Guild Wars 2

I have a question. Right now I’m running a sword, i feel the damage is great but not very fun to play, i was curious if I use a greatsword and the trait two handed training would the dmg be better then sword? Anything else i can do to make it better then sword?

Skills are more useful on greatsword and i feel I’m always using all of them. Not with my sword though.

Will the new damage buff also be enough you think to make greatsword another option?

Sylent.3165:

I have a question. Right now I’m running a sword, i feel the damage is great but not very fun to play, i was curious if I use a greatsword and the trait two handed training would the dmg be better then sword? Anything else i can do to make it better then sword?

Skills are more useful on greatsword and i feel I’m always using all of them. Not with my sword though.

Will the new damage buff also be enough you think to make greatsword another option?

The 1h sword has superior dmg in pve. Unfortunately the gap is so big that the feature pack changes won’t make a difference much. I don’t think the GS dmg will ever be comparable, because that would break pvp.

I just wish after 2 years they would change the sword auto-attack….

Same thing has been on my mind, although for different reasons. I prefer the jumping jack flavour of the sword but I miss features of the gs like #4 block and counter for dealing with thieves. I gave up gs/ longbow 6 months ago but with the patch it feels like they are pulling me back. It’s hard to match the burst of a well placed maul with anything on sword especially in Zerg fights, the damage improvements make it more of a pro/con thing than straight up better .

Sword autos vs Greatsword autos and the Sword wins. Sword doesn’t have any means to increase DPS though other than Horn. Greatsword on the other hand has Maul.

If you compare Sword’s complete PvE rotation to Greatsword’s PvE rotation, they are actually quite comparable in DPS. Especially with vuln. This is why the PvE builds you see discussed in guru often are using GS builds. The difference in damage is offset by ease of use.

The advantages of GS are:
-Strait line gap closer / escape skill with 3
-And Maul if you’re able to crit with it (it will do A LOT of damage).

Each auto attack should get like 7% dmg increase i think. Or they need to make the sword skills a little more useful. Unless you have conditions build which is rare then the sword skills are just pointless.

The best dps for a ranger uses both. Gs 3 and 2 at the start of the fight, then sword aa. But there’s some encounter where you can’t use sword, because it pushes bosses and you can’t max melee, and in those, stick to greatsword.

Edit: rangers are also good conjure wielders so if you have an ele beg for a lightning hammer.

Sylent.3165:

Each auto attack should get like 7% dmg increase i think. Or they need to make the sword skills a little more useful. Unless you have conditions build which is rare then the sword skills are just pointless.

Condi build with GS? That makes no sense, at all. You have 0 condi damage with GS (not a single skill do some sort of condition damage). And stacking vulnerability with maul is poinless.

Much better to run LB with GS, you rapid fire the enemy, switch GS, 3, 2.

Also, ranger condi builds are not rare. Some of the best current meta builds are condi based builds. For example, FR condi ranger.

We discussed this to death a few months back. tl;dr version is that one of sword’s autoattacks doesn’t cleave while all of GS’ autoattacks do. So sword is better against a single target, GS is better against multiple targets.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/greatsword-vs-sword-warhorn/first

Quoting the summary numbers I calculated:

Sword
1 target = 1378 DPS
2 targets = 2315 DPS
3 targets = 3766 DPS

GS no traits
1 target = 1209 DPS (88% sword)
2 targets = 2418 DPS (104% sword)
3 targets = 3627 DPS (110% sword)

GS w/ Martial Mastery
1 target = 1289 DPS (94% sword)
2 targets = 2578 DPS (111% sword)
3 targets = 3867 DPS (118% sword)

GS w/ 2H Training
1 target = 1306 DPS (95% sword)
2 targets = 2611 DPS (113% sword)
3 targets = 3917 DPS (120% sword)

The only things we didn’t factor in were pet damage, and additional damage from off-hand weapons.

