Guild Wars 2

So I have been running sword a bit lately in WvW, and there are a few things I have noticed, the pathing in savage leap in combat is absolutely terrible, I say maybe 25% of the time I hit my target (if I’m not blinded by this ridiculous blind spam). I’m running the sword with a leg specialist trying to take full advantage of the cripples.

Final Thrust cast time and animation are infuriating, the skill in combat just seems terribly unresponsive. THE ONLY way to land this skill is to hit flurry first. There is no kitten way you can land this ability on a moving target it’s just not happening, especially of the target is spamming blinds or teleports. which is infuriating at best. The cast time is to kitten long and the wind-up ( like ALL of our skills and nobody else’s) is ridiculous.

I have been nothing but frustrated with sword, savage leap jumping way the kitten over top of the target, or just even the target running towards you makes this skill terrible.

RUSH is completely pathetic as well on GS 5, it wasn’t fixed, in fact this skill almost never connects now.

ANET this is ridiculous.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Final Thrust cast time and animation are infuriating, the skill in combat just seems terribly unresponsive. THE ONLY way to land this skill is to hit flurry first. There is no kitten way you can land this ability on a moving target which is laughable at best. The cast time is to kitten long and the wind-up ( like ALL of our skills and nobody else’s) is ridiculous.

Could of been lucky hits, but I got quite a few players using final thrust while they were moving. However take note if you going to use final thrust a lot then I recommend using a shield along with another CC utility skill besides Flurry.

I really haven’t had much trouble with the sword weapon much despite the disadvantage blind condition gives warriors now.

I have to agree after this patch rush seems a lot worse

but it does so much dermages!

Eh, still don’t know how to feel about it. I can time it alright depending on the target, but generally try to use it on something that’s stunned/immobilized. Personally think halving the cast time and maybe giving it a small leap (shield bash range or so) and this would be a really solid skill… and why oh why does this list a 3/4s cast time, at least get the tooltip right as it’s pretty clearly longer than that.

I miss the AoE immob on the old sword =(

is it just me or is there about 1/2 second delay on the flurry, too? whenever i activate it, I always notice the slight hold up until the animation kicks in.

pot.6805:

I miss the AoE immob on the old sword =(

What do you mean? Did they change that or something? If they did then that’s a bad move.

Brutalistik.6473:

pot.6805:

I miss the AoE immob on the old sword =(

What do you mean? Did they change that or something? If they did then that’s a bad move.

They replaced skill three with “Final Thrust” in the form of a semi burst skill over writing “Hamstring”. “Hamstring” was a cleave crippling attack, which when traited correctly will immobilize for 1 second.

They swapped “Final Thrust” and “Hamstring” spot on the sword (end of auto attack chain <—> Skill 3).

Vanthian.9267:

Brutalistik.6473:

pot.6805:

I miss the AoE immob on the old sword =(

What do you mean? Did they change that or something? If they did then that’s a bad move.

They replaced skill three with “Final Thrust” in the form of a semi burst skill over writing “Hamstring”. “Hamstring” was a cleave crippling attack, which when traited correctly will immobilize for 1 second.

They swapped “Final Thrust” and “Hamstring” spot on the sword (end of auto attack chain <—> Skill 3).

Oh lol I thought you was talking about sword burst skill phew.

Sword F1 is the most annoying F1 to land, continuing the meh train.

I just love fighting a good thief with this garbage.. heck even hs spam owns sword

The changes in sword was very good. The sword chain become fast and cool, and final trust are a good burst.
The pointless are final trust animation be too slow.

The trait “blademaster” could additionally reduce in 20% rechager skills of sword.

Ehh, once again it’s the way abilities should be designed. A hard hit like that should be telegraphed. It just doesn’t hold up for other classes so much.

Funny, the hard hits thieves do aren’t telegraphed, coming from complete invisibility. Mesmer shattering isn’t telegraphed, being instant.

Sil.4560:

Funny, the hard hits thieves do aren’t telegraphed, coming from complete invisibility. Mesmer shattering isn’t telegraphed, being instant.

Yeah you right but they pay for it with innate squishiness

What with those particular classes having some of the best in-combat mobility in the game, I find that not entirely compelling.

