Offhand weapon to Mainhand Sword for PvP and WvW

I have been using sword offhand since I started playing Rev, and to say I haven't been carried by sword 4 and 5 is a lie - they're both incredibly strong when used right.

I'm a bit curious about Axe and Shield offhand though - Axe 4 has decent damage, a teleport (albeit less reliable) and Axe 5 is a CC, which I think I will like (especially for clearing camps or for CC-ing lords). As for shield, both skills are kinda meh but can clear conditions when traited - I haven't used it though so I don't really know how it fares against condi builds. I'm gonna try Axe in the upcoming days, but for people who have used all 3 to an extent, why do you choose one over the others, or does it depend on the situation?

Sword OH damage is too good to pass up, axe you could try but it gets outclassed and shield is just a bad weapon. Would be great if our weapon choices were more varied, but sadly the situation is different.

@Elric.4713 said:Sword OH damage is too good to pass up, axe you could try but it gets outclassed and shield is just a bad weapon. Would be great if our weapon choices were more varied, but sadly the situation is different.

@Elric.4713 said:Sword OH damage is too good to pass up, axe you could try but it gets outclassed and shield is just a bad weapon. Would be great if our weapon choices were more varied, but sadly the situation is different.

I tried looking for threads when sword offhand was reworked, and there seemed to be tons of people saying it was outright a bad change and sword offhand was just a worse axe - did anything change since then?

as far as my little experimenting with weapons goes sword+sword is nice melee burst combo.

not sure about sword+shield yet because in that exacly one match I played on it I had exacly two situations where it could prove usefull - in first one it ended up usefull allowing me to bunker up on bell cap on revenge of the capricorn against 2 enemy players to stall them untill cavarly arrived and for the other one...... well, the window of oportunity happened just after I swapped back to hammer after the action with the bell so swap was on cd and I had hammer in hand...

as for axe..... ain't it a condi weapon? why would you want to pair up condi offhand with power mainhand on revy..... (I am not aware of any known hybrid builds for rev)

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:as far as my little experimenting with weapons goes sword+sword is nice melee burst combo.

not sure about sword+shield yet because in that exacly one match I played on it I had exacly two situations where it could prove usefull - in first one it ended up usefull allowing me to bunker up on bell cap on revenge of the capricorn against 2 enemy players to stall them untill cavarly arrived and for the other one...... well, the window of oportunity happened just after I swapped back to hammer after the action with the bell so swap was on cd and I had hammer in hand...

as for axe..... ain't it a condi weapon? why would you want to pair up condi offhand with power mainhand on revy..... (I am not aware of any known hybrid builds for rev)

From forum posts, guides and YouTube videos, before the sword rework people used Axe offhand in power builds too - probably because of the CC and teleport.

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:as for axe..... ain't it a condi weapon? why would you want to pair up condi offhand with power mainhand on revy..... (I am not aware of any known hybrid builds for rev)

Axe is more of a hybrid weapon than a pure condi weapon; it does well in both condi and power builds

@idolin.2831 said:I tried looking for threads when sword offhand was reworked, and there seemed to be tons of people saying it was outright a bad change and sword offhand was just a worse axe - did anything change since then?

Sword OH rework was kinds of a fixing what isn't broken situation, supposedly it lacked identity and their solution was to turn it into axe for power builds.

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:as for axe..... ain't it a condi weapon? why would you want to pair up condi offhand with power mainhand on revy..... (I am not aware of any known hybrid builds for rev)

ah fair enought, thanks (this is where you get when you believe pre-release promo material and never get to check how it played out in real...

I wouldn't use Axe in PvP or WvW. You are going to get better results with the Sword or moving to Staff. I use off hand Axe in PvE though and there it really does shine. I used to use off hand Axe in WvW but when I switched to Sword I started surviving more fights. I can use Deathstrike for teleport and Shackling Wave immobilizes targets which makes them better targets for Unrelenting Assualt. Shield simply does not work. It might work if Sheild 5 didn't root you in place but as it stands you are more likely to get hammered coming out of Sheild 5 than you would just maintaining offensive power. Herald's healing abilities are better than Shield 5 as all damage you are taking once you pop Facet of Light goes to health and you are still maintaining offensive power. You can condi cleanse in more effective ways than carrying Axe or Sheild.

I run Sword/Sword and Staff in both PvP and WvW on a Herald power build. I've found it more effective than other combinations. I run Mace/Axe and Shortbow (is it me or has Sevenshot gotten better?) on a Renegade Condi DPS build for PvE.

I have always loved how impactful axe feels. Both of its skills are very satisfying to see and use. I don't think it's a bad weapon by any means, it's just a bit overshadowed by sword. I think speeding up the projectile animation for axe 4 and the CC animation for axe 5 would put the weapon in a better spot. It would also be nice if the rift came a bit closer to the player so it can be used more reliably to pull people chasing you.

Shield, on the other hand...

Shield isn't really all that bad in a vacuum. It was the meta choice for a large portion of HoT, and it wasn't nerfs to shield nor buffs to axe which caused most revs to swap to axe and then later sword offhand. What killed shield was the nerf to precision strike which leaves main hand sword with literally no burst as all 3 skills are dps neutral to auto attacks, without burst and only one real gap closer in phase traversal sword shield rev can't play a +1 burst role and the whole kit is just not strong enough to play any other role such as a duelist. Axe gives a secondary gap closer which means that even without burst you can at least stick to opponents better and sustained damage them down where shield is just far too easily kited and disengaged from. New sword off hand is basically axe but trades condi damage for power damage so naturally is the go to for power builds.