• Sword gives pets a few might stacks (warhorn gives a lot more if used with RaO). Make of this what you will, but most people pretty much ignore their pet’s damage when considering a build.
• Most off-hand weapon skills are single target, so I don’t see this changing the tl;dr conclusion in general. Exceptions are: Horn 5 does give party fury, and torch 5 gives an AOE fire field if your targets are stupid enough to stand in it.
• Obviously this could change next patch. I’m sure we’ll revisit it if it does.

The single-target DPS figures are close enough (especially if you take a GS trait) that I’m unashamed about using GS as my main melee weapon instead of sword. I’ll break out the sword if I know there will only be a single target (e.g. bosses) or the group needs fury. But I’m finding the block on GS 4 is a lot easier to use than sword’s evades. And the evade on the autoattack has saved my butt many times, while I had this bad tendency to try to “save” sword evades for really bad situations and ended up never using them. Heck, GS is just an easier weapon to use overall, and lately I play to relax, not to see how high an APM I can hit with my left hand.

Edit: Funny thing is I still use GS like I use sword – manually hitting 1. I usually don’t bother selecting a target or pick a target that’s not in range (a trick to get your pet to attack something other than what you’re attacking) and hit 1 to swing. Sometimes you can use this to time GS’ autoattack evade to match with an opponent’s big attack. Only when the combat is predictable do I select a nearby target and rely on the autoattack.

Sylent.3165:

Each auto attack should get like 7% dmg increase i think. Or they need to make the sword skills a little more useful. Unless you have conditions build which is rare then the sword skills are just pointless.

You already stated that you feel sword skills are useless, if you put GS and Sword dps at par with each other, what role will the sword fill in PVE?

After the incoming patch, GS will still be your burst damage melee AoE weapon with some improvement on its AoE capabilities and a very small auto-attack buff.

Sword will still be highest single target DPS with the most uptime on the new +10% damage trait.

There is of course the consideration of needing to be in max melee range or not for encounters that can make GS a better choice at the expense of giving up some damage.
If they “fixed” the leaping portion of Sword auto-attack chain like what they mentioned last April, GS wouldn’t be necessary for this situation anymore.

Solandri.9640:

Edit: Funny thing is I still use GS like I use sword – manually hitting 1. I usually don’t bother selecting a target or pick a target that’s not in range (a trick to get your pet to attack something other than what you’re attacking) and hit 1 to swing. Sometimes you can use this to time GS’ autoattack evade to match with an opponent’s big attack. Only when the combat is predictable do I select a nearby target and rely on the autoattack.

Lol, I picked up the same habit, even when playing other classes I end up pressing the auto attack button.

Izaya.2906:

Solandri.9640:

Edit: Funny thing is I still use GS like I use sword – manually hitting 1. I usually don’t bother selecting a target or pick a target that’s not in range (a trick to get your pet to attack something other than what you’re attacking) and hit 1 to swing. Sometimes you can use this to time GS’ autoattack evade to match with an opponent’s big attack. Only when the combat is predictable do I select a nearby target and rely on the autoattack.

Lol, I picked up the same habit, even when playing other classes I end up pressing the auto attack button.

Yeah my “1” button is already spent on my brand new Microsoft keyboard.

Izaya.2906:

Lol, I picked up the same habit, even when playing other classes I end up pressing the auto attack button.

That’s not a bad habit. Competitive players do this for more control over their characters (i.e. for attack chains or confusion, blah blah blah.)

Anywho, the biggest advantage of the sword other than autoattack damage is versatility. GS has it’s skillbar locked with 5 skills. Sword essentially has 11 skills, and 10 of them are awesome (WH4 is awful.)

Sylent.3165:

I have a question. Right now I’m running a sword, i feel the damage is great but not very fun to play, i was curious if I use a greatsword and the trait two handed training would the dmg be better then sword? Anything else i can do to make it better then sword?

Skills are more useful on greatsword and i feel I’m always using all of them. Not with my sword though.

Will the new damage buff also be enough you think to make greatsword another option?

initiate with GS 3 and 2 then swap to sword for the autos iirc