Guild Wars 2

After getting a feel for staff and how fluid it was when transitioning between autos and other skills, I couldn’t help but notice something a bit off when I was using S/X.

So, I decided to do a bit of testing on the timing/transitions of Sword vs. other melee options and I discovered two aspects that I’d love the devs to take a look at. The first is almost certainly unintended behavior (or at least it suspiciously feels that way), and the second is more of a comparison between supposed cast times of the 3 melee sets vs. reality.

Additional 1/2 Second Delay when transitioning from Sword autos to any other skill with a cast time

At any point during the Sword #1 chain (slice, slash, crippling strike), you can experience an additional ~0.5 second delay between the #1 and the next action including the next step in the auto chain. In combat, this happens most frequently when transitioning between #1 -> any other skill w/ cast time, but not every single time.

The most reliable way to reproduce the effect I’m talking about doesn’t even require a target. If you just stand still, perform Slice (1st part of #1), and then press your next skill as soon as the animation finishes, you’ll get this awkward pause and then your next attack, effectively adding a 1/2 second precast to any non-instant skill. I’ve tried to reproduce this effect on the other sets, but I’ve not managed to do so, implying there is an issue specific to Sword.

Cast Time vs. Reality Comparison between Dagger/Staff/Sword
**Cast Times are per the GW2 Wiki

Dagger

Double Strike – ?? (Presumed 1/4s)
Wild Strike – ?? (Presumed 1/4s)
Lotus Strike – 1/4s
Total Estimate – 3/4s (lol)
Actual Sequence Time – 2.07s

Staff

Staff Strike – 1/2s
Staff Bash – 1/2s
Punishing Strikes – 1s
Total Estimate – 2s
Actual Sequence Time – 2.04s

Sword

Slice – ??(Presumed 1/2s)
Slash – 1/2s
Crippling Strike – 1/2s
Total Estimate – 1.5s
Actual Sequence Time – 2.52s

Conclusions

There’s clearly an amount of uplift to be expected between cast time and real time, with staff being (mostly) the exception to this.

In terms of expectations, fastest -> slowest order is Dagger>Sword>Staff

In actuality, the order is Staff~Dagger>>Sword.

It’s important to note that this is the disparity assuming you don’t experience the Sword-specific delay during the auto chain, which would put you at 3.02 total sequence time, which is outrageous.

Ideally, I’d love to see Sword brought more up to speed with the other two – just a hair behind dagger in speed. The first issue being fixed is a must though, as it just reeks of unintentional behavior.

I’d love to hear a dev’s take on this – even if it’s something as simple as “We’re going to be taking a look at this behavior” or “This is the intended behavior we were going for”

TL;DR Sword has a unique delay between its autos and any skill w/ cast time (including other autos), and it would also be great if Sword autos were sped up for more fluid gameplay.

Haven’t noticed any significant delays in the autochain itself, but have seen this behavior with transitioning to other skills after a #1, but only if you let the full swing animation end out before using another skill, as you said.

Xeyon.6419:

Haven’t noticed any significant delays in the autochain itself, but have seen this behavior with transitioning to other skills after a #1, but only if you let the full swing animation end out before using another skill, as you said.

I’ve figured out what it is, and I know how to trigger it consistently. I press 1 to force autos from time to time when I know I’m in range to hit, but not enough to trigger the autocast. You can reproduce the delay on the 3rd part of the chain by pressing 1 as soon as the animation for the 1st part finishes swinging as you said.

An idea for how to make sword more fluid:

#1.1-1.3) Reduce the pre/post casts to make the entire chain 2.0 seconds long. Reduce the coefficients to 0.65, 0.65, and 1.05 (this is actually a 2% increase to AA DPS). Leave the weakness and cripple duration at 2 seconds

Ah I see what you are saying now with the auto chain. From what I’ve seen testing this out, going from a slice to a headshot seems to be the most noticeable example. You can interrupt a slice midswing for an instant headshot, but if you queue up the headshot more than halfway through the swing, you get the gnarly aftercast. Definitely needs fixing.

I think this was always there. I’m not saying it doesn’t need fixing but I do remember a lot of the times when I rolled sword in pvp, letting the swig continue to finish and then immediately doing another skill had a slight delay. However I cannot say I noticed between the auto attack itself, I do press the auto attack key since I find it far too unreliable to rely on my character to start attacking by themselves but maybe you do the same thing?

RedSpectrum.1975:

I think this was always there. I’m not saying it doesn’t need fixing but I do remember a lot of the times when I rolled sword in pvp, letting the swig continue to finish and then immediately doing another skill had a slight delay. However I cannot say I noticed between the auto attack itself, I do press the auto attack key since I find it far too unreliable to rely on my character to start attacking by themselves but maybe you do the same thing?

