Guild Wars 2

After the utter disappointment that was Revenant Sword animation, I’m glad to see how good the new sword animation is on Ranger. So much so I’ve started to play my Ranger again. Kudos Anet.

Though, my opinion on my female Sylvari ranger:
The animations look like they’re ones that Asuras would use, which don’t make sense to for human-like Sylvari (the first skill of the Auto-attack chain looks exactly like how Asura would swing a sword, rest abit seem like swinging around the air of the character), atleast to me.

It seems like a person attempting to impress someone by swinging the sword around themselves, but making themselves look like a utter buffoon doing so.

So unfortunately, I think the standard animations that are used by sword guardians (and was used by warrior, until the swap of Final Thrust and Hamstring, though in that case, a stab at the leg would have looked nice in my opinion, than a overhead strike), would look much better in my opinion, since they have more feel of strength in the swings, while the new ones unfortunately just look like buffoon swinging sword around themselves, atleast on female sylvari…

it’s kittening awful. old sword ranger was probably the coolest aa in a game full of terrible attack animations. this first swing looks so rediculous and awkward. i didnt think anything could look more awkward and silly than female human/sylvari GS aa, guess i was wrong….

Looks like they got inspiration from wushu straightsword flowers.

It looks like they were trying to go for something like this?

I like the fact you can move now,but oh dear were the animations better before.

yeah the animations were probably better before but this is a minor detail compared to the fact that YOU CAN FINALLY MOVE.

scerevisiae.1972:

yeah the animations were probably better before but this is a minor detail compared to the fact that YOU CAN FINALLY MOVE.

Still it’s animations are quite awful as Warrior’s Hamstring, which is a over head strike instead of leg stab or leg sweep…

Or Necromancer’s Ghastly Claws auto-attack with Axe, kitten the old one had more ferocity…

My opinion? Both sets of animations are better than most. They should try to work in pieces of both sets for the Ranger and the Thief, the latter of which has painfully generic sword animations for a class that emphasizes acrobatics.

Animation is fine. The piddly DPS and lack of full cleave is not fine though.

Tried it with the tribal sword skin and it looks pretty nice. The weapon is modeled after a Macuahuitl, which is a club-sword with a serrated edge. The awkward little overhead twirl looks like he’s going in for a heavy bash attack with the weapon rather than an actual slash. The thrust I can justify as using the hook points at the end to try and tear a ligament.

Really doesn’t fit my other ranger’s rapier anymore, though.

scerevisiae.1972:

yeah the animations were probably better before but this is a minor detail compared to the fact that YOU CAN FINALLY MOVE.

I actually never had much of an issue with the not being able to move thing, once you learned how to work with the tricks you could use it pretty well. Was a nice weapon in PvP since it kept up with your target and tracked stealth, as well as the double leap trick.
I also don’t consider animations to be a minor detail since thats a big part of the race I choose to use, I also like having nice visuals when fighting. They can make it work with movement without having to use awkward animations.

roamzero.9486:

Animation is fine. The piddly DPS and lack of full cleave is not fine though.

Now that I’ve gotten on today and seen for myself, the sword DPS makes me want to cry compared to it’s previous glory. It just so SLOW now. So pitifully slow. It’s painful waiting for the swings to happen.

Is it true TheFantasticGman.9451? Did anyone test it? It’ll be a shame if this is the case lol.

I main an Asura ranger and the new sword AA animation makes me burst in tears. I tried to get used to it, tried to find something good in the change. Sadly, no. I still cry in agony whenever I’m using that ugly AA chain. The animation looks fine if staying stationary, but if I start moving… God, the horror. I can almost here my beloved Asura yelling in a mix of anger, pain, and fear.
No matter how I feel, I’m still forced to adapt. Just like my little hero in the game forced to do that sword swing which would definitely break its arm. All I can do now is name my pet “Rip sword Aa”, although none of my pets can ever remember it.
I used to love my sword, but not anymore. Not anymore.

I was one of the people who actually enjoyed the old sword AA chain, sure it was a pain sometimes that you had trouble moving/dodging, but sword #2 and #3 and Lightning Reflexes solved that for me.
The recent sword AA change actually made me stop playing power ranger and I swapped to condi build. I just can’t get over how awful the new animations look. I’m playing sylvari ranger btw, so not sure how it looks on other races but it just looks as if she’s randomly waving a sword around.
Really missing the ‘dancing’ AA chain that we had before.

