Guild Wars 2

How far behind is sword compared to staff when talking solely from a dps perspective. Is it at least viable/competitive, or is it too far off?

Staff I would say is more fUn then sword (asume you spam pistol whip) and sd isn’t really meant for pve. At least with staff you can use all 5 skills effectively.

Blacksarevok.8104:

How far behind is sword compared to staff when talking solely from a dps perspective. Is it at least viable/competitive, or is it too far off?

Don’t know, why don’t you go to the dps golem and test it. Bonus points if you post your results here.

Staff feels a long way ahead in damage, probably because vault hits more targets, but S/P does enough damage to get the job done. Depends whether you need more blinds and CC or more reliable dodges, and if you care about clearing things in the fastest possible time.

Sword is somewhere between 15% and 20% lower DPS than a staff. The auto isn’t actually that bad, but it is behind staff and dagger auto damage. The bigger issue is that neither sword set offers anything to boost damage output. You have a nice mix of mobility, evades, stealth, and hard/soft CC, but nothing you can push for additional damage.

It’s perfectly decent when played solo, where you can maximize all those utility tools, but in a team environment you’re basically a hammer guardian or revenant DPS-wise with none of the team support.

From what I have noticed,

Staff / dagger dagger offer about the same amount of damage. Staff is more versatile but dagger dagger has a simpler DPS rotation.

Sword/Dagger and Sword/Pistol are things I would only use in specific situations.
Sword/Dagger when you need boonstrip.
Sword/Pistol when you need a reliable dodge and blinds.