to 3 targets. The skill is pretty nice for the evade and poison.

Sword is too focused on striking individual targets when the past update to daggers hit more. That (to me) is wrong.

with the exception of the hornet trail and torment, you seem to agree with my suggestions! that’s great. cleave on Monarch’s Leap is a must. i called it piercing, but i really just mean a cleaving leap. i wouldn’t mind if its damage got increased a bit. it doesn’t scale too well with power builds.

Usually when I see “piercing” I envision a very narrow lane (arrow piercing) vs the standard wide-cone cleave, thus why I disagreed before.

Last I recall, Monarch’s Leap does the same damage as the 1c, final auto chain. I’d be up for increasing the damage, even doubling it.

Wasn’t sure about your Serpent’s Strike suggestion either. “Spray” is a different way of saying “cleave” for sure.

A lot of nice suggestions, please do give details such as:
Conditions
Buffs
Cool Downs
etc.

These are helpful tidbits that can be given to a developer to let them see what the community is really looking at.