Guild Wars 2

Do you still get the critical bonus if you offhand a sword? I know the game doesn’t visually display the 10% bonus, but I was curious whether or not the sword had to be main hand, as other traits specifically point this out, (such as Axe Mastery) but trait descriptions are known to be vague/wrong/missing information. Maybe a dev could enlighten me?

good question, want to know that too

I went ahead and tested this myself, and found it does NOT give you the bonus if your sword is in offhand. It was a very simple test:

Went to the Heart of the mists, got 70% critical with Runes+Trait+Amulet, activated Signet of Rage+"For Great Justice!" to get a permanent Fury, bumping it to 90%. With a mainhand sword, it does appear to give the 10% bonus to critical, as I was unable to note a single time I did not critical over 5 minutes. Hilariously, when I offhanded the sword, even with 90% critical and Blademaster, the first hit of the mace did not critical (and many more after that, I kept going until I was able to reproduce 10 non-crits).

While testing this, I went ahead and tested a few other things that give bonuses but do not list them in the stat menu. Heightened Focus does in-fact work, giving me 100% accuracy from 81%+10%(Blademaster). Superior Sigil of Accuracy does work, but contrary to what the wiki states, it does NOT stack, meaning you cannot use one in each hand and get 10% bonus critical. It seems safe to assume no sigil stacks if used in both hands, despite what the wiki states.

I assume you were unable to test whether the Sword 10% crit applied to offhand Sword attacks? They have cooldowns so would be tedious …

CHunterX.4083:

I went ahead and tested this myself, and found it does NOT give you the bonus if your sword is in offhand. It was a very simple test:

Went to the Heart of the mists, got 70% critical with Runes+Trait+Amulet, activated Signet of Rage+"For Great Justice!" to get a permanent Fury, bumping it to 90%. With a mainhand sword, it does appear to give the 10% bonus to critical, as I was unable to note a single time I did not critical over 5 minutes. Hilariously, when I offhanded the sword, even with 90% critical and Blademaster, the first hit of the mace did not critical (and many more after that, I kept going until I was able to reproduce 10 non-crits).

While testing this, I went ahead and tested a few other things that give bonuses but do not list them in the stat menu. Heightened Focus does in-fact work, giving me 100% accuracy from 81%+10%(Blademaster). Superior Sigil of Accuracy does work, but contrary to what the wiki states, it does NOT stack, meaning you cannot use one in each hand and get 10% bonus critical. It seems safe to assume no sigil stacks if used in both hands, despite what the wiki states.

I think the OP was asking whether or not sword off-hand abilities would get the crit bonus, not if the bonus would be applied to main-hand weapons while off-handing a sword. At least that’s how I interpreted it. I could be wrong, though.

Not like it really matters, though. Nobody cares about crits on off-hand sword abilities.

Based on the verbiage I think the op was asking about the abuse of getting the benefits of the trait while mainhanding something that is not “Sword”.

Sir.2614:

CHunterX.4083:

I went ahead and tested this myself, and found it does NOT give you the bonus if your sword is in offhand. It was a very simple test:

Went to the Heart of the mists, got 70% critical with Runes+Trait+Amulet, activated Signet of Rage+"For Great Justice!" to get a permanent Fury, bumping it to 90%. With a mainhand sword, it does appear to give the 10% bonus to critical, as I was unable to note a single time I did not critical over 5 minutes. Hilariously, when I offhanded the sword, even with 90% critical and Blademaster, the first hit of the mace did not critical (and many more after that, I kept going until I was able to reproduce 10 non-crits).

While testing this, I went ahead and tested a few other things that give bonuses but do not list them in the stat menu. Heightened Focus does in-fact work, giving me 100% accuracy from 81%+10%(Blademaster). Superior Sigil of Accuracy does work, but contrary to what the wiki states, it does NOT stack, meaning you cannot use one in each hand and get 10% bonus critical. It seems safe to assume no sigil stacks if used in both hands, despite what the wiki states.

I think the OP was asking whether or not sword off-hand abilities would get the crit bonus, not if the bonus would be applied to main-hand weapons while off-handing a sword. At least that’s how I interpreted it. I could be wrong, though.

Not like it really matters, though. Nobody cares about crits on off-hand sword abilities.

I am the OP. I wanted to know if the 10% from Blademaster depended on being in the mainhand. All other weapon traits list “while wielding an X in your main hand” except Blademaster, which would imply that it could be in either hand to get the 10% bonus flat out for all skills, which is sadly not true. I really wanted to work a Mace/Sword build around Blademaster.