Bladesworn Feedback Thread

[nopoet.2960]

4 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Here is a suggestion to make Dragon Trigger work better.

 

Make it so that you can swap into either Gunsaber or Dragon Trigger from your main set, and from Dragon Trigger to either the main set or Gunsaber.

Dragon Trigger no longer builds charges and Dragon Slash instead expends Flow. The damage dealt is dependent on the amount of flow spent at 1.5 scaling with 15 flow spent, to 4.0 scaling at 100 flow spent. In PvE set the max scaling at what it currently is. Make it a linear rate of increase rather than exponential. You must have 15 flow in order to use Dragon Slash (10 felt too small, but 20 felt too high). Triggerguard should be changed to a 3/4s evade. Flickerstep needs it's distance increased to at least 600 if not more.

Make Dragon Trigger no longer cancel if you dodge, or move, but movement is limited to 50% movement speed. While in Dragon Trigger you are immune to all movement speed decreases or increases including immobilize.

 

I think that if you made those changes, and fix the hitbox issues, that you will preserve the 'feel' that you are going for, while not overly penalizing the Bladesworn, and would give them the tools they need to effectively get their Dragon Slash off.

If you do get rid of the charges and instead consume Flow for the damage on Dragon Slash, you may need to revisit the PvE numbers, as it would be easier to spam, but the PvP/WvW scaling should go from 1.5 to 4.0 depending on the flow spent.

You need to decide if Dragon Trigger and Gunsaber are Kits proper or just alternate 'weapon' sets. If they are meant to be more like kits proper then give them a lower CD to equip and make that CD not affected by Fast Hands. The individual CDs in the Dragon Trigger Kit, and the skills inside it should all be affected by Versatile Power and Burst Mastery as appropriate: i.e. Flow refund, CD reduction, and the 7% damage increase.

 

EDIT: To further clarify, Flow would have to still decrease as you remain in Dragon Trigger. This would be the INVERSE of the current usage, and would force people to pressure/kit the Bladesworn thus guaranteeing that the burst is diminished in value the long they stay in Dragon Trigger either through being forced to dodge, or reposition with Flickerstep. The drain rate would also have to increase to 20 flow per 1/2s.

I kind of wonder how it would play without flow.  What if we could freely swap to dragon trigger as long as you are in combat and the payoff skills just do more damage the longer you charge.  But I agree, I'm not sure why they complicated it with two resources.

[Nekromos.5607]

Bladesworn feels very different than expected. Gun abilities are good, utilities are pretty boring and don't do the things I want as a warrior. When I saw the Bladesworn i was expecting a melee assassin that has burst abilities that trigger whenever you spend ammo.

 

The  specializations adrenaline feature, dragon trigger stylisitcally feels very wrong for the chosen weapon.  A 5sec downtime would fit for a rifleclass, but I expect something more dynamic from a gunsword and then there is this weird teleport ability when you are charging the gun. Please stick to one theme, the solution right now is neither fish nor fowl and needs a rework.

League of Legends introduced some very clever and innovative  mechanics when you look at their heroes that have an ammunition function.

 

Animations are well done, I didn't see as many reused animations and vfx effects as in the othe beta elite specs.

 

[Kodama.6453]

Really enjoyable spec for me, I like the general gameplay and pistol is a nice weapon.

What's mostly needed is to fix stuff like dragon trigger missing jumping/elevated targets. Should also get considered to let people get into dragon trigger stance even if currently using their other weapon set (if needed, just make it locked if gunsaber is on cooldown).

But these are my only real struggles with the spec, the rest seems fine and really fun for me. First time that I was interested in a class outside of engineer for me and I have a blast with bladesworn.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[UNOwen.7132]

2 hours ago, Mesket.5728 said:

No wait time eviscerate (or arc slice) hits for several Ks depending on the build. No wait time dragon trigger hits for 2k. So its a no go unless you actually wait for it. Not saying 5 seconds, but how long do you have to wait to be at least better than eviscerate? (and that is if they fix every thing about flow that im not even getting into that). You will have an argument, the day instant DT hits more than Eviscerate or Arc Slice

No wait time Dragon Trigger does around 4k when Eviscerate does 6k. But you can use it again for 4.8k. And eventually for 6k. Its quite a fair bit of damage if you go back to back to back. Yes, the individual hit is weaker, but you can chain it multiple times in a row, if it works fluidly.