It hits for 2k-3k non crt and 5k-6k crt its an amazing skill and it should be hard to land because of the damage it does thats called balance. Just do a cc before you use it or predict were the enemy is going to be. Personally I love Final thrust its so good

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

Sil.4560:

Funny, the hard hits thieves do aren’t telegraphed, coming from complete invisibility. Mesmer shattering isn’t telegraphed, being instant.

Yeah you right but they pay for it with innate squishiness

the thing is that they have stealth and clones and ports for sustain. so our skills shouldn’t be as telegraphed.

Derps.7421:

It hits for 2k-3k non crt and 5k-6k crt its an amazing skill and it should be hard to land because of the damage it does thats called balance. Just do a cc before you use it or predict were the enemy is going to be. Personally I love Final thrust its so good

Is no where close to LB3 or axe f1 imo

I’m using a sword and shield with LB in swap. With the sword f1, the shield #4 and the bow #5 its not that hard to get off. Practise makes perfect…

Lighter.5631:

Is no where close to LB3 or axe f1 imo

Is has nearly twice the damage of LB3 when you hit someone under 50% HP. It does in theory slightly more damage than a Backstab to the back.

stof.9341:

Lighter.5631:

Is no where close to LB3 or axe f1 imo

Is has nearly twice the damage of LB3 when you hit someone under 50% HP. It does in theory slightly more damage than a Backstab to the back.

But still it comes nowhere close to what other Warriors weapons can do with their own burst skills, you need your target to be under 50% to make it usefull, so the other 50% part of the fight it has no uses, and you end up with a lower DPS chain, with an uncontrolable Cripple. And if you want to slow your target down for more than 3sec, you need to rely on a skill with a 0,5sec delay or another one that only hits a single target and can be anticipated from 3 miles away.

If you happen to be a condition Warrior your Final Thrust won’t have any utility in your build, it does barely 4-4,5K Dmg with a full exotic Rampager Set, so don’t even ask with a complete Rabid set. The only way to make that attack hits like a truck is if you go full Berserk, do this and you end like any Rifle Berserker builds relying only on 2 skills to deal burst of damage (in this case only 1) and you end up with a crap Dps.

And to be completely honest, I rather have a Final Thrust criting for 2,2K on my auto chain, even if it leaves me with slower bleed stacking (I could already go to 25 anyways) and get back my AoE Cripple on demand when I need to switch back to Longbow or Rifle and take some distance.

the pros right now are:
+ sword can Burst.
+ sword has a slighty increased bleed stacking.
+ sword has a better synergy with Leg Specialist & Opportunist.

the cons right now are :
- sword has decreased DPS.
- sword has less crowd control.
- sword has less flexibility with ranged weaponery.

And that’s without taking into consideration that because of these changes, leg specialist doesn’t work so well anymore with Greatsword, Hammer and Rifle (traited).

Now depending to your play style each pros and cons will determinate if you like the new sword or not, but to me Burst has no place in our Sword mainhand, the increased bleed rate was a none issue before, I could already get easely up to 25 bleeds and I wasn’t using Leg Specialist. So what pros do get left for me in this patch? None…

When the patch got released I was the first to criticize the changes to sword, having used them almost exclusively since the beta weekends. But after having played with it since the update I have to admit I feel stronger in PVP since the changes. I think the biggest changes that have had the most positive effect has been the new sword auto attack. At first I didn’t like the change because of the reduction of overall sustained damage, but now I’ve come to realise I prefer the faster attacking timings, and the cripple does have its uses— in general making it better from a PVP standpoint. For PVE it took a bit of a nerf, and a 15sec CD on Final Thrust doesn’t really do it any favours.

I had beef with Final Thrust at first, and this is mainly due to the cooldown and the casting time. The thing with Final Thrust is you just need to be really really particular about when you use it, and in what situation you use it. When the skill lands it can turn the tide in a fight because of the decent damage, but it’s difficult to land and I guess that’s the trade-off. In an ideal world I’d like to see the casting time reduced a bit. Maybe even from 0.75 to 0.50 would make a nice quality of life difference.

In general I’m adapting nicely to the changes. They weren’t the most optimal changes I had in mind for sword— but I’ve gotten used to them and really starting to enjoy it. Could be a lot worse.

Sword feels improved to me: they should only polish a bit more n°2 (but this is for all the rushes/leaps) and make n°3 more responsive and less telegraphed (aka: speed up that animation!).