I’m pretty sure it was too, I just hadn’t gotten it down to a science yet. I do what you do for the same reason, and you can trigger it reliably on the autos by pressing 1 once right after the 1st swing animation finishes. If done correctly, you’ll have a big delay between 1.2 and 1.3.

Maugetarr.6823:

An idea for how to make sword more fluid:

#1.1-1.3) Reduce the pre/post casts to make the entire chain 2.0 seconds long. Reduce the coefficients to 0.65, 0.65, and 1.05 (this is actually a 2% increase to AA DPS). Leave the weakness and cripple duration at 2 seconds

I can’t say I’d be against a small damage shave to make it that fast. However, if the devs are against cutting it down to ~2 seconds, I think just speeding it up 10% to put it at ~2.25 and calling it a day would be fair as well. You can even test what this would feel like if you have the speed mushrooms from Itzel lore. I have, and it’s just noticeable enough. Not too fast, not too slow.

I’ve reported it as a bug in game after noticing it more and more consistently, particularly when going for a needed headshot or black powder. Hopefully the right people see it and this 3 year old bug gets the attention it needs.

Ravoku.1852:

Maugetarr.6823:

An idea for how to make sword more fluid:

#1.1-1.3) Reduce the pre/post casts to make the entire chain 2.0 seconds long. Reduce the coefficients to 0.65, 0.65, and 1.05 (this is actually a 2% increase to AA DPS). Leave the weakness and cripple duration at 2 seconds

I can’t say I’d be against a small damage shave to make it that fast. However, if the devs are against cutting it down to ~2 seconds, I think just speeding it up 10% to put it at ~2.25 and calling it a day would be fair as well. You can even test what this would feel like if you have the speed mushrooms from Itzel lore. I have, and it’s just noticeable enough. Not too fast, not too slow.

But this is a 2% damage buff. I think having it sped up to 2 seconds would minimize the chance of being stuck in an aftercast when needing to use headshot or flanking strike.

Maugetarr.6823:

Ravoku.1852:

Maugetarr.6823:

An idea for how to make sword more fluid:

#1.1-1.3) Reduce the pre/post casts to make the entire chain 2.0 seconds long. Reduce the coefficients to 0.65, 0.65, and 1.05 (this is actually a 2% increase to AA DPS). Leave the weakness and cripple duration at 2 seconds

I can’t say I’d be against a small damage shave to make it that fast. However, if the devs are against cutting it down to ~2 seconds, I think just speeding it up 10% to put it at ~2.25 and calling it a day would be fair as well. You can even test what this would feel like if you have the speed mushrooms from Itzel lore. I have, and it’s just noticeable enough. Not too fast, not too slow.

But this is a 2% damage buff. I think having it sped up to 2 seconds would minimize the chance of being stuck in an aftercast when needing to use headshot or flanking strike.

Yes, I saw that it’s a 2% DPS buff. When I say I’m okay with a damage shave, I mean I’d be willing to part with a shave to the base damage values if it were lowered that drastically. However, I’m not confident the devs would be willing to lower it that much to be as fast as dagger. That’s why I offered a middle ground of 10% as a start w/o a damage loss to put it more in line to what the others are doing.

It’s also worth mentioning that the condition durations are way off between the 3. Sword’s cripple + weakness last only 2s in addition to being slowest to access, while dagger and staff have 6s on poison and 8s on vulnerability respectively, with faster access.

Lastly, speeding up sword alone won’t address the aftercast bug because it’s not a byproduct of sword’s slowness. You can trigger the additional ~0.5 second delay with the Speed Mushroom boost as well as having Quickness on. It’s a bug in its own right and needs to be addressed individually.

Ravoku.1852:

Maugetarr.6823:

Ravoku.1852:

Maugetarr.6823:

An idea for how to make sword more fluid:

#1.1-1.3) Reduce the pre/post casts to make the entire chain 2.0 seconds long. Reduce the coefficients to 0.65, 0.65, and 1.05 (this is actually a 2% increase to AA DPS). Leave the weakness and cripple duration at 2 seconds

I can’t say I’d be against a small damage shave to make it that fast. However, if the devs are against cutting it down to ~2 seconds, I think just speeding it up 10% to put it at ~2.25 and calling it a day would be fair as well. You can even test what this would feel like if you have the speed mushrooms from Itzel lore. I have, and it’s just noticeable enough. Not too fast, not too slow.