[UNOwen.7132]

2 hours ago, Vancho.8750 said:

As I told you at best you could pull out 2 bursts before someone uses any cc, it would have been better if it didn't recast by itself and you had control over it like decapitate, but as is now a simple daze like headshot stops the combo. I like the idea of it but warrior just works better with the unblockable and the blindness remove.    
Now if like @Mesket.5728 mentions Daring dragon did quick casts 3/4 1 seconds with normal burst skill damage, which means it has to preload all the charges on trigger (DMC Nero style) without the jankiness it would be good as a Blade dance combo, but that are too many IFs. To tell you mister thief main even if they fix all the jank currently it will be still kinda clunky cause it is still warrior, you probably like it cause it looks cool , but all the warrior specs looked cool till they didn't since they had allot of jank covered up by stat stick damage. Usually the simplest skills are the best since they are unharmed in the balancing process.

It's quite hard for them to cc if you keep dashing all of the place and use the aegis to block it, but yes, you won't be able to do it forever. But a couple times? Easily, especially if they're ccd. It recasting is fine, it just needs to be faster to enter. Also, if you're worried about headshot, you're getting 1v2d, at that point your goal is to survive, not do damage.

 

Thief main? I play Engineer for over a year at this point, with, you guessed it, Warrior on the side. Haven't touched thief in PvP in a long time. I like it because its Warrior, which is my second-favourite class in PvP, and because its Metal Gear Rising as hell. It won't be clunky at all if you fix the jank. It will be weak, sure, but Im not saying it doesnt need buffs. In particular Gunsaber 2 just doesnt hit on the average enemy, it needs more range.

[Kiroshima.8497]

Given that this class is directly themed after devil may cry and focuses on having a resource called Flow, I expected bladesworn to be more fluid and stylish in combat. We have Stinger (pistol 4), we have charged ebony/ivory (pistol 5), we have Royal Guard (trigger guard), we have Air Trick (Flicker Step), we have Devil Trigger (dragon trigger).  Sounds pretty awesome!

Unfortunately, this is not the case, and I am no longer MOTIVATED to play it in its current state as the mechanics are basically complete garbage for pvp and wvw.

In devil may cry, combat flow and doing stylish things is the focal point of combat. Thus, the ability to charge its version of shells (sin devil trigger) WITHOUT interrupting combat is important. In dmc, you can input the action to charge sin devil trigger without interrupting or preventing any actions, and cancel in a similar manner.  Sin devil trigger gauge is PRESERVED at all times unless spent. 

 

This creates a heavy difference between Bladesworn and Sin Devil Trigger.  The warrior must interrupt his combat flow, avoid the use of his core weapons, and become a sitting duck in order to charge.  Dante can use ALL OF HIS ACTIONS, defensive and offensive, while charging Sin Devil Trigger.

Changing this would greatly enhance bladesworn's gameplay flow.  This would require the following:

1. Shells are preserved at all times.
2. Dragon Trigger can only be used if you have max shells.
3. Charging shells can be performed while using core weapons.
4. Shell charging is a toggle, similar to Revenant facets. Can be canceled manually or interrupted by CC, but does not inhibit actions.

This covers the flow and shell side of things.

As for general mechanics, I think the ammo focus is actually ok, but I would make ALL the skills work like the pistol, where you dump all of them at once, but each individual ammo is weaker with a lower cd. 

However, I do have a problem with the "spend the last ammo" traits.  These are very boring and promote a "spam off cd" style of gameplay.  Instead  make it trigger "after spending X ammo" across all skills, that way you can use your ammo when you need it and then get a bonus on top, instead of constantly chasing ammo down to 0 on as many skills as possible.