Derps.7421:

It hits for 2k-3k non crt and 5k-6k crt its an amazing skill and it should be hard to land because of the damage it does thats called balance. Just do a cc before you use it or predict were the enemy is going to be. Personally I love Final thrust its so good

No thats not balance when other classes have abilities that hit for 5k that are trival to land, are spammable and gap closers all in one.

Warrriors getting one side balance and no big picture plan is one of the core issues.

stof.9341:

Lighter.5631:

Is no where close to LB3 or axe f1 imo

Is has nearly twice the damage of LB3 when you hit someone under 50% HP. It does in theory slightly more damage than a Backstab to the back.

what, on my tooltip.its says.final thrust when enemy have lower then 50 hp does 2.3k ish and LB3 does 2k ish.and LB3 is so much easier to land and its a much bigger aoe. not to mention it has no restrictions for the damage it does and it has only 10 sec cd

Lighter.5631:

stof.9341:

Lighter.5631:

Is no where close to LB3 or axe f1 imo

Is has nearly twice the damage of LB3 when you hit someone under 50% HP. It does in theory slightly more damage than a Backstab to the back.

what, on my tooltip.its says.final thrust when enemy have lower then 50 hp does 2.3k ish and LB3 does 2k ish.and LB3 is so much easier to land and its a much bigger aoe. not to mention it has no restrictions for the damage it does and it has only 10 sec cd

Can confirm LB3 ~170% of final thrust >50%hp and ~85% of final thrust <50%hp. Final thrust is not nearly twice the damage unless Anet got some goofy math on it.

Personally i don’t like that “under 50%” with such a high cd and slow motion animation.

Why olny warriors suffers from slow motion skills anyway? Balance? I can’t call it a balance by any means.

“Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on SPEED, strength..”blablabla something about armor from toilet paper.

Ambrecombe.4398:

And that’s without taking into consideration that because of these changes, leg specialist doesn’t work so well anymore with Greatsword, Hammer and Rifle (traited).

The only one of the three that I see affected, not counting weapon swapping, is Greatsword. After all, the ICD on Leg Specialist is 5s, whereas Hammer Shock is 10/12s and Aimed Shot is 8/10s.

Olba.5376:

Ambrecombe.4398:

And that’s without taking into consideration that because of these changes, leg specialist doesn’t work so well anymore with Greatsword, Hammer and Rifle (traited).

The only one of the three that I see affected, not counting weapon swapping, is Greatsword. After all, the ICD on Leg Specialist is 5s, whereas Hammer Shock is 10/12s and Aimed Shot is 8/10s.

Warriors swap weapons, a common build with leg specialist was hammer + sword/x

Jump root => swap Aoe snare then whatever.

It really helped us catching squirrel builds, its a cc nerf we did not need

dooger.2640:

Olba.5376:

Ambrecombe.4398:

And that’s without taking into consideration that because of these changes, leg specialist doesn’t work so well anymore with Greatsword, Hammer and Rifle (traited).

The only one of the three that I see affected, not counting weapon swapping, is Greatsword. After all, the ICD on Leg Specialist is 5s, whereas Hammer Shock is 10/12s and Aimed Shot is 8/10s.

Warriors swap weapons, a common build with leg specialist was hammer + sword/x

Jump root => swap Aoe snare then whatever.

It really helped us catching squirrel builds, its a cc nerf we did not need

But at the same time, some ICD was necessary or the mh sword auto attack would be constant cripple&immobilize if you stacked duration and your opponent didn’t have -duration. Feel like the mh sword changes should be mostly reverted, keep most of the changes to the auto but move the cripple off it (replace with a bleed?), drop the leap cripple either in duration or entirely, put old hamstring in and add onto it a <50% effect (or w/e) if that’s really their solution to giving sword some burst.

and just to be clear, i mean if you want leg spec to drop the cd.

Lighter.5631:

stof.9341:

Lighter.5631:

Is no where close to LB3 or axe f1 imo

Is has nearly twice the damage of LB3 when you hit someone under 50% HP. It does in theory slightly more damage than a Backstab to the back.

what, on my tooltip.its says.final thrust when enemy have lower then 50 hp does 2.3k ish and LB3 does 2k ish.and LB3 is so much easier to land and its a much bigger aoe. not to mention it has no restrictions for the damage it does and it has only 10 sec cd

Right, should have checked ingame instead of the wiki XD It’s like 25% more damage on Final Thrust on a target <50% HP.