I stopped playing power ranger because of the change too.

I’m just glad dodging works now.

Yeah I totally miss the old ones, they looked so awesome and Pounce’s leap it performed was AMAZING if you used it for the double leap. Now you can move around freely like everybody else, but have a lame animation and loss of bonus mobility(if you learned how to use it) like everybody else.

i do find it very annoying , i no longer use Sword unless the target is chasing me now rather than the other way around and if they run i have very little chance of catching them unless i have GS or staff as a second weapon set to keep up.

the loss of mobility is certainly a harsh blow to the weapon uses and have found myself having to use more Rooting CC to stop them running away but that also means im more prone to getting Red rings thrown on my head and taking damage for longer than i use to when dealing sword damage.

i just hope they add directional arrows to Sword 2 to make its mobility more flexiable and removes the requirement of de-targeting.

I am curious why Crippling Thrust is still only single target?

Sword 1 chain needs to grant Superspeed.

They took away amazing mobility and replaced it with nothing.

misterdevious.6482:

Sword 1 chain needs to grant Superspeed.

They took away amazing mobility and replaced it with nothing.

Easiest solution, get rid of the awful jump back on skill 2, only have the leap to target part (add evasion frames to compensate for loss of first part).

Bran.7425:

I am curious why Crippling Thrust is still only single target?

They seem to have kept all the mechanical functionality of the skills and just changed the range and animations.

They still have the old icons too. We now stab with a sword but it shows a picture of a boot.

They changed the skill but only did about half the work.

Hell, I’m convinced the only reason Kick ever only hit one target was because of the old beta/alpha form where it was supposed to knockback inactive targets. Anet just never bothered to bring it in line with the rest of the chain even after all these years and a completely different skill effect was added.

Gosh the attacks are really slow now, even with quickness… So sad.

I’ve also stopped playing my ranger with sword, I just can’t make myself look at the vomitous Charr sword animation. I’ve tried several times but it doesn’t get any better. It used to be my favorite weapon – sad.

Never really used Sword due to the clunkiness of it (in my opinion), and don’t have an issue with the new animation. I probably still won’t use Sword much regardless. But, to me, I will say that it looks like the same blade movements as the Greatsword on Rangers. That’s my initial impression.

I’m probably one of the few who liked the sword the way it was. Mainly because it allowed me to “chase” in PvP when it would lock on. I was always a shortbow/Sword Dagger Ranger. This animation has single-handedly caused me to make a whole different build around different weapons and stats due to how awful it looks.

I like the new sword AA. Looks like it could slice a tendon or something!

As someone with basic proficiency with a sword, all the #1 skills are not practical looking. 1 and 3 of the combo look like the character is swinging a baseball bat and 2 is just out of place in the combo… It all really looks bad and there is zero synergy or flow to the combo from beginning to end.

Kiba.9743:

I’m probably one of the few who liked the sword the way it was.

Not few, many (most?) ranger mains preferred the old animation. The new animation is clearly better for ranger newbies, which are a massively bigger demographic, though. Spilled milk and all, though…

Every now and then I visit the old sword animation video. Sometimes I think of why Anet just didn’t modify the old animations, but then I remember that this is Anet.

Fluffball.8307:

Kiba.9743:

I’m probably one of the few who liked the sword the way it was.

Not few, many (most?) ranger mains preferred the old animation. The new animation is clearly better for ranger newbies, which are a massively bigger demographic, though. Spilled milk and all, though…

Animations were ok, just the root wasn’t fine.

I meant the root. Many ranger mains preferred the old mechanics. Myself included. But don’t start another kitten argument over how we’re all wrong, it’s over.

Fluffball.8307:

I meant the root. Many ranger mains preferred the old mechanics. Myself included. But don’t start another kitten argument over how we’re all wrong, it’s over.

I don’t need to make that argument anymore because at least the root is gone.

Fluffball.8307:

I meant the root. Many ranger mains preferred the old mechanics. Myself included. But don’t start another kitten argument over how we’re all wrong, it’s over.