I also feel that the 3 dragon slashes are too limited given the warrior weapons we have.  This should be addressed by moving Trigger Guard and Flicker Step to function skills that cost Flow in order to fit two more dragon slashes.  This has the added benefit of giving Bladesworn a way to proc On Burst/Adrenaline Spent traits (which are key to warrior's sustain in pvp) outside of dragon trigger and landing an EXTREMELY telegraphed melee attack.  This will let us match warrior's weapons to a different dragon slash.

 

One of the new dragon slashes should be a utility/defensive skill, basing itself off of Shield, Warhorn, and Sword 5.  This move will have a short "parry" window, and a regular block window afterwards.  Blocking any attack flips the skill to Counterstrike.  Counterstrike does damage based off the number of shells spent, and grants nearby allies Charge (warhorn 4 damage buff) stacks based on the number of shells spent.  Spending 1-4 shells grants 1 stack, 5-8 grants 2 stacks, 9-10 grants 3 stacks.  Parrying will grant 1 extra stack of Charge and refund a portion of the shells spent but will not do more damage.

 

The other dragon slash should be condition based to support Sword MH and Longbow.  Call it Dragon Slash: Fireworks or something (like DMC shotgun).  The bladesworn will charge up, dash up a short distance then plunge their gunsaber into the ground and detonating all shells as incendiaries, creating a fire field.  They will then sweep the blade launching debris to cause bleeding.  The duration of the fire field, burning duration, and bleed duration will scale off the shells spent.

 

This allows dragon trigger to cover weapon combinations that it is currently missing.
 

As for gunsaber itself, I think the skills themselves are fine.  There's a defensive skill, a mobility skill, a point blank aoe, and a ranged attack.  It does lack a condition skill, which is awkward for those running Sword or Longbow, however, so any of the shell explosions should inflict bleeding, and when using the burn trait it should be changed to burning.

[Nani.6710]

my feedback on the class :

overall  it feels like the most complete elite spec so far , its fun , it has downsides and upsides , and the mechanics feels distinct from core warrior and the other 2 elite specs , it has a place in PvE at the very least .

 

stuff that I feel needs work are : 1- the damage from dragon trigger is too high while the damage from other gun saber skills feels way too low , basically the other skills are only used to get the cool-down reduction to be able to use dragon trigger again.

 

2- swapping to and from gun saber does not feel like weapon swapping , its super clunky and basically once you go into gun saber you never leave , making whatever weapons you hold irrelevant .

 

3-and speaking of weapons you are holding being useless , losing burst skill does not feel good at all , and makes warrior lose too much of the utility it has . I think the F2 skill should work as a 1 bar of adrenaline burst skill while outside gun saber, that way you can switch out of it to use burst skill for cc or damage when needed .

 

4- I cant tell from reading traits that affect burst skill ,how they interact with dragon trigger , for example does burst mastery work with it ? or not ? how would i be able to tell without testing it and seeing the numbers while accounting for weapon roll .

 

5- flame shell burst trait needs a buff or it will never see use as the other damage trait lush forest is much much better.

 

overall i really like the spec thanks anet !

 

[Tambaloneus.6290]

I don't normally play warrior so I am biased in the sense this whole playstyle is a bit unfamiliar to me but this felt so engie that I gave it a try. Interesting I have to say, involved enough to keep me interested at least. I normally main ele so complicated doesn't bother me. I went off to do some dragon response bosses solo to see how it played.

Things I felt: I loved the ability to absolutely wreck boss adds, as well as take chunks of health off but I had to use every stability utility possible to keep it from being interrupted. I found it easier to be somewhat ranged and I had a lot easier time ranged with the rifle than up close (because the npc's were soaking up the attention mostly). The only problem I had was the cooldown to get back to rifle was a bit long, left me standing waiting for something to do because the gunblade is really melee other than 4. Would love the ability to stow it more quickly if getting back to ranged weapon? I was using the gunblade mostly to get stuff off of me if needed to get back out to ranged again. Which is probably not how it was intentioned but don't care as I was having loads of fun, I can see a lot of people wanting to stow it faster so I'll say yes please, for ranged it's really useful to get back to the ranged weapon quickly.

