Guild Wars 2

Well I do! I’m aware that it’s not as focused on dps as an axe, but it’s just too much fun to leave it in my pack. Here’s why:
-Savage Leap is on an 8 second cooldown…and that’s almost nothing. I use this to chase down runners (cripple), escape combat, bridge gaps, jump into combo fields and just move around the map faster. Team it up with Death from Above and it’s a great surprise drop-down initiator to scare the kitten out of a redletter.

-Auto-attack may not hit the hardest, but it’s fast and my asura does a little stomp animation on the final hit. Put a sigil of strength on it and (with a decent crit%), the AA hits fairly well with the addition of might.

-Final thrust. While it may be slow and sometimes difficult to land, it pokes very hard and can often finish off an opponent with low health.

-Flurry stack the bleeds, immobilizes and can be cancelled mid-cast to 100bl. You won’t get off the full 100bl, but most certainly will do some significant damage.

I’ve tried to give all the other main-hand weps an honest shot in WvW, but always I come back to the under-loved sword.

Sword is my favorite weapon in the game. That is why I made Bolt. It’s great because it offer a bit of everything. CC, Burst, mobility, scale pretty well and it also synergies well with most off hand/second weapon set.

Sword isn’t under loved :/

I use it on all my hammer builds, I use it on my condition build. Recently I used it on a Sword Axe/Longbow leveling build with primary focus being tagging as many people and mobs a possible before circling around the fight with the longbow. Sword has good damage if you build properly, it also has good mobility which is key to survival in WvW. Anyone who says main hand sword sucks doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Thats right. Sword isn’t underloved. Main issues with it are Final thrust. cast time is too long for a 130 range skill. Its cast time is comparable to Ranged skills and thats not OK.

Flurry doesn’t hit 8 times like it is supposed to. Other issue is this weapon is to blame for leg specialist being nerfed into the ground and given an ICD. I blame this weapon for that and the cripple on the third AA chain isn’t worth the nerf It’s not that good.

I would of rather ANET remove the cripple and add bleeding to the third AA. Cuz 1 sec of cripple isn’t worth the nerf to Leg Specialist. And we already have a cripple on savage leap. And Savage leap didn’t cripple before the buff.

Those issues makes sword a Meh weapon. Its not as kittenome of warriors other weapons but its not great either becasue of the bugs, the slow cast time of #3 and the useless cripple on the AA that got our traits nerfed.

In combination with warhorn it is very good weapon for traveling not only in WvW and chase down runners in WvW so i use it too.

I can’t wait to see the new grandmaster trait works with final thrust. It could be a nice buff to dual sword build. For now final thrust and throw sword casting is slow and hard to land, i hope the speed buff can make a different.

Final Thrust should never be used unless the enemy is under 50% HP and you’re running a power/crit build. If these conditions are met you need to be careful with the timing as it comes out kind of slow and awkward.

@Crossaber: The new trait would lower the animation time for Final Thrust as thus: 0.75s = 0.68s or 0.07s faster. Hardly worth it as a grandmaster trait (it is very difficult to spot a 0.07s difference).

Power/Crit tends to be a better option as Sword/Sword or Sword/Whatever. Make sure you get the adept skill Deep Cuts from the Arms Trait, and consider Arms: 25, ‘Attack of Opportunity’ as well for a very consistent 10% damage increase.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQJAscjMdU5ZhHOewJaABfQDvMSipQ9YOsj2A-TMAg0CnIKC

Here is a quick slapping together of my old S/S + Whatever build. Use full Lyssa, and then Soldier/Zerk or Zerk/Zerk if survival is not an issue. If anyone is interested I have a post in my history that goes into more detail about this build I could go dig up; it does more damage than is probably apparent if you just quickly glance at the build without really knowing how it all comes together. DPS is very comparable to axe, although certain breeds of Necromancers might kick your kitten for it.

Warkupo.1025:

Final Thrust should never be used unless the enemy is under 50% HP and you’re running a power/crit build. If these conditions are met you need to be careful with the timing as it comes out kind of slow and awkward.

@Crossaber: The new trait would lower the animation time for Final Thrust as thus: 0.75s = 0.68s or 0.07s faster. Hardly worth it as a grandmaster trait (it is very difficult to spot a 0.07s difference).

Power/Crit tends to be a better option as Sword/Sword or Sword/Whatever. Make sure you get the adept skill Deep Cuts from the Arms Trait, and consider Arms: 25, ‘Attack of Opportunity’ as well for a very consistent 10% damage increase.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQJAscjMdU5ZhHOewJaABfQDvMSipQ9YOsj2A-TMAg0CnIKC

Here is a quick slapping together of my old S/S + Whatever build. Use full Lyssa, and then Soldier/Zerk or Zerk/Zerk if survival is not an issue. If anyone is interested I have a post in my history that goes into more detail about this build I could go dig up; it does more damage than is probably apparent if you just quickly glance at the build without really knowing how it all comes together. DPS is very comparable to axe, although certain breeds of Necromancers might kick your kitten for it.

Yes, 10% buff maybe not as good as on paper, that’s why i said can’t wait to try it out. If 10% faster allow me to combo my skills more fluidly, i am happy already. As for now the final thrust and throw sword feel not fluid enough.