Yes, the “root” or target lock really was a must for me. Which bums me out because I received someone’s sword from the story (If you know what I mean >.>) And I was really excited about using the skin, then I remembered and got bummed out. It’s sitting in my bank now instead.

I want them to bring back the old animation set onto the new skills. I am okay with the removal of leaps and kitten, but the attack animations look horrible. The final attack looks like they are playing dice and forgot they were holding a sword.

Just awful, sorry.

As much as I hated the root, the animations were much better. Now sword AA chain looks like waving a pool noodle around. Not to mention the fact that DPS was decreased…

I kinda miss jumping around though…… The new animation is more reliable however.

the animation reminded me of how i would use a flyswatter to hit a very slow moving fly.
or if we gave eric cartman a sword and asked him to swing it.

Lightsbane.9012:

the animation reminded me of how i would use a flyswatter to hit a very slow moving fly.
or if we gave eric cartman a sword and asked him to swing it.

Swagger.1459:

Lightsbane.9012:

the animation reminded me of how i would use a flyswatter to hit a very slow moving fly.
or if we gave eric cartman a sword and asked him to swing it.

yep, bingo.

Yeah, I love they removed my chasedown ability because the flood of people who can’t figure out how to disable AA.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Yeah, I love they removed my chasedown ability because the flood of people who can’t figure out how to disable AA.

A design that forces you to disable a baseline feature on auto-attack such as auto-use is a bad design.

Plus it delayed your dodge rolls – which is a huge issue for both PvP and PvE. It was bad designed. It was also a bad idea to remove something that at least a certain group of people liked (especially mains) but even some of the ranger mains asked for this change.

Long story short: They corrected the bad design in a bad way.

Sword now is just too disappointing, I used to feel like Yoda with a lightsaber, now I feel like the star wars kid with a lightsaber

+1 for the Star Wars Kid reference…that’s going back to the early days of the internet.

I don’t necessarily agree with bad design if you have to disable AA…look at LB. No one runs AA with LB because it’d make hunter’s shot pretty pointless. I don’t really see anyone complaining that LB is badly designed either.

Same with sword for me….slash / kick / pounce was so much better than what we currently have. Yeah it locked you into the animation for brief seconds, but the tradeoff for chasedown and ‘sticking’ (DPS increase) was so worth it.

I’m actually having a rough time with serpent’s strike now, as I’m almost always out of position. Prior to the change I’d be locked to the target so it’d almost always hit. Now I literally have to use it out of stealth or against someone paying no attention for it to have any chance at connecting.

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

Sword now is just too disappointing, I used to feel like Yoda with a lightsaber, now I feel like the star wars kid with a lightsaber

Yoda should never have used a lightsabre, that’s not what he was about.

I’m not sure how anyone prefers the old way. It was a unique and awful design.

Kinda prefer the new animation myself

The old auto attack’s closedown abilty was vastly overrated. Also you shouldn’t be throwing around accusations about people’s skill levels if you needed the old auto to keep on your target.

While I do prefer the animations of the old attack (though I do like the new ones even if they are a bit weird), the other 2 attacks still need some tweeking and the dps drop is inexcusable when Ranger weapons need a buff across the board the Sword is in a much better state now.

In a perfect world we would have had Sword and Dagger with the two different auto attacks with skills that complemented them but what are you going to do.

Gotejjeken.1267:

No one runs AA with LB because it’d make hunter’s shot pretty pointless. I don’t really see anyone complaining that LB is badly designed either.

What are you talking about? Nobody disables auto on Longbow and it doesn’t interfere with hunter’s shot.

At this point, I just want Crippling Thrust to cleave 3 targets. If Anet can do that one QoL change to sword, I’ll pretty much be satisfied.

I won’t. I need the old DPS back via speeding up the animations. It’s SO slow now. DPS is just… Anet murdered the DPS when they replaced the animations with this new crap. Literally waiting forever for the sword to swing compared to the old animation… like the Ranger needed a DPS nerf on the sword.

Yeah, removing the additional aftercasts from the new animations so it matches the old ones (or maybe be a bit faster) would be nice.

I’m just at the point to where, when it comes to stuff like this, my expectations are reduced to on-the-ground fruit changes.