As for flow the one thing I wanted most was to be able to keep ammo. I feel like tech should hold charges, being tech. Would be then able to charge up on trash and hit a boss hard right out of the gate, also that's how a lot of the story encounters already play you get a bunch of smaller things then a boss so it'd be really rewarding to clear the small stuff and have a full or even part charge to hit hard with. Then I wouldn't care how fast or slow 'flow' built up. As it was I would build up a bunch of flow on adds or trash and then couldn't use it because they were dead by then and by the time the boss had run their monologue it had flowed away, so the ability to use even some of it to store some would rock pretty hard. In fact that would own so much I'd have to pay it rent.

Anyway keep up the good work everyone stay safe up there in the northern hemi see yas from Australia.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Tambaloneus.6290
removing unnecessarily huge paragraph breaks

[Shadowghost.6025]

Bladesworn  over all have been extremely fun. Love the mechanic and the dragon draws skills. 

 

Throughout testing there are some improvement that I think should be taken in and tweet a bit.

1) the dragon slash skills charge time is long, required skill to land properly which is great, however, the damage output does not make up for how much effort it takes to charge this up. I've tested in pvp and wvw and the most you can do is 5-6k max while in wvw about 8k is max damage. This is to weak to have such a high drawback. It need to be rewarded with a bit more damage maybe 10k cap would be better then where it is right now. 

This can be said the same about changing the trait line down to Daring Dragon. Yes the charge now lets you only have to charge up to 5 bullet instead of 10, and also allow you to go back into the stance to use another skill again as long as you can maintain flow. The damage here is still the same as the full charge version which made no sense what so ever. I strongly feel that this should be fix.

Since if taken daring dragon instead of the stun version. I feel like this damage is ok to behalf of the fully charge version, but the make the trade off where it will always crit. This make no sense if the damage is already half, and it can be block etc, but it don't guarantee 100% crit rate. It need something more to it, to balance and make this trait worth using then the stun and unblockable counterpart. The same can be said to the HP regain Top counterpart. Right now the bottom skill and top skill are to weak to be use compare to the middle trait line. 

 

2) Flow- I feel like there should be more skill that helps increase flow other then forcing us to use up a utility skill or main hand axe and take the trait line for it. Flow takes to long to build and decrease way to fast. I feel this need some work in this area so that it makes it worth keeping flow going and worth attempting to try and dragon slash. maybe somewhere on the line of berserker and adrenaline build up and drop rate would be the best. Right now it really slow and going away to quick. Not to mention hoping on your mount also still loses flow. This really suck because what if we are charging, and an enemy who have way more mobility move to far away and out of combat, now we have to chase them and build up flow again. This really discourage using the dragon slash. A good fix would probably be best to increase the teleport range from 300 to at least 900. Yes we can use two, but so can other classes that can blink 900 away twice... Really need to increase this teleport range. 

 

other then these issues I think the bladesworn is great at where it is with all new stuff. Kinda wish the new skills also give us flow instead the only 1 that does is the one that gives stability.  We need more way to get flow to make us want to dragon slash! High risk, high reward!! 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Shadowghost.6025

[RevaN.9316]

Dragon trigger ( f2 ) charge is too long. It's very useless in PVP since you deal so low damage with it. It requires so much time charging dragon trigger for spending all the flow, and for that low damage is not worth. You should consider decreasing cast of dragon trigger and increase a bit of damage.

The scenario in PVP is that you watch the enemy while you charge it for 3 seconds for 3k damage? And this also gives you cooldown to the swap weapon.. 

Edited September 25, 2021 by RevaN.9316

[tasat.9426]

This specialization needs major revamp/rework to make it any use in WvW.

I only login to play WvW, and I don't really care about other game modes as they don't have much value to me anymore.

 

On the description, it says that this specialization focuses on the concept of "flow", but it is more "static" than "flow".

As the specialization forces you to be stuck in 1 weapon set, and a bundle weapon, while removing normal burst skill.

Sure, it was somewhat acceptable solution when berserker lost its normal burst skill few years ago, but why bladesworn too? Isn't losing one weapon set enough, and forces the class to a melee class with forced bundle weapon?

 

Let's get to melee aspect then.

