Sooooo,
let’s talk greatsword!
The problem which people often face is that GS has very telegraphed skills. Maul is like a sign saying “I ATTACK NOW, YOU SHOULD DODGE!” and block is “Please hit me so I can try to kick you”
This results in 90% of mauls failing to hit (and a lot of statistics are made up when written). Workaround for this? Set it up with the block/hilt bash. The problem with that? It is too obvious about what you are trying to do.
But let’s look at the opposite. What is bad with maul? It is easily evaded. Opposite of that: What is good with maul? It is easily evaded.
Maul can be used to trigger dodge rolls & other evasion skills, often enough to make maul hit without setting it up.
There is a little trick with Maul that barely anyone uses and it’s called “Skill canceling”. When using Maul, it’s CD begins when the channel finishes. In order to make maul (almost) spammable, bind a key to “Stow weapon”. Now whenever you want to bait an evade just press maul and stow weapon right after. The bear spirit will slam down on your opponent but it will deal no damage. Maul goes on a 3 second cooldown (because canceling it counts as an interrupt). That’s all… figure out the rest. There are more skills which behave like this
PS.: Brace yourself, people will call you a hacker!