Guild Wars 2

Am i the only one that thinks the new sword changes are bad? They’re bad for me as a warrior that mains sword/shield.

The move of Final Thrust is a significant DPS reduction. In the time of the 15 sec CD you could hit at least 4 final thrusts from old auto-atking. Compared to the double dmg you get from ppl under 50% hp, which means you have to save it. But if that helps other people make more diverse builds since they can spike, then fine. But at least make the cast time lower, and increase the range to 200 if you want it to be a finisher. Atm, you’re gunna have a really hard time hitting people, especially against blind.

And the Hamstring change boggles my mind. Apart from it’s horrible 1 sec cripple and lower dmg than final thrust. If you want to cripple someone, wouldn’t you want to do it at the start of your auto-atk combo to keep them in range for the following hits? Rather than at the end? I personally would like to see it gone completely and replaced with 2 bleeds. Because it’s condition is widely disproportionate. Not counting physical dmg(600-900), i personally get 1.3k bleed over 14 secs, then another bleed, and then i get 1 sec cripple. It just doesn’t seem right and feels useless. Would much prefer a hit that does bleed x2 than that cripple. It’s a severe reduction in auto-atk DPS.

And then there’s the Savage Leap cripple, i appreciate it, although it’s not as useful as you would think. It’s widely telegraphed as a leap should, so it’s easily dodgeable or ppl can just blind you. Hamstring previously gave you that extra atk to use once you were actually in range or removed blind to guarantee the cripple. Would be much better to have the cripple on a 2nd low/no dmg skill after the leap similar to the Mesmer’s Illusionary Leap. Although the cripple can prove to be a problem in dungeons, as when you want to cripple a boss mob, you have to jump into it’s face, directly into its hits.

But that’s just my opinions, as a war that mains sword.

Are people happy or unhappy with sword changes? (reasons)

UPDATE: Upon further testing, i enjoy the new auto-atk chain. The faster atk speed allows me to stack bleeds faster, making up for the loss of dmg from final thrust. Maybe even better as it’s uneffected by toughness. Although that’s a result of the new atk speed and not the cripple. And for me personally it’s probably best the cripple is at the end, as i’d prefer the bleed hits than the cripple. As well as being only 1 sec.

Final Thrust still too slow though. And savage leap’s cripple would still work better as a second skill after the leap.

From what I’ve seen, it sounded like the new sword was gunna give the popularity of GS a run for its money… since the patch, I can count the positive comments on one hand… the negatives, I ran out of fingers and toes.

I personally thought the Sword changes were nice. Final Thrust is basically an AoE eviscerate now. Hamstring doesn’t do as much as the old final thrust but the auto-attack is much faster now so I think it balances out.

It’s definitley not equivalent to Greatsword damage but Sword/Sword is a pretty good weapon combo now

The 5 minutes or so I got to test sword it seemed like Final Thrust has about a 2 second cast time on it which just makes it completely awkward to use. I was hoping that would be the one salvation in this patch but so far it’s not seeming like it.

15 second cool down with long awkward telegraphed cast time makes it hard to find something good to say about it. At worse it should have a 10 second cool down and that still wouldn’t put it on par 100b.

On the other hand maybe they are just testing the water with this change and it can be tweaked for the better?

depends on where you use it, in sPvP i like the change, the cripple changes means you have on demand cripple to activate several traits (Leg Specialist → Opportunist), it frees up a slot on my utility bar since I won’t have to take FGJ to have on demand fury any more (especially as a solo roamer), you stick to your target like cement, an upgrade from the previous glue.
The Final Thrust changes gave it a lot more burst damage, which makes double swords an extremely viable weapon, Rip + Final Thrust = about 11k damage in a second.

But yes overall DPS suffers, however the new auto attack chain is also a bit faster, which is also nice. And it seems Anet doesn’t know where they want to go with the sword, so they’re just keeping it a hybrid weapon that could work for either direct or condition damage builds, but isn’t the best in either.

Overall, I like the changes, it’s all about personal preference though

lmaonade.9207:

depends on where you use it, in sPvP i like the change, the cripple changes means you have on demand cripple to activate several traits (Leg Specialist -> Opportunist), it frees up a slot on my utility bar since I won’t have to take FGJ to have on demand fury any more (especially as a solo roamer), you stick to your target like cement, an upgrade from the previous glue.
The Final Thrust changes gave it a lot more burst damage, which makes double swords an extremely viable weapon, Rip + Final Thrust = about 11k damage in a second.

But yes overall DPS suffers, however the new auto attack chain is also a bit faster, which is also nice. And it seems Anet doesn’t know where they want to go with the sword, so they’re just keeping it a hybrid weapon that could work for either direct or condition damage builds, but isn’t the best in either.

Overall, I like the changes, it’s all about personal preference though

Yeah, that’s why i’m fine with final thrust but i still think it should be better to warrant it’s own skill slot. (mainly the range) And wouldn’t the cripple at the start of the auto-atk make Opportunist even better? lol.

I like it, I don’t sit in my Sword weapon set auto attacking. But I do swap to it specifically for that burst and mobility.

Different strokes for different folks.

Nevarato.3178:

Yeah, that’s why i’m fine with final thrust but i still think it should be better to warrant it’s own skill slot. (mainly the range) And wouldn’t the cripple at the start of the auto-atk make Opportunist even better? lol.

you’re right it would make it even better, but I guess it would make too much sense

I’d like it better if they hadn’t added the icd to leg specialist and they made final thrust instant cast and on a 8-10 second cooldown. Not having the on demand cripple is annoying though.

Final Thrust in its current state is simply not viable. Okay, on rare occasion you catch someone out and do decent damage.. But that’s quite a rare and blessed oppertunity.