You're either stuck with axe on one of the hands with discipline trait along with ferocious axe to help build up "flow", which is impossible to build up unless you're running either discipline or arms traitline. Arms traitline is purely awful in terms of build synergy as specialization mostly focuses on power build, so it is actually not a good traitline to pick if you want to build it as melee dps class that can be an alternative to berserker running greatsword, if it was done correctly.

 

Here's a small list that I can come up with for now.

1. Increase all damage on dragontrigger skills for WvW.

2. Increase charge-up rate for dragontrigger, either by increasing charging speed or by reducing number of necessary charges to reach max potential., or get rid of whole "remain rooted" concept.

3. Change triggerguard to actual guard, not an 2 seconds of aegis.

4. Either make flicker step blink longer range and or make enemies lose target. As of now, it is an inferior Jaunt skill.

5. Allow normal burst skills.

6. Allow better flow buildup mechanics to not force warrior to run arms and or discipline trait line.

7. Break Step should stop on target rather than zooming past target.

8. Dragon's Roar (Pistol 5) shouldn't knock warrior away from the target. Why use skill that puts you away from enemy when your entire weapons are melee based?

[Siege.4520]

This class needs a serious overhaul. there are alot of things wrong with it already.

For one, Pistol offhand should be removed from the class. The specializations has no incentive, as is, to even use your normal weapons, outside of rifle or bow, for when you can't or should not be in melee.

The standard weapon skillset for the gunsaber is just not good. You kept all the Greatsword skills in some way but you took away any of the functionallity that makes them good skills. Your auto-combo is fine. Box standard and nothing special. Auto-combos usually aren't.  as for the rest of the skills:
 Second: Blooming Fire: A standard cleaving attack with small explosions that deals damage in a cone infront of the player.  Problem? Feels weak. Both in aesthetics and damage.  It hit's three times, once for each explosion but there should be a fourth hit for the swing itself.
Third: Artillery Slash: A cleaving uppercut that impossibly fires the gun at the target. Again, ignores the blade strike and only registers the gun shot. To be honest, this skill looks stupid. It makes no sense at all with the weapons functionallity. This skill needs to be reworked as a whole. My suggestion is to change it to a charged, targeted ranged attack. It would gain damage the longer it was charged. Piercing all targets at max charge. Kinda emulating the draw stance. (Maybe add a sweet spot to end the skill with a button press for even more damage) With this rework to the skill, it would be more fitting for a fifth slot skill and should be moved to such
Fourth: Cyclone Trigger: This skill is the only skill that hits for both melee and ranged aspects of it. This would be good if it wasnt just a less effective version of the Chains skill for Guardian Greatswords. In my opinion, to fit more in theme, this skill should be replaced. An idea i had for this slot was One-Two skill that first thrusts the blade forward, forcing a bleed for X seconds and then a secondary explosion that is either radial or a cone. either works.
 Fifth: Break Step: This is your melee gap closer/escape skill. it should not be your fifth skill. Switch places with Artillery Slash and adjust it's cooldown to be more appropriate and that's it. Everything else is fine for this skill.

Next, your number skills: Combat Stimulant and Flow stabilizer are fine. These skills perform their principle functions in the build and do not need any alteration. Your two wall skills however, is needlessly tedious. One, was fine. Just combine the two (Maybe add a combo to it like other walls?).  But then what do you do for the fourth skill? A skill that enables the potential of a Damage Over Time implimentation into the build comes to mind. Example: Dragonfang Ammunition: 30 second CD, .5 second cast, Your next two ammo skills add X power to the attack and apply a Bleed that deals damage over eight seconds.

 

Next, the Flow mechanic. The draw stance is not the problem itself. It's that You have to charge it twice. Once, before and once after activating the draw stance. I get the fantasy you're aiming for, but mechanically, with the rest of your game, it doesn't fit. My recomendation is making the ammo you have for Flow be the cost for each of the new skills you gain in the draw stance. Each Dragon Slash costing those ammo charges. Except for Flickerstep and trigger guard.

