Guild Wars 2

@Olba, Thanks for your input. I believe 12 second cooldown sounds like the fairest option to tweaking the skill without making it overpowered. I do however disagree with the fact that the skill seems to be lacking range. I’m not asking for 300 range, just something more pointed in front of the character. I attached a picture of the skill on full extension. I know the hit-box doesn’t go that far out

@Julie I can agree with the BladeMaster Trait, would be worth taking if you had 100% chance to crit. I wouldn’t see a need to make any other tweaks to the skill.

Yamsandjams.3267:

PaulOnheiserJazz.1836:

With the various eviscerate builds, and how reliable/solid/low cool-down and high crit potential that eviscerate offers, its hard to justify using a S/Sh build.

I don’t agree with this.

Main hand sword offers a variety of different abilities than main hand axe. It’s not like the axe only has eviscerate and the sword only has final thrust.

For starter’s the sword can be used to apply significant condi damage, so it could be more useful in a hybrid damage build, especially in conjunction with traits like attack of opportunity.

Secondly, the sword has more control on it by default. The auto-attack chain can be used for a constant application of cripple, making it harder for the opponent to get around. Coupled with savage leap, it’s possible to keep cripple on the opponent very frequently, making it hard for them to cleanse it and keep it off. The axe has this capability as well, but it’s potential as a control ability is not as high due to the lower cripple uptime.

Thirdly, the flurry ability on the sword is also a great control ability, applying a long duration immobilize that can heavily punish an opponent who over-commits slightly (i.e. they are locked down and allies can coordinate a strike on them).

Lastly, savage leap is an indispensable mobility tool, allowing a warrior to chase enemies, use as an opener to a combo (i.e. savage leap -> flurry), or to escape situations and cross gaps that they otherwise couldn’t. The axe offers no such option.

So I feel it’s quite easy to justify a sword/shield build, it just depends what you want it to do.

As far as final thrust is concerned, I think it’s fine as is. Eviscerate should be the more powerful ability overall since its a burst skill and is arguably the most important skill for main hand axe.

Although if they did want to buff it, I think a cooldown reduction wouldn’t be a bad way. I’d say 12 seconds would work nicely (basically what a -20% trait would do). A 3/4 cast time is fairly standard for abilities like this, although I don’t think 1/2 second would be unreasonable either.

If they give it too much usability through a low cooldown, quicker cast times, and extra bonuses for hitting people at low health, then they’d likely reduce the damage to compensate for it, which I think is a bad trade.

Thank you Yamsandjams, your post made me look at Final Thrust in a different light, and in that respect when used properly with cripple doesn’t look all that bad. Also the possible changes that you proposed (if would be implemented) would better serve for a balance, as opposed to my suggestions. Either 1/2 second cast time or a 12 second cool-down timer. Thanks to everyone else who contributed to the discussion thus far

phaeris.7604:

A fantastic post which once again demonstrates how out of touch warrior players are with the rest of the game.

You want an ability which hits for up to 8-9k at times, on a 7 second timer. When the ability firegrab, which hits for less damage, is on a 45 second timer.

Of course!!!, makes sense!. So you can run axe/shield, sword/whatever, eviscerate for 9-11k, then switch to sword and final thrust for 7-9k, then in 3-4 seconds eviscerate should be up again , and then you can switch directly back to sword for another final thrust. With sigil of intelligence you can be sure to crit with all 3 attacks!

It just seems so balanced on a high armour/high health/high mobility class with the best self condition removal in the game….

Thanks for your intellectual response. I just have a hard time believing that I should be getting stomped by celestial elemental who can out tank me and out dps like I’m wearing paper. I wasn’t asking for a uber buff, just maybe a small change to how the skill operates. However, thanks again for your kind resposne.

With the various eviscerate builds, and how reliable/solid/low cool-down and high crit potential that eviscerate offers, its hard to justify using a S/Sh build. I find a few issues with Final Thrusts’s cool-down time, and seemingly super slow cast time and extremely low range. I had a couple of suggestions, I wouldn’t recommend all of them as one improvement, but choose one as a small improvement to make Final Thrust a little more of a viable option.

Option 1: Lower Final Thrust’s cool-down time to 8 seconds.
15 seconds is far too long for a 3rd weapon slot skill, with no way to reduce cool-down.

Option 2: Increase Final Thrusts Range/Lower ‘Animation Cast’ time.
Lets face it, it takes so long to cast that if you are crippled you are going to miss a backpedaling opponent, or the opponent is going to dodge well before you make the thrust. Or make the range longer- for a skill where you are reaching out 6 feet in front of you it feels like your hit box is only jabbing a foot in front of your character.

Option 3: If successfully hit on opponent with less then 50% health, cool-down is reduced by 66%
This is an interesting option, as it makes use of Final Thrust more skill oriented, instead of spam mode. If no other range/animation changes are made to the skill, this would make Final Thrust fun to use, and a potential 5.1 second cool-down would be strong incentive not to use it until target is below the 50% threshold.

Whats your thoughts? Any preferences on the options I listed? Do you have your own suggestion? I would love to hear your responses