Never mind, I like the sword for the skill #2 mostly. The presence of a not bad bursting attack on #3 even if not extra is not a problem.

My problem with the warrior isn’t the damage output really. It’s actually managing to apply that damage in team fights.

dooger.2640:

Warriors swap weapons, a common build with leg specialist was hammer + sword/x

Jump root => swap Aoe snare then whatever.

It really helped us catching squirrel builds, its a cc nerf we did not need

We did get a cripple on Savage Leap to make up for it, though. Granted, it was 7 seconds on Hamstring whereas the Savage Leap is 3s.

I suppose that they could increase the cripple on Savage Leap to 4s, replace the cripple on Hamstring with something cool like Poison and take away the ICD on Leg Specialist.

Olba.5376:

dooger.2640:

Warriors swap weapons, a common build with leg specialist was hammer + sword/x

Jump root => swap Aoe snare then whatever.

It really helped us catching squirrel builds, its a cc nerf we did not need

We did get a cripple on Savage Leap to make up for it, though. Granted, it was 7 seconds on Hamstring whereas the Savage Leap is 3s.

I suppose that they could increase the cripple on Savage Leap to 4s, replace the cripple on Hamstring with something cool like Poison and take away the ICD on Leg Specialist.

:O poison? the condition that actually counters sustain heals?

…nah, that’ll never happen

Olba.5376:

Ambrecombe.4398:

And that’s without taking into consideration that because of these changes, leg specialist doesn’t work so well anymore with Greatsword, Hammer and Rifle (traited).

The only one of the three that I see affected, not counting weapon swapping, is Greatsword. After all, the ICD on Leg Specialist is 5s, whereas Hammer Shock is 10/12s and Aimed Shot is 8/10s.

Actualy they all got hited because the traits only works on 1 single target every 5sec, every additional target won’t be hit by the root coming out of those 3 weapon set. So it’s a AoE control nerf.

Olba.5376:

dooger.2640:

Warriors swap weapons, a common build with leg specialist was hammer + sword/x

Jump root => swap Aoe snare then whatever.

It really helped us catching squirrel builds, its a cc nerf we did not need

We did get a cripple on Savage Leap to make up for it, though. Granted, it was 7 seconds on Hamstring whereas the Savage Leap is 3s.

I suppose that they could increase the cripple on Savage Leap to 4s, replace the cripple on Hamstring with something cool like Poison and take away the ICD on Leg Specialist.

Putting the Cripple on Savage Leap itself is bad, it is very noticable in PvP and it gives bad escape options for more ranged focused builds. For instance the previous powerset allowed you to cripple your foe first and leap backward to take distance and swap to ranged weaponery.

The new weapon set only works in a single way, you leap forward and if you hit the target it Cripples, leaping backward won’t allow you to Cripple your foe. Savage Leap is also a single target ability while the old Hamstring could hit 3 targets and had a much faster activation time, making it almost unavoidable. It could also be used previously to increase the Bleed chain on sword, wich it does automaticaly now.

I think if they fixed the animations and made blademaster reduce sword cooldowns it would be at a better baseline

Olba.5376:

Ambrecombe.4398:

And that’s without taking into consideration that because of these changes, leg specialist doesn’t work so well anymore with Greatsword, Hammer and Rifle (traited).

The only one of the three that I see affected, not counting weapon swapping, is Greatsword. After all, the ICD on Leg Specialist is 5s, whereas Hammer Shock is 10/12s and Aimed Shot is 8/10s.

Hammer Shock used to immobilize everyone hit by it. Now because of the 5sec ICD on Leg Specialist it only immobilizes your selected target while any others only get crippled; if used without anything selected it immobilizes the closest target and cripples the rest.

And like you implied, Bladetrail on Greatsword.

I’m still pretty miffed about it; making two weapons weaker for a single, still terrible (for actual combat, it’s still a good escape/closer) weapon. They made up for losing Hamstring by giving Savage Leap a cripple. If they had put something else other than Hamstring/a cripple on the third auto-attack, Leg-Specialist wouldn’t have even been considered for a nerf, but they went ahead and put Hamstring on the auto-attack out of what I assume was because it was a fairly easy swap job.