Next, the specialization choices themselves. The first tier is alright except for Unseen Sword. As mentioned earlier, there is currently no reason to switch off your Gunsaber except for when melee is impossible/highly suggested against. So a cleave when you switch off your primary weapon to your fight phase weapon is wasted.  It should be replaced. Here's the suggestions i have for specialization choice changes:
Unyielding Dragon: Remove everything off this and make the Unblockable attribute innate with all dragon slash skills. Change it to "You have a X% chance to not consume the ammo cost of any skill" this would not be just your normal skills but your draw stance as skills as well.
Flame Shell Burst: It does what it already does but also changes all bleeds caused by skills and explosions to burns instead. Or adds them, allowing for a more damage over time focused set up.
Unseen Blade replacement: Scale Rounds: explosions now cause victims to bleed.

With everything costing ammo (maybe its the type of gear given to test with) it seems like the damage numbers are a lil low for such a mechanic. with the cooldowns for gaining charges is as long as they are the damage could be a lil higher. Mabye 10-15% more? Also, i really can't stress how much tying offhand pistol to this class as it currently is, is a waste of the weapon as a specialization exclusive weapon.


 

[ASP.8093]

Trying to keep this short and sweet.

 

1. The non-linear Dragon Trigger damage function is a bit TOO non-linear.

In PvE, maxing out your Dragon Slash feels great. It's fun and satisfying to crunch through a ton of a boss' hp bar in one attack.

However, I felt penalized every time I didn't charge it the whole way, even if I got it up to 8 or 9 bullets. Together with the way flow works, it left me waiting for 100 flow before I used DT almost every time. If the damage ramp-up function was just a bit "flatter," especially near the top end, you'd have more room to respond to the cadence of various bosses. (This especially matters in OW where you don't have dedicated supports and perfect boons to keep you from being interrupted, so there's more value in finding the correct viable DSlash timing for that boss — except if it turns out it's "8 bullets" that's way worse than if it's "10 bullets.")

 

2. "Positive Flow" stacking rules feel kinda restrictive.

As best I could tell, Positive Flow caps at 2. The ideal PvE build can keep that up pretty easily, but it still just felt like a lot of waiting. Attacking more doesn't make flow go up faster. Burning more cooldowns in a big burst doesn't make Flow go up faster. I understand the basis for the change to a gradual fill system, but it just feels like you have way less control over it than adrenaline.

 

3. I was using Gun Saber skills for Lush Forest more than for their effects.

(Very subjective.) I liked the idea of the Gunsaber skills but I found that, in PvE, I was basically spamming them off cooldown to trigger traits more than using them for any of their actual effects. The only one I really thought about was Gunsaber 5, since I played with Stability-on-movement-skills in solo play, so it was sometimes important to get that so I could set up my Dragon Slash with some protection against CC.

 

4. There's rather little reward for charging Dragon Slash in SPvP.

In competitive, a fully-charged Dragon Slash felt worse than True Shot, worse than Soul Spiral, worse than Death's Judgement. And just tapping it for the stun left me feeling like I didn't have enough burst in regular Gunsaber mode to really capitalize on stunning my opponents too well. I feel like the skill needs to be more threatening, especially as a cleaving attack against people trying to res downs.

[Crusader.7460]

Bladesworn at state presented is Garbage.Why would you do design such a thing!?

https://c.tenor.com/lhJ4PdABDc0AAAAd/jontron-why-would-you-do-that.gif

 

Let me elaborate a little. I was testing it at strike missions and open world content aka farm trains.

 

Open world (farm trains):

-you cant tag stuff fast enough. In farm trains there is no time to stand in palce and try to use dragon trigger because everything is dead. Flow is too slow to gain. Not able to move while using dragon trigger is simply stupid. Not able to dodge while on dragon trigger make no sense. Why would you give warrior a pistol if it isnt used in spec.There is no synergy. You stay in gunblade mode all the time.You get hit you loose full charge. You cant cancel it.You cant move .You cant doge. On the other hand i take berserker and boom boom prah prah everything is dead in seconds.Everything is tagged.I got stunned np shake it off and back to rotation.

 

Stike missions:

-whisper of jormag. You simply cant play this spec. Hey you need to move and doge but well tough luck you  are  rooted to the ground in dragon trigger.