But this is a 2% damage buff. I think having it sped up to 2 seconds would minimize the chance of being stuck in an aftercast when needing to use headshot or flanking strike.

Yes, I saw that it’s a 2% DPS buff. When I say I’m okay with a damage shave, I mean I’d be willing to part with a shave to the base damage values if it were lowered that drastically. However, I’m not confident the devs would be willing to lower it that much to be as fast as dagger. That’s why I offered a middle ground of 10% as a start w/o a damage loss to put it more in line to what the others are doing.

It’s also worth mentioning that the condition durations are way off between the 3. Sword’s cripple + weakness last only 2s in addition to being slowest to access, while dagger and staff have 6s on poison and 8s on vulnerability respectively, with faster access.

Lastly, speeding up sword alone won’t address the aftercast bug because it’s not a byproduct of sword’s slowness. You can trigger the additional ~0.5 second delay with the Speed Mushroom boost as well as having Quickness on. It’s a bug in its own right and needs to be addressed individually.

I think it would be more acceptable for them to reduce the milliseconds of aftercast on the skills and the coefficients than to give AA DPS a 10% boost. Consequently, S/X would become more viable due to to the higher weakness and cripple uptime and the increase in fluidity of the other skills on the bar not being locked behind a pre/aftercast.

Maugetarr.6823:

Ravoku.1852:

Maugetarr.6823:

Ravoku.1852:

Maugetarr.6823:

An idea for how to make sword more fluid:

#1.1-1.3) Reduce the pre/post casts to make the entire chain 2.0 seconds long. Reduce the coefficients to 0.65, 0.65, and 1.05 (this is actually a 2% increase to AA DPS). Leave the weakness and cripple duration at 2 seconds

I can’t say I’d be against a small damage shave to make it that fast. However, if the devs are against cutting it down to ~2 seconds, I think just speeding it up 10% to put it at ~2.25 and calling it a day would be fair as well. You can even test what this would feel like if you have the speed mushrooms from Itzel lore. I have, and it’s just noticeable enough. Not too fast, not too slow.

But this is a 2% damage buff. I think having it sped up to 2 seconds would minimize the chance of being stuck in an aftercast when needing to use headshot or flanking strike.

Yes, I saw that it’s a 2% DPS buff. When I say I’m okay with a damage shave, I mean I’d be willing to part with a shave to the base damage values if it were lowered that drastically. However, I’m not confident the devs would be willing to lower it that much to be as fast as dagger. That’s why I offered a middle ground of 10% as a start w/o a damage loss to put it more in line to what the others are doing.

It’s also worth mentioning that the condition durations are way off between the 3. Sword’s cripple + weakness last only 2s in addition to being slowest to access, while dagger and staff have 6s on poison and 8s on vulnerability respectively, with faster access.

Lastly, speeding up sword alone won’t address the aftercast bug because it’s not a byproduct of sword’s slowness. You can trigger the additional ~0.5 second delay with the Speed Mushroom boost as well as having Quickness on. It’s a bug in its own right and needs to be addressed individually.

I think it would be more acceptable for them to reduce the milliseconds of aftercast on the skills and the coefficients than to give AA DPS a 10% boost. Consequently, S/X would become more viable due to to the higher weakness and cripple uptime and the increase in fluidity of the other skills on the bar not being locked behind a pre/aftercast.

I’m not sure if you understand the nature of the pre/aftercast issue. The break in fluidity from other skills on your bar does not happen every single time. Most of the time, the sequence does complete in 2.52 seconds, so fluidity and cripple/weakness uptime would not change. It’s a bug, and addressing it should not be viewed as a buff.

As to whether or not sword needs to be sped up for balance between it and the other melee options is a different topic of debate. Personally, I think it’s warranted given the sequence times and effects of Staff and Dagger vs. Sword – especially when you consider that Thief is not a profession that can afford slower animations as much as other professions due to lack of passive defenses (i.e. protection, aegis, healing presence).

For me, the affected dps of sword’s auto is much less of an issue than the delay to switching off from autoattack to other skills. Headshot, or any other skill, having a half-second delay when used after a full swing animation is really problematic. Furthermore, it only happening part of the time (depending on when used in the swing) is testament to it being a bug in need of fixing. And as was previously mentioned, the dps can easily be sculpted to be unchanged should this be fixed.

It’s true. I’ve been playing sword/dagger for a long time now, and I’ve just gotten used to the delay I guess. But that doesn’t mean Anet shouldn’t address it. Thief has few enough viable options as it is without this weapon set working as intended. If they can make the staff attacks fluid, then they can do it with the sword/X sets as well.

Thanks for bringing this up. Hopefully someone is listening.