/swordhaterforlife

dooger.2640:

I think if they fixed the animations and made blademaster reduce sword cooldowns it would be at a better baseline

With the exception of Lightning Hammer and of course Heartseeker, Savage Leap is already top in terms of movement.

Giving it a -20% cooldown reduction, even if it’s from a Master trait, would make it 6.4s, which is a crapton for a skill that has a range of 600 and a maximum distance of 900.

I’m still pretty miffed about it; making two weapons weaker for a single, still terrible (for actual combat, it’s still a good escape/closer) weapon.

Well honestly, I think the cripple on auto-attack is interesting for that weapon. It allows permanent in-combat fury, which previously required a lot more. It also made applying bleeds with the auto-attack faster and easier.

There’s a lot of complaining about Final Thrust, but it does good damage if you land it. And it’s not exactly the first time Warriors get one of those skills. Kill Shot, Eviscerate, 100 Blades are all in that boat.

Olba.5376:

dooger.2640:

I think if they fixed the animations and made blademaster reduce sword cooldowns it would be at a better baseline

With the exception of Lightning Hammer and of course Heartseeker, Savage Leap is already top in terms of movement.
.

and what is your point?

Olba.5376:

There’s a lot of complaining about Final Thrust, but it does good damage if you land it. And it’s not exactly the first time Warriors get one of those skills. Kill Shot, Eviscerate, 100 Blades are all in that boat.

how is using that nerfed useless legspecialist and having opportunist for perma fury any better then previous method. yea, sounds good on paper, i wonder who even uses opportunist.

ok, want me to explain how kill shot, evicerate and 100 blades(and other skills) are way better then final thrust?

Lighter.5631:

Olba.5376:

There’s a lot of complaining about Final Thrust, but it does good damage if you land it. And it’s not exactly the first time Warriors get one of those skills. Kill Shot, Eviscerate, 100 Blades are all in that boat.

how is using that nerfed useless legspecialist and having opportunist for perma fury any better then previous method. yea, sounds good on paper, i wonder who even uses opportunist.

ok, want me to explain how kill shot, evicerate and 100 blades(and other skills) are way better then final thrust?

Ooo! Ooo! They can be used at any point in a fight and under 50% you’re basically going to kill the other person if you land one of them?

Olba.5376:

dooger.2640:

I think if they fixed the animations and made blademaster reduce sword cooldowns it would be at a better baseline

With the exception of Lightning Hammer and of course Heartseeker, Savage Leap is already top in terms of movement.

Giving it a -20% cooldown reduction, even if it’s from a Master trait, would make it 6.4s, which is a crapton for a skill that has a range of 600 and a maximum distance of 900.

I’m still pretty miffed about it; making two weapons weaker for a single, still terrible (for actual combat, it’s still a good escape/closer) weapon.

Well honestly, I think the cripple on auto-attack is interesting for that weapon. It allows permanent in-combat fury, which previously required a lot more. It also made applying bleeds with the auto-attack faster and easier.

There’s a lot of complaining about Final Thrust, but it does good damage if you land it. And it’s not exactly the first time Warriors get one of those skills. Kill Shot, Eviscerate, 100 Blades are all in that boat.

Yes the synergy with Leg Specialist and Opportunist is good and i’m pretty sur the devs have done this with the idea to let sword users have permanent fury. But this change wasn’t needed at all, Sword could already take advantage of this trait before by hitting multiple opponents, and with those changes other weapons got screwed. Also the idea itself is broken because Opportunist is on the same trait slots as Blademaster, so you have to choose between 20% critical chance on every weapon with a root or 10% critical for sword only but stackable unless you prefere to sacrifice Furious for both of them, wich would be a bad move.

The problem with final thrust is not the fact we can’t land it, you people always get to that point but none of us are speaking of this, to get to the point, Final Thrust is a burst skill that decrease the overall DPS for our sword compared to our old Final Thrust wich gave high sustain. There is no point to use it on target above 50% making it useless during halve of the fight. And it offers no utility or control wich the new Hamstring and Savage Leap are trying to do but are a pale comparison to the possibilities the older version of Hamstring could offer to you.