Guild Wars 2

I don’t ‘get’ this weapon. I use it, I have the AA off so I can try to stop the mechanics from borking out on me but I still just don’t get it.

It seems that with the AA off, you still have to button mash the 1 key which locks me into the later steps of the chain and can cause me to miss dodge rolls. I try not to button mash but it ends up happening when everything is on cool-down.

How the heck do you work around that irritating, rooting AA? Do I attack, stop, attack, stop and attack to leave room to dodge? Do you mini kite around, stopping after each attack so you don’t lock into the chain? I end up taking way more hits than I probably should using this weapon but I can’t give up on it because it’s our main melee weapon. For awhile I stopped using it and switch to GS because the sword was making me think of giving up on the class. However, I know I can’t become reliant on the GS mechanics. Wish they’d fix the rooting already -.-

Is there a video someplace that can help?

No. There’s no real workaround for the rooting. You just have to kind of predict when heavy attacks are coming and then just not attack like half a second in advance and dodge.

I also tried to play with sword, but I just can’t.
If you attack w/o a target locked and there is more than 1 enemy around, you start to fly around like crazy, when you target there is the root issue …

Doesn’t mean the sword is uuuuseless. The #2 and #3 have saved my life a couple times.

Right, I have the melee target assist off as well because I have an ele I play too. So sometimes the target will randomly drop from whatever I am attacking and I’ll go flying off in random directions. It’s so frustrating!

No, sword is far from useless, the other two skills are awesome but that AA has assisted in more of my deaths than anything else. Just wish it was smoother to work with like the GS is. I really hope that’s one of the things they fix when they get around to doing whatever they plan to with this profession.

We all do. If the AA was interruptable, and maybe pets dodged with you, I’d be content with ranger.

HolySylent.8160:

No. There’s no real workaround for the rooting. You just have to kind of predict when heavy attacks are coming and then just not attack like half a second in advance and dodge.

Pretty much this. Don’t smash ‘1’ over and over. Try to time your presses so they’re as frequent as the attacks (0.6 sec apart). That way you don’t have a bunch of attacks queued up when you see a big attack coming and stop pressing ‘1’.

The bigger problem is the bug (?) where you can’t dodge after a leap. For some odd reason the game engine prevents you from going straight from a leap to a dodge for about a half or 3/4 second. If you tap a movement key just before the dodge, you can dodge immediately. Another way to get around it is to fire another skill with a long activation time and immediately dodge to cancel it. Both of these bypass the bug.

rabidsmiles.5926:

Right, I have the melee target assist off as well because I have an ele I play too. So sometimes the target will randomly drop from whatever I am attacking and I’ll go flying off in random directions. It’s so frustrating!

The three skills in the sword autoattack all have different behaviors.

• #1 (Slash) is just a swing that cleaves
• #2 (Kick) is a short leap and single target
• #3 (Pounce) is a big leap that cleaves

• You have to hit something (whether targeted or not) for #1 and #2 to roll over to the next in the chain. #3 will automatically roll over to #1 when used.
• #2 and #3 will leap their full distance in the direction you’re facing if you don’t have a target.
• #2 and #3 will leap up to their full distance in the direction of a target if you’re far away.
• If #1 is used immediately after a #3, it will also leap. Yup, in a normal autoattack chain, all three skills leap even though #1 is not a leap. You just don’t normally see it because #3 is a big leap and usually puts you in melee range of the target, so the leap in #1 usually doesn’t take you anywhere.

Targets “randomly” drop when they die, when they stealth, or certain bosses (maybe mobs too?) change “modes”. Jormag, Shatterer, and the Mk II Golem world boss are good examples of the last one. For the mobs which die, you just have to watch their hp bar and try to stop mashing ‘1’ just before it dies. Better to have to hit ‘1’ one extra time a little late, than to go flying off a cliff.

So what usually happens is you kill a mob with #2, you hit ‘1’ two extra times, and both #3 and #1 leap forward. You can actually use this to your advantage. If you’re sure you can kill a mob with the next blow, you can change your target to the next mob. Usually you will make 1 or 2 leaps towards the new target, saving you from having to run there.

Or if you need to make a quick getaway, you can wait until the leaping cat icon (#3) is up, click the ground to drop your target, and hit ‘1’ twice. That’ll leap you about 900 units forward. Spin around 180 degrees (you do have that hotkeyed, right?), tab to select your original target, hit ‘2’ to leap 400 more units. Spin around again, click the ground to drop your target, hit 2 to leap 600 more units. Congratulations, you are now almost 2000 units away in about 2 seconds. For good measure you can switch to GS and hit Swoop to add another 1100 units. I’m not very good at this myself, but I’ve seen it used to impressive effect in some PvP videos.

