Guild Wars 2

I never, ever met a Sword warrior in GW2. Seriously.

It hits for 1k-1k-2k on autos for me.
Stacks bleeds that can be used to waste enemy’s condition removal.
Adren skill can be used to switch into HB, or to waste a stunbreaker.
Root and leap are awesome.

Yet I see Warriors only using sword for leap on secondary set.

I got so many kills with sword, I wonder why I see no one using them as their main.

i use a sword and shield on my warrior and use them all the time. my 2nd weapon set is a rifle. Its not common

I like swords… Welcome to Cornelia!… I like swords…

My current sPvP build is 100% crit chance sword/sword for 33% chance to bleed minor trait + sigil of earth. Can apply 3 bleeds per auto attack (not including final thrust).

Yeap im a sword/warhorn user, love it soo much

Can’t speak for other people, but I ignore it (except for the leap… and…. well actually that’s it, only good for the leap imo) beacause:
Bleeds stack too slow

Bleeds are easily removed

If there is a single necro, thief or ranger around they will cap out the bleed stack much much faster than a warrior will, rendering him pretty useless. Much Much faster than a warrior will, and from ranged mind you.

Somewhat along the lines of the last sentence: Required to be in melee combat with the “block with face” style of warrior “mitigation” instead of the perma evade thieves have while accomplishing the same “bleeder” style (faster) or the increased safety of ranged combat.

And finally:
No top tier player from any top tier team has been able to make a sword user work in tourney streams, nor given any indication that it’s anything but sub-par. That actually carries a lot of weight for me. Now in SPvP sure anything goes because it’s just lolzerg, but in tourney’s? Well, just don’t see swords being worth it except for the movement suppliment.

(And it pains me to think this way as I would LOVE to be a sword’n’board warrior. I have been whenever available in MMO’s because that’s my preferred class and combat style. It’s iconic to me, but hardly ever viable in pvp in any game except M&B Warband)

Go with axes or something else because sword isn’t viable in pvp. Who knows maybe in future builds it may become viable when bleeds can’t be removed more than once every 10 seconds or so. Only warriors can get this bleed mechanic and I’ll call it gushing wounds talent mix in with blade master.

By my napkin math, Sword is actually very good DPS compared to every other option but only if bleed is allowed to happen (when the stack cap of bleed is 25 per target this makes the weapon somewhat middle/upper-ground of the warrior weapon options).

The 1k-1k-2k autoattack chain is when all three attacks crit. Sword normally hits for much lower but also attack speed is extremely fast (attacking almost twice as fast as the next comparable melee)… so it is very deceptive on the actual damage output. That and the animation of the sword autoattack chain is meh so aesthetics is a problem when you use the attack so much.

The MH Sword “2” Savage Leap is a great ability to give the weapon some mobility and is really the shining star… BUT

My biggest gripe with MH Sword is the “3” Hamstring ability which is a melee range cripple (7 seconds base duration is almost too powerful) but the ability is on a 15 second cooldown – a 4.5 seconds cripple on 10 cooldown is far better. But the MH Sword warrior doesn’t need a “long”-cooldown melee cripple attack anyways when you have a shorter one with Flurry F1 (10 seconds – remember the MH Sword attacks fast and any adrenaline strikes build is not a problem; technically 12 second between uses if no other adrenaline gain options are in your build). But Flurry also immobilizes for 4 seconds so it ends up being far far superior than 7 seconds of cripple (the target actually loses the ability to travel out of combo fields/dodge).

So MH Sword “3” Hamstring is just redundant to the Flurry “F1” unless you don’t have the adrenaline to use F1. And to boot, it isn’t even a finisher type like Axe’s “3” Throw Axe as a projectile finisher or Greatsword’s “3” Whirlwind Attack as a whirl finisher.

A fix: If Sword “3” was a 600 range single target pull ability (Warrior’s seems to lack a pull even though they are a melee class – what’s up with that?!?), you would at least see MH Sword used far more often. I’m just not a fan of this “3” ability because it basically never gets used…so it’s like playing a 2-button MH warrior and less options = less fun.

Now compare that to any other MH warrior melee weapon option (except Mace F1 but that’s a different issue). That’s why you don’t see as many MH Sword warriors.

@Artaz – How can you compare Hamstring to Flurry? You have both skills so chain them. Flurry first, then Hamstring. You get 11 seconds of movement control on your target. These are not redundant skills.

Khristophoros.7194:

@Artaz – How can you compare Hamstring to Flurry? You have both skills so chain them. Flurry first, then Hamstring. You get 11 seconds of movement control on your target. These are not redundant skills.

How long do you think it takes to bring down a target? Totally redundant in PvE. 11 seconds (base) of movement control in PvP/WvW is rarely needed (the target will have an escape option, be dead or you’ll be down).

EDIT: All I’m saying is Hamstring is pretty bad as an ability on MH Sword and should be replaced with a “pull” ability (or at least have the cooldown/duration reduced if nothing else). ANet can datamine how often the ability is used when available – I’m guessing it’s pretty poor.

Really depends on the target. Or you can use Flurry to help kill one target fast, then leap + hamstring another guy to help chase him down.

Regarding the pull idea… I think it would be OP. The sword being unpopular doesn’t make it bad. It’s good for mobility, chasing, and escaping, but it’s bad for 1v1. Most players are probably too focused on 1v1. It’s not a problem with the sword. It’s good at what it’s meant for.

Sure, Hamstring can enter circumstances where it can be useful but there are usually much better options ahead of it.

All other classes besides Rangers have at least two pull options, warriors have one (underwater only). Rangers have the pet abilities though.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pull

Remember, single target pull. Unbalanced – perhaps. But with a decent cooldown, it’d be exactly what MH Sword needs to make it different and fills an odd missing gap in the warrior arsenal (especially melee warriors).

I’d honestly rather they tie the hamstring to the Savage Leap (2) and replace 3 altogether with an evading attack like the theifs sword/dagger ability, or the rangers sword attack. It would be useful, giving us more surivivability in melee with the evasion, it would also fit the idea of a “swordsman” as well.