The casting time is rediculously long, you’re basically asking them to dodge you. It also feels very clunky and unresponsive. The cooldown is obnoxiously high, making it very punishing should you miss (which, let’s face it, happens all the time).

In its current state it’s bad and doesn’t justify the DPS lost from how it was before the patch. Unless they reduce the cooldown or casting time I’ll remain unhappy with the state of MH sword.

I was having mixed feelings since patch, but after a couple hours now playing with sword I’m really liking it. I’m loving how thrust is a setup for a Huge burst now rather than how sword was sustained damage before. On average I am earthshaking people for 5k and then Swapping into thrust for 6k.. That’s 11k hp in under 2 seconds ontop of my sword still doing 1k auto attacks and I didn’t even mention the numbers from my hammer skills

Oh yea, I had a chance to crit my final thrust on 3 glass cannons At the same time earlier and crit them for 10k each , that was a lol moment

Shield Bash + Final Thrust if you’re having trouble getting enemies to sit still for the hit.

Also Burst + Final Thrust is a viable solution.

i read in another thread kick – final thrust

Final Trhust needs faster animation or slightly shorter CD imo.

Or both.

Need them 20% sword cd reduction

I noticed wrong or Final Thrust is useable also while moving?

Personnaly I dislike these changes, this gives indeed an option to Berserkers to use Sword for a controled burst but it also makes the sword worse for Condition geared warriors.

While yes Sword Chain 1# can now stack bleeds a bit faster it doesn’t make up for the overall DPS lost from our previous Final Thrust, the Hamstring is barely usefull sinds the cripple is so short a simple dodge in PvP can be used to keep your movement speed and wait for the cripple to end up. Also it was already pretty easy to stack 25 bleeds with only our main hand sword, so we actualy loose a lot of DPS.

Savage Leap 2# while, again yes it got upgraded, it does imply a nerf for us, at least for PVP. Because we lost an 8sec cripple with cleave and got instead a shorter cripple that only hits a single target. This also implies that you can’t use sword as a strategical weapon to get out of range anymore sinds to hinder your target movements you need to leap at him, while the previous set of skill allowed you to cripple first and leap backward afterward to switch to range weaponery. Finaly, savage leap is much more visible and predictable and will probably be dodged by players with ease making it almost impossible for a Sword Warior to catch up with his targets should he be crippled, rooted or frozen.

Now about our new Final Thrust 3#, this is a power exclusive skill. Going full condition will make your third utility a complete waste of time and using it on a Rampager gear, like me, will barely make up for a difference in your overall DPS, and this only if your target is bellow 50%. So instead of having a seperated control utility we now get a Burst, wich took its place in a DPS, movement and movement control weapon, wich has no rightfull place in any condition builds available with sword mainhand, and is only usefull during 50% of a fight. That without taking into consideration its long cooldown, animation time and the simple fact it reduces our overall DPS with sword mainhand.

Because of these changes Leg specialist also got an icd of 5sec to not make the chain too powerfull. Wich got drastic results on weapons like Rifle (traited), Hammer and Greatsword wich took advantage from this trait to lock groups of ennemies down. And because of its synergy with Opportunist, this makes traits like Sword Mastery not worth the use sinds you can get the double of the benefits with the previous one.

Thats why I believe sword mainhand was way better before and should be changed back to its former template. This would allow leg specialist to have no icd again and still allow the sword to get benefits from those traits while not feeling forced into it to make it a viable option for both PVP and PVE* (while this part is barely a none issue).

Final Trust takes indeed longer than the casttime suggests:
Frapsed it at 60 FPS and it took 59 frames from skill activation to damage applied, which makes at pretty much 1s for the skill from activation → damage.

Regarding autoattack of sword relative to axe and greatsword:
Axe : 113.13% → Sword : 100% → Greatsword : 87.71%

Frapsed against the light golem.
Becomes obviously better if using heavier armored targets.

To quote myself on the subject:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Yes, we get overall DPS since Final Thrust is on a longer cooldown than if it was at the end of the chain.

No, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since now we get one thing we didn’t have before: controllable burst. Previously all your burst with the sword was at the end of the AA chain. You couldn’t really set anything up, because you would have no access to the heavy hitter on demand.

You do now. Also it deals double damage when people are bellow half health, so it’s quite a noticeable burst/finisher.

On top of that we have way more (and better) access to cripples, which in turn convert to VERY annoying semi-constant immobilizes with leg specialist. It’s very disturbing for any enemy that relies on mobility, and very noticeable. Doubly so because MH sword is our second best mobility weapon.

As for the animation, it seems the same as it ever was. A bit clunky, yes, and could use improvement, but, again, same as ever.

After running dual sword for a while now (i been running that too before patch) i can say..

-1sec cripple is too short, animation makes no sense. increase cripple to 3sec and call it a day.

-Savage leap – for me makes no diff..its always been a great gap closer/opener that saved my @@s a lot.

-Final thrust – definitely too long animation..who got that idea to make all of ur a bit stronger hitting skills so obvious? Other classes don’t suffer from that. For me that animation is a game breaking. Paired with kick does a decent combo tho. Also cd is definitely too high..

-Impale/Rip – its could use a totally rework. Its a decent candidat to be changed into a pull. As it is now impale does weak damage, rip takes 1sec to cast.

-Riposte – block is decent now, in damage wise is weak tho. Damage from that should match mace 2 (in my current build mace 2 has 1600dmg)

I only feel disappointed because I expected Sword to become less of a support weapon (that is my dream). Seems like it’s not the case.

I personally think Slashing Power needs to affect Swords as well as Forceful Greatsword.

Slashing Power affects Greatswords and Spears, how do we slash with a Spear but not our Sword? If Forceful Greatsword can work with Spears I think it could work with Swords as well since that tree does focus on Sword/Greatsword as well as Rifle