Try soloing veterans five levels above your own with a greatsword, or certain champs on your own level with it.
Sword/focus or sword/shield are much better in many situations, especially when you are fighting a single, tough opponent.Personally, I utilize the hidden skill called “weapon switch” and use BOTH the greatsword and a secondary weapon set. It is said that greatsword/sword/torch can really light things up!
The problem here is that the Sword/Anything is not much better in “many” situations. In fact you were only able to give a single reason when sword may have a slight advantage against single tough mobs. I feel the advantage is very small and not encountered often enough to spec for it over greatsword when greatsword dominates in 95% of your encounters PvE wise.
The other problem is weapon swap, me and most others are probably slotting a scepter for some kind of range when needed or staff for the swiftness buff. Most will not slot a sword for single target when a greatsword will work just fine on single and multi mob encounters. I do hope our weapon issues are addressed soon as I am getting tired of Greatsword.
I wish this wasnt true as I love the look of sword shield as well but it just isnt viable when compared to our other options. I wish they would just swap the Focus and Shield abilities as Focus abilities seem much more suited for defense in a non sPvP environment.