Guild Wars 2

Which weapon deal more damage using the first skill (1)?

Versus one target: Sword.

Versus more than one target: Greatsword.

Reason being is that ALL Greatsword 1 attacks are AoE, meaning less cycles are needed to drop multiple targets than Sword needs.

i.e. By the time you’ve killed your main target Greatsword has wounded the rest far more than Sword will have, even though Sword can drop a single target faster.

why do you do into the heart of the mists and test it out?

Sable Shrike.7823:

Versus one target: Sword.

Versus more than one target: Greatsword.

Reason being is that ALL Greatsword 1 attacks are AoE, meaning less cycles are needed to drop multiple targets than Sword needs.

i.e. By the time you’ve killed your main target Greatsword has wounded the rest far more than Sword will have, even though Sword can drop a single target faster.

THank You! very good answer

What Sable said, but keep in mind both weapons have other important aspects to influence your choice between them. GS has maul, a nice damage ability with a bleed, a long range short cooldown leap, a block/knockback, and a stun. Sword has a leap finisher on 2 which doubles as long range distance coverage, an evade/poison, and the option for an offhand of your choice. If picking between them its worth considering more than the dmg output of the 1 ability

Sustained damage, mainhand sword>>>>>greatsword.

The only cleave missing is on the 2nd part of the chain, but the attacks on the sword hit both harder and quicker than the greatsword, so over time the difference isn’t much on groups and single target the difference is significant.

this might change next patch, Great sword is being buffed apreariently so sit on this question for alittle bit befor you accept a def answer, but as it stands right now Sword does more dmg vs 1 target, Greatsword has aoe for 3 targets + evasion built in

It is important to note that 1h sword’s first and third attack chains cleave. This allows you to get up to 3 stacks of might on your pet from one attack chain.

megaboy.6015:

Sable Shrike.7823:

Versus one target: Sword.

Versus more than one target: Greatsword.

Reason being is that ALL Greatsword 1 attacks are AoE, meaning less cycles are needed to drop multiple targets than Sword needs.

i.e. By the time you’ve killed your main target Greatsword has wounded the rest far more than Sword will have, even though Sword can drop a single target faster.

THank You! very good answer

It’s not really, sword #1 is better all over for damage.

What/When is this new Greatsword buff that everyone keeps referring to??

GS Autoattack: 3 parts.
1st and 2nd part: Damage only for 1 second
3rd part: Damage and evade for 0.75 second

So basically nobody can directly hit you for almost half the time while you spam your number 1 skill. That with QZ/pet swap – more damage and more invincibility lolol (EDIT: QZ does not make you evade more LOL).

With felines, you can stack some decent bleeds with maul.

1. skill for mobility or healing with HS leap combo
2. more invincibility (from projectiles)
3. for stun and extra pet dmg

I don’t know why they need to buff GS, but oh wells~ the extra damage would be lurvely Though~ I hope they don’t nerf the autoattack after buffing maul.

Well. If you quickness with GS autoattack everything is sped up even the evade. So If you use quickness you are evading for the same amount of time…

whoops now i feel embarrassed. my bad! LOL

kiwituatara.6053:

GS Autoattack: 3 parts.
1st and 2nd part: Damage only for 1 second
3rd part: Damage and evade for 0.75 second

So basically nobody can directly hit you for almost half the time while you spam your number 1 skill. That with QZ/pet swap – more damage and more invincibility lolol (EDIT: QZ does not make you evade more LOL).

The tooltips lie. One attack chain 1-3 does not actually take 0.5s + 0.5s + 0.75s = 1.75s. The tooltips lie. The true time it takes to do one full chain is 2.53s and I’dont know how much of that will make you impossible to hit with the 3rd chain.

Only the kick attack on sword’s autoattack is single target. The other two are AOE (in fact I suspect the AOE radius on one of them is bigger than greatsword’s).

Greatsword’s autoattack chain is 2.53 sec, with coefficients of 0.58, 0.58, 0.69. Or a total of 1.85 per 2.53 sec = 0.73 DPS

Sword’s autoattack chain is 1.80 sec, with coefficients of .61, .61 (kick), .73. That’s a total of 1.95 per 1.8 sec = 1.08 DPS against a single target.

If you remove kick from the chain it’s 1.34 per 1.8 sec = 0.74 DPS AOE. In other words, sword is still better (barely) than greatsword against multiple targets despite only 2 of its 3 attacks being AOE.

You might consider though that Sword will still move you around no matter if you disable autoattacking on it. It is just the weapon’s nature. So while you can constatnly adjust your position and facing angle to hit 3 enemies with the 180 degrees AoE in front of you with GS it might be a bit harder with sword because it keeps forcing you to face a specific target every X hits.

Also GS has Maul to increase DPS while I doubt sword 2 and 3 skills will do this.

Now that the patch has somewhat buffed GS, any thoughts on the differences now?

the differences now?
imo now, you can not compare them directly anymore.
The buffs to the “control” skills of GS require you to factor in the offhand weapon you wanna roll aswell.
GS now really makes a difference.
You can not simply ask “GS or sword” anymore, the question is, whether you need the block and bash.
Kinda funny now that GS is pretty much a “sword and shield” weapon set now :>

Treat it as such!

Do you want “sword+shield”?
or do you want support+damage? burning? cripple+poison? damage+reflect?

If anything, this patch made the decision easier by buffing GS.

Maul will not make up for the difference in sustained DPS from autoattack.

Sword is still better DPS wise.