Guild Wars 2

All sword combinations: Sword/Sword, Sword/Axe, Axe/Sword, Sword/Shield, Mace/Sword, Sword/Mace, Sword/Horn.

What are swords for?

At first glance they don’t appear to do as much damage as other weapons, have as much control as other weapons, aren’t as defensive as other weapons, and don’t have as good a flurry as other weapons.

And by other weapons, i mean all of the weapons available to Warriors, not just the ones already listed.

I like swords, i usually play with them over other weapons in other rpgs, and i really want to use one in GW2, either dual swords, or with axe, or with shield, but how viable is that as a melee combination? What is the best weapon to swap to from Sword?

Sword seems to thrive on crit chance and bleeds. How viable are bleeds? I know of several utilities for condition removal, but those have short duration and long cool down. Still, is bleed more for PvE, or is it useful in PvP too?

And please don’t say to just use a different weapon or profession, this is the weapon i want for the profession i want. If Sword can’t cut it, then in my opinion Sword is broken.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Defektive-s-sPvP-Bleed-Build-Come-take-a-look

Take a look at my sword focused PVP build.

Sword/Axe is also extremely viable.

If anything (in my humble opinion) Sword > Greatsword. This is under the assumption you know your classes weakness’s and you can watch for enemy tells.

Not much. Good for mobility, closing distance and keeping targets close. It’s also supposed to be the condition weapon for Warriors, but it’s not very effective, especially compared to other professions’ options.

It’s more of a GW1 style weapon and a relic of the Warrior’s very early design direction. For how GW2’s gameplay ended up, the movement control it’s supposed to perform doesn’t work especially well. It can be annoying, though. I use it for mobility at times in sPvP, and all the time in PvE just for its leap ability (and getting places developers never expected). My favorite thing to do against players is, during all the rolling and dodging, immobilizing them with my burst skill for a rather long duration. It makes it quite easy for teammates to spike them. Sometimes I can get several of them stuck in my F1. All the better. I used it as a secondary long enough to unlock the skills, then never bothered again.

Swords are used for their bleed effect, with rampager gear and proper trait it is super effective in both PvE and PvP. I am using sword/warhorn, and having a blast in both dungeons and WvW, all without having to respec everytime. Go and have a look at Yojacks build thread.

They are for lulzing around in PvE. That’s pretty much it. Their “strength” is supposed to be bleeds, which anyone in tpvp removes with one ability (or passively in half the builds out there).

As for SPvP you can do what you want really, just as in WvW. Neither modes are serious, competitive or balanced (and aren’t supposed to be balanced as per the devs since before launch so it’s not a surprise to anyone that followed the pre-beta and all subsequent info). You can sword bleed to your hearts content in the zerg modes, but in actual competitive pvp (tourney play) well… warriors are pretty lackluster all around as their best option is a gimmick GS spec and everything else currently they “can” do another class can do far far better.

Condition melee build? Thieves > War
Condition ranged build (rifle war) > Engi says hello

Both of which bring far better utility skills to a group as well.

Sword is primarily a source of condition damage output and mobility. The off-hand is a ranged bleed attack and a block. If combined with the right traits swords can do some good things. My current and best build thus far uses a sword shield off-hand. The sword 3 and Burst also immobilize my foes with a certain trait making it hard for them to get away from me. The Burst also has the chance to apply a large amount of bleeds to finish off an escaping enemy.

Sword main hand+ axe offhand is a solid balance between damage, mobility and pressure.

One thing that has always been bothering me in GW2 – condition removals.

Bleeds shouldn’t be removable. Not sure about poisons and burning, but bleeds should definitely stay on target until the time runs out.

Raging Bull.5048:

One thing that has always been bothering me in GW2 – condition removals.

Bleeds shouldn’t be removable. Not sure about poisons and burning, but bleeds should definitely stay on target until the time runs out.

Yes, lets make the damage that is unmitigated, also be immune to removals. Sounds perfectly balanced.

Arena Net, hire this man!!

:/

Sinte, any player with half a brain will remove conditions as often as possible. Any team will do this even more so. So yes, let’s leave it like this, making condition builds vs decent players completely non viable.

Genius…

you can add 25 stacks of bleed with dual swords so freaking easily. I used em for long time and loved it. Too bad the bleeds are limited. After that set I changed to sword + shield so I can hide behind shield while those 25 stacks of bleed just killed the enemy

/yay for defektive.

— anywho, swords are considerably overlooked because they dont have the flashy raw damage, its more of a tactical weapon than a, ima beat your face in weapon. lol.

Swords are very underrated in my opinion. The sword 4 ability will be nasty if it is ever fixed. And riposte owns those thieves that stealth and try to backstab you. You can make some pretty defensive builds while pumping out good damage with swords and that’s why I like them. I kill most GS warriors before they can get me below 80% hp.

Thanks for the input everyone.

lol, i read several people in the forums complaining about Warriors being lackluster, dull, boring, etc…

Well, i don’t know what i’m doing wrong, but i seem to be enjoying them.

@Unreal, can you post a link to the build thread you mentioned? I can’t seem to find it in the forum search.

For pvp, I see most warriors get bored because they started out using the greatsword. It was awesome at first but once other classes started to understand the game and their skills grew, the greatsword warrior kind of hit a wall. So now pvp warriors are desperately searching for some new build or they are just rerolling.

But I’m with you. I really enjoy the warrior.

I use sword and board with a rifle as an opener and have no problems. Though I only roll PVE. The PVP system in this game is severely lacking for me and gets painfully boring after only a few minutes.

Though for PVE questing and such, swords work just fine.

The advantage of bleed builds is that swords and longbows for warrior get very little benefit from power. This leaves you open to take defensive or utility traits instead, while not really losing a lot of damage.

Really, damage overtime being weak is an awful misconception. If at 60, I have 17 stacks of bleed on average ticking for 74 damage, thats 1258 damage per second, nevermind that it potentially goes up to 25 stacks.

As for passive condition removal, can’t you just layer it with hamstring, or a sigil of doom? Or can you not layer conditions in this game.

Sword is great but it’s best utilized as a swap in weapon not a main; swap into it when you want to get away from targets using savage leap + mobile strikes trait, or swap in with full adrenaline to use it’s burst, it roots for 4 seconds and hurt pretty bad just give it 2 secs even with out even being speced for condition damage.

I have dual swords, running with longbow & Rifle depending on situation has been very enjoyable for me. 25/25/0/0/20. Bleed build, bulls charge, Justice, Might, and Rage. I don’t see what the problem is, it’s very mobile and effective. So much hate on swords, you guys are doing it wrong….

I roll a heavy crit/power based build as dual-swords, and after trying out ALL the other weapon combos I have the most success/fun with this setup.

I just love doing decent crits with final thrust/impale+rip and then the bleeds (that come naturally with swords) are a welcomed addition to the damage. Try it before you knock it.

Swords give you the most freedom in your trait choice, as you only need to invest into one trait line for them to be effective.

Swords are for stabbing, also for slashing.