@ArthurDent.9538 said:Shield isn't really all that bad in a vacuum. It was the meta choice for a large portion of HoT, and it wasn't nerfs to shield nor buffs to axe which caused most revs to swap to axe and then later sword offhand. What killed shield was the nerf to precision strike which leaves main hand sword with literally no burst as all 3 skills are dps neutral to auto attacks, without burst and only one real gap closer in phase traversal sword shield rev can't play a +1 burst role and the whole kit is just not strong enough to play any other role such as a duelist. Axe gives a secondary gap closer which means that even without burst you can at least stick to opponents better and sustained damage them down where shield is just far too easily kited and disengaged from. New sword off hand is basically axe but trades condi damage for power damage so naturally is the go to for power builds.

Ah it makes sense then - I've been looking at videos from back in '15 and early '16 and noticed people still used shield. I guess in PvP, for a +1 role even without the nerfs to Precision Strike I'd stick to Axe or Sword OH - shield offers no offensive power.

I also thought about using Sword/Sword + Sword/Shield but of course there's no way shield can be compared to staff. I guess I just want to satisfy my sword/shield wielding fantasy but looks like it's not happening any time soon, unless they do a rework on shield.

@idolin.2831 said:

@Elric.4713 said:Sword OH damage is too good to pass up, axe you could try but it gets outclassed and shield is just a bad weapon. Would be great if our weapon choices were more varied, but sadly the situation is different.

@Elric.4713 said:Sword OH damage is too good to pass up, axe you could try but it gets outclassed and shield is just a bad weapon. Would be great if our weapon choices were more varied, but sadly the situation is different.

I know those threads, and if you read carefully, most of those people didn't even (and I know some of them STILL haven't even) tried OH sword... The rev community tends to be doom and gloom about any changes--even positive ones. Sword is a monster, and there's no denying that...

As for the other two options... Shield became next to useless when PoF dropped and every class got a multitude of unblockable attacks. Popping s5 is just ASKING to get focused and destroyed. And while the traited cleanse might be tempting, it's too expensive and has too long of a cooldown to make any sort of difference vs the meta condi builds. The offensive pressure you can put out with oh sword ends up being a far greater source of damage reduction vs them than shield's cleanse could ever hope to be. And that's not to even mention the huge amount of damage you can negate with smart usage of death strike's mobility--especially vs immob spammers.

And the thing with Axe is that Rift's actually pretty good for zoning, forcing multiple people to waste a dodge, or even setting up bursts--respect to people who use it with intelligence and not just spam it off cd... Axe 4 however is pretty terrible. Most competent people will just dodge it. You might catch a cocky guardian with it once if they didn't know/forgot it was unblockable since nobody uses axe anymore, but after that first time, they'll just start dodging it too. And then there's also the part where axe 4 will trigger any traps/ground effects that you path over with it... But, like, even if Axe 4 was mechanically better, trading the offensive pressure/mobility of oh sword would way not be worth anything found here. (Unless you're playing some sort of wild hybrid build.)

@narcx.3570 said:

@idolin.2831 said:

@Elric.4713 said:Sword OH damage is too good to pass up, axe you could try but it gets outclassed and shield is just a bad weapon. Would be great if our weapon choices were more varied, but sadly the situation is different.

@Elric.4713 said:Sword OH damage is too good to pass up, axe you could try but it gets outclassed and shield is just a bad weapon. Would be great if our weapon choices were more varied, but sadly the situation is different.

I was one of the people that hated the sword offhand change and still do entirely because of how it is so similar to axe utility wise. Right now both weapons offer a teleport to target + damage and a mid ranged cc + damage. Functionally there is very little difference between the 2 except that sword does more power damage and axe does more condi damage so there is now very little reason to use axe with power builds while there is very little reason to use sword with condi builds, regardless of the situation. Previously axe gave a block and a weird melee ranged pull which was completely different utility from what axe offered which made both options worth considering in both power and condi builds depending on the situation except the old sword 5 was just so clunky it was mostly a wasted skill slot.

ok I have now played around with axe off-hand and I like it much mroe than I liked sword :D

@"ArthurDent.9538" said:I was one of the people that hated the sword offhand change and still do entirely because of how it is so similar to axe utility wise. Right now both weapons offer a teleport to target + damage and a mid ranged cc + damage. Functionally there is very little difference between the 2 except that sword does more power damage and axe does more condi damage so there is now very little reason to use axe with power builds while there is very little reason to use sword with condi builds, regardless of the situation. Previously axe gave a block and a weird melee ranged pull which was completely different utility from what axe offered which made both options worth considering in both power and condi builds depending on the situation except the old sword 5 was just so clunky it was mostly a wasted skill slot.

there are functinal differences tho - outside of swapping CDs between "mid ranged CC+damage" and "teleport to target" axe needs to connect throw for teleport to happen, (sword only gets better damage if it connects properly) and "mid range CC+damage" or completely different in the nature of CC (one set up zone that pulls, the other is just immobil with vuln)

if we sign off handling of weapons (I find axe so far more fun in handling) we get sword as pure power offhand, axe as similar in flavour but hybrid offhand and what we really seem to be missing as far as my current rev experience goes is good condi offhand (my personal experience in here may be faulty - I never really cared about condi build for rev)