Guild Wars 2

So, trying out Warrior, haven’t gotten to level 30 yet, but I’ve tried all the weapons. Easily my favorite class in terms of number of weapons I like.

However, I have mixed feelings about Sword. While I like it’s main hand skill set, it’s Burst seems… bad. It seems that it actually does less damage than the auto-attack, and it’s only real advantage is the immobilize. However, since it also immobilizes you, I’d be better off pulling out a bow or rifle when soloing, and it’s only really useful for keeping melee enemies off of your team-mates.

Am I missing something, or is the Sword Burst just not that good when soloing?

it’s more for pvp/wvw

4 sec immobilize and 8 stacks of bleed can be nasty kitten to someone not prepared to deal with it, the damage is respectable for what it is in that context, because ideally the target is held there for the duration of it, whereas you’re going to be lucky to connect a lot of auto-attacks

if you want to use sword in pve, i’d use it offhand with an axe main hand. Rip is pretty powerful, and the block is always useful, and it counts toward dual wielding trait unlike shield

Final Thrust isn’t bad for pve, but i’d run it as an alt weapon with GS main if you wanted it for that + movement from #2. HB + FT would kill about any normal mob

I figured it was just a PvP thing. Most control effects in games are balanced around their use in PvP, not PvE.

I do still like the main hand set though, so maybe I’ll use it a bit more with “Bonuses for having high Adreneline” skills and traits once I get them.

if you are planning on running it regardless, i believe it does cleave unlike other melee adrenaline attacks

The power isn’t in the base damage, it’s in the bleeds. If you have condi gear it can easily spike it to 2k-3k dam a sec in bleeds for 3 sec (if you trait for extra duration). Otherwise, many people have sword main hand for mobility and just use the burst for immobilize, then immediately weapon swap to do a higher damage move.

The other benefit(s) of the sword burst is that it will usually hit through blind (as long as the 2nd swing hits the target) and activate cleansing ire (or any other burst effects), with 2-3 targets flurry can easily hit your target and refill your adrenaline back to max, and the immobilize hits a bit before the damage does (meaning you can sometimes hit an opponent dodge rolling away and while they avoid damage they’ll still be immobilized at the end of their roll).

Also (unlekittenanged and I didn’t notice) it does cleave for the immobilize and bleeds.

It’s useful in PVP, but I recommend taking Berserker’s Power for PVE and not ever touching it.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

The power isn’t in the base damage, it’s in the bleeds.

At first, I thought that might be it too, but then I realized that the bleeds were for a shorter duration than the basic attack. In the end, the damage output is on par with a basic attack. It’s usefulness above a basic attack seems to be almost solely in the immobilize. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad attack, just that it’s specialized for something that doesn’t come up outisde of dungeons or PvP. Which unfortunately, isn’t what I’ve been doing, so I don’t really get anything out of it.

The sword burst skill by itself is definitely not bad. A 4 second immobilize is not something to take lightly. and as stated previously the bleed damage also isnt horrible. Perhaps the best part though, is that you can immobilize a target them immediately switch weapons. This allows for an easy HB in WvW and pvp. It also works wonder with cleansing ire since it’s so easy to hit.