Guild Wars 2

I don’t have much experience with the warrior in PvP, so I’m asking for the opinions of those who know better than me.

I like how the shoutbow plays in PvP, but it seems to me that the axe has better burst damage with its f1 skill no? Right now, landing Final Thrust with the sword is a bit tough since my toon stays still while activating it and people don’t stand still in PvP.

Also, my intelligence charges are consumed by the fire fields, so I need to use Final Thrust as soon as possible. Right now, I use Savage Leap as a gap closer before Final Thrust, but there’s a good chance that my Intelligence charges would have been used up, thanks to the fire field.

Won’t Eviscerate make it easier to proc a critical since it’s also a gap closer on its own?

I guess the advantage of the sword is that Final Thrust is not a burst skill so we get to use the huge AoE of the longbow burst more often. Is that the reason why the Shoutbow uses the sword over the axe?

IMHO there are two ways to have Final Thrust hit more or less reliably:

• Prepare the skill by immobilizing the opponent, either with Pin Down or Flurry,
• Anticipate the path of your opponent and cast Final Thrust while cutting slightly ahead of that path.

The sword is preferred for the following reasons:

• It has a superior mobility with Sword #2, and mobility is a critical tool for a warrior (ability to kite, engage, disengage, since the class has no teleports or stealth),
• Final Thrust has a very good damage when the opponent’s HPs drop below 50% – and it cleaves,
• The sword autoattack puts bleed stacks, which can hurt quite a bit when you’re full of might, as shoutbow is run in a hybrid fashion,
• The sword also offers a long immobilize, which your team mates can use to enhance their own attacks.

bhagwad.4281:

I don’t have much experience with the warrior in PvP, so I’m asking for the opinions of those who know better than me.

I like how the shoutbow plays in PvP, but it seems to me that the axe has better burst damage with its f1 skill no? Right now, landing Final Thrust with the sword is a bit tough since my toon stays still while activating it and people don’t stand still in PvP.

F1 with sword (for the Immobilize), sheath weapon/cancel, use Final Thrust. Same thing with leap. It’s also relatively easy to learn to time Final Thrust cast time while heading towards target to deliver “the” blow.

bhagwad.4281:

Also, my intelligence charges are consumed by the fire fields, so I need to use Final Thrust as soon as possible. Right now, I use Savage Leap as a gap closer before Final Thrust, but there’s a good chance that my Intelligence charges would have been used up, thanks to the fire field.

Fire fields (from Combustive Shot) tick every 3s. I’m not even sure how you will lose Intelligence auto-crit from this. Maybe once but really not a problem.

bhagwad.4281:

Won’t Eviscerate make it easier to proc a critical since it’s also a gap closer on its own?

I guess the advantage of the sword is that Final Thrust is not a burst skill so we get to use the huge AoE of the longbow burst more often. Is that the reason why the Shoutbow uses the sword over the axe?

IMO, the main advantage of Sword is soft CC (Hamstring and Savage Leap) and mobility to position yourself. Final Thrust is just a tool when the situation presents itself. Axe works but it’s more about having more free use of F1 for Combustive Shot.

Dont forget the sword #2 is a leap which you are supposed to use after you drop your LB firefield to get the Fire Aura around you. That gives you might each time you are hit (and burns enemies). A great way to keep those might stacks up. I tried Axe on a shout bow build for a few matches and found i was really missing that gap closer with the leap.

The loss of those rather powerful bleeds (when fully might stacked) and the fire aura was just too much to give up for the stronger Auto Attack and burst of axe.

I believe one of the largest reasons to use Sword over Axe for shoutbow is that Shoutbow uses a Celestial amulet. Cele gives you a solid mix of defense and offense, but that offense is spread out between power, condition damage, crit and ferocity. When your damage is that spread out, you want to be able to take as much advantage from it as possible.

That’s where sword comes in. Warrior Sword is a hybrid weapon, with both a high-power attack (final thrust) and solid Condi application (auto-attacks+Flurry). You don’t have the pure, reliable burst of Axe with this setup, but you can take full advantage of all the stats a cele amulet gives you.

In addition, Sword offers more group utility than Axe. While you’ll spend most of your adrenaline on Combustive Shot, Flurry remains a powerful AoE root that can pin opponents in place to let your teammates burst them down, or set them up for additional damage of your own. Axe is very much a ‘selfish’ weapon, in that it really doesn’t offer much of any group support/utility. For shoutbow, group support is largely what you’re about, so you want to stick with weapons that work well with that idea.

Very interesting! So it seems the sword’s benefits are thus:

1. Bleeds (condi damage)
2. Mobility
3. Saves burst for LB

Gives me some motivation to improve with the sword instead of taking the easy way out with the axe. It’s all about rotating and landing final thrust.

Thanks for the help!

One more reason is that Eviscerate needs a setup as well. If – as you mentioned – you use it as a gap closer, opponents will likely dodge it.

Why not mace??? Anybody? No…okay.
#maceOP