The autoattacks are not evenly spaced, so don’t press it evenly. Learn the pattern and press it when you need to press it. It helps if you have a musical background, as it’s just a simple quick-fast-long, quick-fast-long pattern.

This will also prevent you from flying off cliffs in PvE.

The way I learned the sword was to get 100% map completion while using it (obviously overkill, but I like the weapon.) After that much use, you can use it where it counts with no problems, and you see it’s so much better than every other weapon in the game.

Solandri.9640:

clipped for space

Wow thanks for the detailed layout! I will try to keep all that in mind when I am trying to figure out the best way to use the sword. I really don’t want to get used to using the GS over the sword as the sword really is our better weapon choice. Just wish it would stop the rooting…that would solve so much issues with death.

Keep in mind, sword isn’t always the best choice for weapons. It’s main weakness is that it can’t max melee range, which is required for some strategies.

doesnt the invade from the auto attack also invades those same hits during the root?

Whats the problem? explain in more detail please.

HolySylent.8160:

We all do. If the AA was interruptable, and maybe pets dodged with you, I’d be content with ranger.

^ Agreed 100%.

@ OP: The only way to really stop the mechanic of the sword mid-animation to dodge is by weapon swapping.

Yes, this does mean that Ranger is the only class in the game that needs to weapon swap to dodge during the bread-and-butter #1 attack.

One other technique to try:

You can bind the “stow weapons” action to a keyboard button combination if you haven’t already. This is usually able to stop an action or just effectively cancel your auto attack since your character sheathes their weapons forcibly.

I can’t recall if it works for the ranger sword, but it might be worth a try if you haven’t already. Just start an auto attack chain and then try to make your character stow their weapons to see if it will stop it. You might have to spam the stow weapons a bit as it sometimes doesn’t trigger if you’re mid-animation.

I usually use this technique to stop attacking when I have confusion on, or if I want to be sure that I don’t accidentally break my own stealth.

I will try to figure out the stowing bit…but that gets annoying for obvious reasons. Nothing like having to deal with swapping cooldowns just to stop an auto attack. Thanks for the advice

A good way to use sword is simply by watching your HP and anticipating when they gonna try burst you. If you let yourself drop below 60%, expect a burst any moment.
In the end, it comes down to experience. At first, i too hated the sword, found it clunky, crippling and annoying. I avoided as if it was the plague. However, slowly, i started to see the positive sides about it, learning how to use it, learning when not to use it.

A good tip, is to use sword against NPC’s with oneshot/heavy burst abilities. Because these abilities are generally super telegraphed, and as such, you get more time to learn the timing of when you can and when you cannot dodge.

There is some other NPC’s you can train yourself on. Like giant wurms (especially the one in WvW Borderlands) as the stone it throws is very well telegraphed, and easy to dodge. Yet you will not get one-shot by it.

Prysin.8542:

A good tip, is to use sword against NPC’s with oneshot/heavy burst abilities. Because these abilities are generally super telegraphed, and as such, you get more time to learn the timing of when you can and when you cannot dodge.

There is some other NPC’s you can train yourself on. Like giant wurms (especially the one in WvW Borderlands) as the stone it throws is very well telegraphed, and easy to dodge. Yet you will not get one-shot by it.

I’ll toss out ettins as the perfect enemy to learn the sword with. They have several really big, telegraphed attacks. Especially the AoE knockdown one they do is perfect for floating like a butterfly, stinging like a hornet. It’s not at all dissimilar to dodging a warrior with a hammer or an ele with churning earth.

Fluffball.8307:

Prysin.8542:

A good tip, is to use sword against NPC’s with oneshot/heavy burst abilities. Because these abilities are generally super telegraphed, and as such, you get more time to learn the timing of when you can and when you cannot dodge.

There is some other NPC’s you can train yourself on. Like giant wurms (especially the one in WvW Borderlands) as the stone it throws is very well telegraphed, and easy to dodge. Yet you will not get one-shot by it.

I’ll toss out ettins as the perfect enemy to learn the sword with. They have several really big, telegraphed attacks. Especially the AoE knockdown one they do is perfect for floating like a butterfly, stinging like a hornet. It’s not at all dissimilar to dodging a warrior with a hammer or an ele with churning earth.

You can also fight the Warrior NPC in the mists and if you want something a bit tougher, try the Svanir beasts.

HolySylent.8160:

Doesn’t mean the sword is uuuuseless. The #2 and #3 have saved my life a couple times.

Me too! I have such love for Sword #2. See a big red circle under you? #2 out and wait then #2 back in for more kitten kicking.