I don’t think it is just sword, either. Something I noticed is that, when using D/D, after a backstab I’ll immediately go into a heartseeker, only to see my thief stand there for what feels like half a second before executing a skill.

I’d really like to see this fixed, it would bring new life in the s/x.

OP, for comparisons sake can we get you to while wearing an armor set that doesn’t boost power or condi damage and beat up some of the golums in the heart of the mists who’s health is known and time it, then we can do the maths to get a more accurate number on action times and so others can reproduce your results.

Also can we look into if haste actually doubles activation time of the auto-attack or if it suffers the same 1/2 second delay or if the delay is also sped up?

Overworld.9613:

OP, for comparisons sake can we get you to while wearing an armor set that doesn’t boost power or condi damage and beat up some of the golums in the heart of the mists who’s health is known and time it, then we can do the maths to get a more accurate number on action times and so others can reproduce your results.

Also can we look into if haste actually doubles activation time of the auto-attack or if it suffers the same 1/2 second delay or if the delay is also sped up?

I’ll see what I can do. I don’t have any fancy video editing software, but I do have shadowplay for recording. Probably won’t be until later tonight or tomorrow that I have something though.

Aftercasts are something that has caused a lot of balance problems in the game with respect to inter-weapon balance.

I used to complain ad nauseam about the aftercast on Vital Shot, which has always caused the skill to do way less DPS than it was almost certainly intended to.

It almost seems like devs continually forget to factor it in to anything and it just hangs out randomly with some sets being much more significantly impacted by it than others.

They need to pretty much get rid of it entirely and build delays into the activation speed for skills. That would a.) result in better transparency, and b.) be easier to monitor, theorycraft, and balance.

Popping in here again to say, I’m currently leveling a second thief(RedSpectrum what??) since I want a straictly no-stealth thief and have a lot of thiefy gear on my main. So I’m leveling up using sword dagger and I noticed something that is quite…annoying. I know I said it above but I literally had this happen so many times yesterday. When performing flanking strike, half the time do I actually go straight to larcenous strike. The other half I let the auto attack do some damage, then do larcenous strike. Well when I let the AA do its work and then activate LS, my character pauses for a bit as if they are confused what to do, then they do LS. Pefect example of what the OP was talking about. Further more, skills that interrupt the AA chain will go off instantly. If AAing and you use, say CnD during an attack animation it will insta cancel and use CnD as it should. But using skills right after an attack has finished will get some nasty hesitation from the character and I think LS has by the far the worst of it.

LS definitely feels it pretty hard. Headshot and Infiltrator’s Return both really feel it bad as well, headshot because it really needs to be an instant cast to be considered reliable, and Infiltrator’s Return because it already has a half second delay.

It should be noted that quickness and slow affect this delay. Try using a slice and a Inf return while in an enemy Time Warp.

I really wish anet will show some love for s/d. Shorter aftercasts , 2xboonsteal on ls, more dmg or other cool stuff on tactical strike (the ridiculous aftercast interrupts you more than the kittenty daze does the enemy)

Yeah I wrote about this in one of my posts. The autoattack delays hav eto be lowered a lot. Especially skills like Flanking strike and also sb’s Disabling shot should not be affected by aftercasts at all ( and flanking strike shouold also cancel the skill you are currently casting isntead of queing it up)

We need to make sure these bug post threads don’t die. We have very little chance of getting them fixed as is with regular thread posts. Without these bug report threads, there is likely no chance of them being addressed. A dev post regarding whether or not anyone gives a kitten at all would really be nice…. Pipe dreams I know.

+1 for this thread

Been playing s/d and staff for the last several days and I LOVE s/d but this aftercast/delay crap is getting me killed so often It ruined the fluid experience of being a ninja. Please fix this devs.

There are a lot of needless aftercasts on weapon skills that’ve been around since launch without getting tweaked (Vital Shot’s always comes to mind, as it strongly hinders the usefulness of MH Pistol). I’d love to see these things fixed, but it probably won’t happen.

Amante.8109:

There are a lot of needless aftercasts on weapon skills that’ve been around since launch without getting tweaked (Vital Shot’s always comes to mind, as it strongly hinders the usefulness of MH Pistol). I’d love to see these things fixed, but it probably won’t happen.

Engi’s pistol and a lot of staff and scepter attacks also. It mostly affects ranged weapons, but not all ranged weapons, and a few melee weapons apply too.

It’s almost like they don’t even know it’s there and forget to factor it in to balancing.

+1. Anet fix these delays or tell us they are intentional. If we aren’t meant to have a GCD on some skill interactions, then kittening fix it for sucks fake.