-boneskinner. Same thing as on Woj

 

Only thing that bladesworn is good at is test golem to check your dps number.Its is sweet there.The golem doesnt have any mechanics and stand in place so its perfect for Bladesworn to do golem content.

 

Possible fixes:

-change flow to adrenaline its confusing.Flow gain is too slow

-Make synergy with pistol or give actuall swap mechanic from wepon of your choice to gunsaber

-Remove f1 and make swap to gunsaber as normal swap then f1 will be dragon trigger

-In dragon trigger add possibility to move, dodge and reduce charge time and adequatly reduce damage of it so it can be actually used in real situations and make it that  mob or player can't cancel dragon trigger.The skill cancel thing make it unplayable. Recover time from cancel is to bad and to long. ( you basicly exluding using wthis spec in current state in wvw pvp and pve.Core warrior can do 1000000x better job that this garbage clunkfest spec) or simply remove the charge time, reduce damage of it and make it as the skill suggest trigger.You trigger the skill for exapmle f1 f2 f3 like firebrand and thats it. Simple and efficinent.

-gunblade itself isnt great.It looks like garbage.ITs locking swap of other weapons.Skills are medicore.It should do more damage and skills should be faster.

Overrall Bs is slow ,clunky, rooted spec that is good only on golem and mayby to chop trees in ascalon.

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Crusader.7460

[Andovar Edoras.2143]

1) Banners should be removed, to give other warrior specs any hope at all. As awesome as this new one is, people will still just want a banner slave for all that content out there.

2) The flow mechanic generates very slowly, yet drains extremely fast. I'd say it could use some slight tweaking.

3)Hopefully its possible to add new skins to the gunsaber at some point..

 

 

[Blumpf.2518]

Main Problems (PVE only):

First, youre a Warrior, so in PVE you have to take Banners. And that means you have to take the Discipline Traitline, so that Banners effect 10 Players.

So your Basic PVE Bladesworn will have Bladesworn Traitline + Discipline Traitline and at least 2 Utility Slots are blocked by Banners.

Now with that in Mind what Weapons are good then ? Well, Axe/Axe + Mace/Mace of course ! DoubleAxe does good Damage and builds up extra flow with discpline traitline. Maces are for CC.

And this is exactly the same Power-DPS Weapon Setup that the Core-BS and the Berserker-BS already have. Congratulations, you created a third version of the PVE Power-Banner-Warrior!

Now, next Problem, the Gunsaber. Does it count as a Greatsword or not ? If it counts, is is affected by the Greatsword  traits in the Strength traitline ? If yes, then if you play Bladesworn, you need Bladesworn+Strength Traitlines, which very limits Build Diversity.

If you are a Banner Slave, there is nothing else than Strength-Discipline-Bladesworn.

Then, the class Mechanic. F1 ist nothing else than changing to another Weapon. Now F2 is a diffrent thing. Three diffrent attacks that charge up for more DPS, an Aegis Skill and a short Range Teleport.

First: The charge up time is ridiculus. In PvE 5 Seconds standing around as Warrior and doing nothing means a Damage loss of at least 75.000, assuming youre an average Warrior who does about 15.000 DPS. To compensate that the F2 Skill you use then should have to deal at least 75.000 Damage which would for a single Burst Skill way too much Damage. For PvP and WvW it would be quite impossible to balance it cause you could probably one-hit anything with it.

Next thing: MOVING cancels the F2 charge up, which in pvp/wvw makes anything except the weakest charge up useless. If you dont move in pvp/wvw for 5 Seconds, BAM, youre dead.

In PVE there is Bosses that drop nasty stuff on the ground that kills you fast if you dont get out instantly. Makes charged up F2 more useless. And the teleport range is too short to get out of large area effects on the ground.

So how to improve this:

If you activate F2 it instantly consumes all the flow you have and fills the Ammunition/Bullet Things that increase Damage and are consumed when using F2 Skill 1, 2 or 3. That would mean you can instantly use a charged up Version of the Skills 1, 2 or 3 but then, if you want to use it again you have to wait for flow to recharge or use only a weaker Version.