Hmm…was just thinking that my ranger is an Asura. Could that be a factor in not being able to read the sword movements? Her sword animations are so tiny and all over the place. Would playing with a bigger race for a while help with the learning curve? Or is it more of a all around ranger thing? I had tried a human for a while and the sword animations seemed a little different…like not as much bonkers-all-over-the-place. So I am not sure if the other races swords look different?

rabidsmiles.5926:

Would playing with a bigger race for a while help with the learning curve? Or is it more of a all around ranger thing? I had tried a human for a while and the sword animations seemed a little different…like not as much bonkers-all-over-the-place. So I am not sure if the other races swords look different?

Heh, well… you could try a male norn, they have… kind of an interesting animation sequence with the sword. Let’s just say it’s a bit more suited to professional wrestling.

Pipra.7580:

HolySylent.8160:

Doesn’t mean the sword is uuuuseless. The #2 and #3 have saved my life a couple times.

Me too! I have such love for Sword #2. See a big red circle under you? #2 out and wait then #2 back in for more kitten kicking.

The problem with the Sword evades are the activation times. Here are the weapon skills which evade, and their activation times:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evade
Ele – Burning Retreat – instant
Ele – Updraft – instant
Ran – Hornet Sting (Sword 2) – 0.5 sec
Ran – Serpent Strike (Sword 3) – 1 sec
Ran – Power Stab (GS auto #3) – 0.75 sec
Ran – Stalker’s Strike (dagger 4) – 0.5 sec
Ran – Quick Shot (SB 3) – 0.25 sec
Thf – Disabling shot – 0.25 sec
Thf – Flanking Strike – 0.5 sec
Thf – Pistol Whip – 0.75 sec
Thf – Death Blossom – 0.5 sec
War – Whirlwind Attack – 0.25 sec
Mes – Blurred Frenzy – 0.5 sec

You see the problem? Most of the evade attacks are instant to 0.5 sec to activate. Sword’s evades are 0.5 and 1 sec, and the 0.5 sec one seems to delay the evade until you jump back instead of during the attack. The evade on the 1 sec activation seems to happen at the latter half of the skill too. I’ve been knocked down during the beginning half of the Serpent’s Strike animation numerous times. It’s like some developer went “look at all these evades Rangers get; gotta nerf them somehow.”

When I play plugged into my LAN it’s generally not a problem. But when I play over wifi, the time delay is enough that I end up getting hit by about half the attacks I try to evade. Sometimes it’s so bad I don’t even bother trying to evade anymore, or switch to a bow.

It’s very frustrating knowing you reacted in time, but didn’t evade because the skill takes so long to activate. It’s not like these skills represent a huge increase in DPS like Pistol Whip, Death Blossom, or Blurred Frenzy either. Sword 2 and 3 actually decrease your DPS, yet they’re saddled with long activation times. I think this is part of the reason some people comment that after learning to play ranger well, dodging and evading attacks with the other classes seem really easy. Ranger sword’s evades give you some of if not the least amount of time to react to an attack.

For pve one strategy (where max melee range isn’t necessary) it is pretty common to use sword/warhorn + sword/dagger. If you weapon swap during the auto attack chain it will break the chain and allow you to dodge. However, it is often much easier to use a weapon set evade than a dodge. For example I will switch from s/wh to s/d and use #4 for the evade. This is also more efficient in terms of dps since you will usually waste more time dodging.

So the dagger skills will interrupt the AA chain and let you evade? Either way, weapon skill or swapping it’s still a cooldown that we have to face that I don’t think other classes have to worry about with their AA.

Edit -

For pve one strategy (where max melee range isn’t necessary) it is pretty common to use sword/warhorn + sword/dagger. If you weapon swap during the auto attack chain it will break the chain and allow you to dodge. However, it is often much easier to use a weapon set evade than a dodge. For example I will switch from s/wh to s/d and use #4 for the evade. This is also more efficient in terms of dps since you will usually waste more time dodging.

So I just saw that the dagger skills do interrupt the chain…and realized it was probably because they don’t have a wait time like the #2 and 3 skills on the sword itself to get the evade in. And the #4 skill on the dagger has a fairly low cooldown so it should help with the sword AA rooting problem I have been having. Thanks for the suggestion!

Maybe I should start a fresh ranger and work with the sword from the start. I tried the other races today and the rest of them have the same basic movements so it might be the Asura wacky animations that are throwing me off. This may be a case where the adorable Asura stuff is getting me into trouble. It seemed…I dunno, cleaner when I was on a Charr to see the 3 distinct patterns of the chain? The second and third one on the Asura look similar and I am not always looking at the toolbar to see what step I am on.