Guild Wars 2

I chose to play the warrior because I wanted to dual wield swords. I know the Mesmer can as well, but I am not into purple butterflies.

Off-hand sword is by far the worst off-hand option for warriors. In all aspects of the game in pve and pvp off-hand swords just don’t come close to axe, mace, or shield in usefulness. If you look at the sword’s off-hand abilities there is a ranged throw that stacks a nice number of bleeds, and a block that counters only one melee ranged attack. A block can be useful in pvp and pve, but the shield’s mini invulnerability block is far more useful than the sword’s single block and can be augmented with skills to reflect ranged attacks. Even if you manage to block perfectly and are lucky enough to land the counter hit, the damage is meh. The throw sword move is alright. A warrior can start bleed stacks with a ranged attack, and the damage from the secondary move of pulling out the blade is O.K., but nothing on par with an AOE that does amazing damage or a ranged stun.

In other posts, many have said that the axe is burst damage and AOE, mace is interrupt and control, and the sword is condition and mobility. So, to stay within that vein and to limit the amount of work it would take to program two new abilities I purpose changes on the existing abilities.

For the ranged throw, a secondary condition may help bring the off-hand sword more in-line with other options. Perhaps a few stacks of vulnerability or even weakness when you pull the blade out along with the bleed would help. Or, the blade knocks down the target for two seconds, helping the player close the gap with the target.
For the block I purpose the sword can reflects one ranged attack. Or, the counter hit stuns the target and causes bleeds.

These are just some suggestions. I don’t want to make the off-hand sword more powerful than other options; I just want the weapon to be at least close to the usefulness of the other options.

When I trait for reflect while blocking, it also reflects projectiles on my mainhand mace block skill (since it only counterattacks if melee’d). Does this not apply to the sword?

LameFox.6349:

When I trait for reflect while blocking, it also reflects projectiles on my mainhand mace block skill (since it only counterattacks if melee’d). Does this not apply to the sword?

Yes, it applies to the sword. There is also a bug that will allow you to keep reflecting projectiles for the entire duration. Instead of just reflecting one.

I don’t think it’s a bug, iirc the tip says the attack only retaliates if in melee range.

LameFox.6349:

I don’t think it’s a bug, iirc the tip says the attack only retaliates if in melee range.

Ok then the bug is when it doesn’t reflect the entire duration lol. Sometimes it will reflect for the duration, but others it won’t. Regardless of the distance of the target.

I wasn’t sure about the sword’s block reflecting, however that alone does not compare to the shield’s blocks usefulness.

I just wish that the off hand sword comes at least close to shield, warhorn, axe, or mace. As of now, it is not close at all. The off hand sword is the clear weakest option. You never see a dual sword warrior, and if you do that guy doesn’t know better unfortunately. Or, he just really like dual swords

i use dual swords… i dont have the trait to reflect whilst blocking, so using sword 5 to block a high damage attack (and counter attack with strong bleeds – which, along with the shorter CD, is where it differs from shield) very useful on dungeon bosses (or any mobs with control attacks)

i dont think its the worst offhand (although if you’re traited to reflect whilst blocking; shield is obviously better), the best is obviously debatable.

i cannot think of any weapon in this game that is useless, but you cant expect to just throw it on a build and it works, swords are quite condition intensive (thats alot of bleed damage from riposte; its definitely not ‘meh’)

… wouldnt mind seeing some incentive to rip my sword out of an enemy though…

i feel like warriors have a lot of fairly useless weapons and specs, being incredibly sub par to not only your other weapons in every way but also all the other classes in some way or another, leaving like 3 GOOD builds and a bunch of half mediocre builds.

so i think they not only need to make off hand sword a lot better, so its actually worth using, but also main hand sword so its less of a wet noodle outside the only decent bleed damage.

I’d like to be rewarded for blocking at the right time with Counterblow and Riposte much like Royal Guard in Devil May Cry 3. Just the fact that Jon Peters isn’t cool enough to add that feature.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

i cannot think of any weapon in this game that is useless, but you cant expect to just throw it on a build and it works, swords are quite condition intensive (thats alot of bleed damage from riposte; its definitely not ‘meh’)

I agree that slapping things together and expecting a lot is unrealistic. However, the usefulness and damage doesn’t compare with other options. the throw does nice damage but over time.

A player may only see a benefit when fighting bosses, but nothing else. However the axe’s damage attacks will outpace even the tics from the bleed very quickly. The mace’s ability to stack 5 stacks of vulnerability as well as decent damage ensures more damage done to boss with other party members dealing more damage. If you are using bleeds, then you are competing with everyone else in the group who also uses bleeds. So, instead of helping party members you are either being mitigated or are mitigating damage.

The block can be useful, but blocking damage for just one character isn’t nearly as good as an interrupt that the mace has. The warhorn can give everybody around you more evades which is amazing, but only if the other member are not licking their monitors and actually can play. The axe has another burst attack so you are sacrificing utility for raw damage which is comparing apples to oranges. But over the long run I would prefer the damage for bosses and soloing.

Offhand sword is a very offensive option for anyone with condition damage. I use it a lot in structured, getting all the bleed I can onto someone before swapping over to a shield to keep them from removing it right off the bat. I can understand wanting it to be better and all, but maybe it just doesn’t fit your play style. I’ve been trying to find a greatsword play style on any class that I like, but it just doesn’t mesh in a way I’d find enjoyable.

The offhand is great if you like stacking bleeds really fast. I like the mechanics of 2blades and I don’t mind using longbow in spvp. The 5 second immobilize plus a 3 second fear is just too much fun, and makes it easy to aoe bleed people. I’m always bouncing between gs and 2blades.

It is actually surprisingly strong… but I also think that offhand axe is overrated and doesn’t actually produce that much dps, instead distracting everyone by its huge numbers stacking up…

The trick is to throw the sword, let the bleeds stack up and pull it back out the moment it would drop off. The bleeds really do a surprising amount of damage, even for the block skill.
However, the cooldowns could really be a bit shorter :/
just compare the block to the mesmer offhand sword block, which has a lot shorter cd and can also be used to daze a target…

Akumu.7238:

LameFox.6349:

When I trait for reflect while blocking, it also reflects projectiles on my mainhand mace block skill (since it only counterattacks if melee’d). Does this not apply to the sword?

Yes, it applies to the sword. There is also a bug that will allow you to keep reflecting projectiles for the entire duration. Instead of just reflecting one.

Its not a bug. it only stops blocking when in melee range. Working as intended.

Panzen.4625:

It is actually surprisingly strong…

yeah in PvE maybe when the monsters/boss/whatever dont always immediately remove conditions, like any decent player can do in sPvP or WvW.

like i said, when used against other players sword4 is almost completely useless and sword5 is like a bad version of shield5.

but yes shorter CDs would be nice, would allow you to keep trying to stack the bleeds again before your opponents condition removals come back (and if they have enough to keep doing it then as a bleed warrior youre screwed either way lol)