Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone.

I’ve recently started playing a ranger and was wondering if anyone could shed some insight about this. If I’m doing something wrong, I’d like to know.

But if this is working as intended, I’m not sure it’s sound design and would like to suggest some changes.

Currently, I’m a fan of the Sword/Dagger combo because of its high number of evasion skills. HOWEVER, over time I’ve noticed a few things:

Sword’s 1 Autoattack-chain CANNOT be dodge-rolled out of until the animation on the third hit finishes. Can’t dodge roll out of the kick, or the initial sword swing. Compared to other classes where you CAN do this, I feel like this is somewhat crippling for such an evade-based weapon set.

Sword’s 1 Autoattack-chain CANNOT be canceled by other skills in the middle of the attack chain (e.g. the kick or the leap). this means that if I want to hit Hornet Sting or Serpent Strike as a twitch-evade, I cannot.

Sword’s 2, Hornet Sting, does not gain evasion frames until about .75 seconds into the cast. Given that this is supposed to be an evasion move, I’m not sure what the .75 vulnerability time’s purpose is, since for some attacks that’s more than enough time for you to get hit, eliminating the usefulness of the evasion.

I feel like the Sword for Ranger is based off of twitch play and knowing when to hit those evasions correctly, but in its current incarnation there are just so many times when you cannot interrupt your current action with an evasion skill or even a dodge-roll that the entire weapon just feels clunky.

Thoughts on what I might be doing wrong, or whether this is an issue with the weapon itself?

turn auto-attack off (Ctrl+Right Click), and then just hit 1 to continue attack chain.. if you need to dodge stop hitting 1.

With auto-attack on you can find yourself glued to the opponent.

Ratty.5176:

turn auto-attack off (Ctrl+Right Click), and then just hit 1 to continue attack chain.. if you need to dodge stop hitting 1.

With auto-attack on you can find yourself glued to the opponent.

I’ve tried turning it off, but I still can’t interrupt the animation of the kick if I need to do an emergency dodge-roll. It still just feels clunky with periods between evade/attack where my character isn’t doing anything.

It is a problem. You can work round it by removing auto-attack. It probably does still need a fix since it doesn’t fit the theme of the class (let warriors turn off auto-attack, cutting down their dps, to get out of beserk rage). It’s probably not going to get fixed soon since players can work round it and there are much bigger ranger problems to solve.

I don’t like the sword in pve at all. The entire rooting (issue) could be removed and still have players who could use the weapon. In pvp it can help you stick to your enemy like glue (which can be done regardless) but in pve has no purpose. The only reason to use it is because it has better dps than the GS but I’d prefer a pve version with the same skills just no rooting.

Taking off auto attack shouldn’t be necessary unless the rooting is simply there to nerf the sword in pve and make you conciously do less damage with it.

All in all it seems to have been designed with pvp in mind.

The problem is, that it isn’t a rooting issue. It’s the fact that the second and third attacks are leaps. You can’t do anything during a leap on any weapon (try dodging out of GS3 skill, or interrupting it with another skill).

While, in theory, having leaps on your auto-attack is helpful, the fact that in PvE the enemies don’t move around much means that it’s up to the player to make the most of the leaps.

I, personally, attack at least two enemies at a time and use the leaps to get between the two while dodging the one I just finished attacking. (tab, shift+tab to go between the two)

If you don’t just toe-to-toe with enemies with the sword, it’s an amazing tool (plus, I find it hilarious to see a giant norn flinging himself across the battlefield). It’s mostly a matter of play-style. The sword doesn’t lend itself to the type of play-style people mostly associate with a sword, so they think it’s broken.

Ratty.5176:

turn auto-attack off (Ctrl+Right Click), and then just hit 1 to continue attack chain.. if you need to dodge stop hitting 1.

With auto-attack on you can find yourself glued to the opponent.

Which can have it’s benefit as well, I love hitting Hunters Call, then locking on with sword one and hitting a pet swap quickness and a fast bird F2 for a blender like burst down of a thief or alike.

Numbers everywhere.