Would play like this: use normal Weapons/Gunsaber until flow is full, then use F2, activate a Strong Version of F2 Skill 1, 2 or 3 and after that you could use a weak version of F2 skill 1, 2 or 3 and then all flow is gone and it would take a while before you could use F2 Skill 1, 2 or 3 again.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Blumpf.2518
typo

[Naneel.2348]

After testing , I must say I am really underwhelmed. Dragon Trigger seems okay, a lot of damage for a lot of time chargin it. But the rest seems bad. Gunsaber does not deal enough damage, maybe lower cooldown could help. Pistol is okay but still does not really fit with gunsaber. Would have been better to make two seperate Specs as the Utilities seems to fit more for Pistol then Gunsaber.

I suggest you kick Gunsaber out and give Mainhand-Pistol. Rework it as ranged Spec with Ammunition and save the Gunsaber/Iai-Style for another spec.

Also what shall we do with "Fierce as Fire" ? Gunsaber and Pistol are purely power, so what good is a little fire on top of that?

[Axl.8924]

9 hours ago, UNOwen.7132 said:

No wait time Dragon Trigger does around 4k when Eviscerate does 6k. But you can use it again for 4.8k. And eventually for 6k. Its quite a fair bit of damage if you go back to back to back. Yes, the individual hit is weaker, but you can chain it multiple times in a row, if it works fluidly.

Lets just make it ez full zerker gear on power i did 8-12k because it double hits and berserker    does 16k Burst and it goes faster plus on top of that, gs is better burst.

 

Dragonsaber is more mobile though it has a few things and dragontrigger thing has a few moves 3 and 4 i think it was? to dash attack and 5 aegis.

[Hauwlyn.8051]

The whole main concept of this class is wrong. Once you look past the arbitrary "cool" factor and the current utterly overpowered state of the spec, you're left with a class that is supposed to achieve the strongest burst damage in the game? Is that what it's supposed to be?

Let's start with organized PvE content. There's 2 ways the spec could be nerfed for this, either you keep the massive burst concept and prevent actually casting it as frequently as it currently can so it doesn't do great potential sustained damage, or you foresake the whole concept and make it another sustained dps spec. We're of course assuming you may play it with or without banners, that really doesn't change any of the thought process.

If you do the latter, then it may or may not outperform power berserker, depending on tuning and fight mechanics. Which results in yet another situational build for warriors to do the same job. Some classes may change traits or utilities, exceptionally a weapon to adapt to certain mechanics, warriors have to change the whole elite spec. That says a lot about the lack of versatility and utility a warrior can bring.

 

If you do the former, things get completely whacky. You suddenly have the strongest burst in the game, but one you can't actually start the fight with, which makes the spec even more situational. Even if you can somehow set it up right from the beginning, it would either instantly outperform other bursty builds by providing enough burst for whatever phase you're trying to end, or very quickly fall behind because of how insanely slanted the dps curve is. Which means its performance would depend on the rest of the group even more than any other dps spec out there, emphasizing just how frustrating it is when it can't do its job because others can't follow suit.

 

That's organized PvE, the content in which it can actually do something, let's take a look at the rest:

 

In open world, the burst setup isn't worth it to farm things quickly, you lose way too much time for the small things you can kill quickly, and against big monsters you're either gonna have the same problems as in organized pve for easy ones, or run out of ways to not get murdered on the spot when your blinks and aegis are on cooldown. It's much too impractical.

In sPvP, even if a fully charged slash would kill players in one shot, it would still require massive outplay in duel situations, and would be impossible to land in teamfights....unless someone stealthed you, in which case you'd get free kills in a very uninteractive ways, with few and extremely specific counterplays, which would make spvp a very unhealthy gamemode.

 

In WvW, zergs have to move constantly or die, which make dragon slash impossible to charge up to full, even half would be a stretch, and I don't see how the reward would outweigh the risk with 5 charges even if the damage formula wasn't so extreme.
For roaming, it's basically the same dynamic as sPvP without having to play around small capture points, which means you don't even get the possibility to force your opponent to fight you to prevent you from capping/decapping. Once again, the only 2 ways you'd kill anyone is either massive outplay or using some cheesy stealth/ camping around the corner strategy. Arguably massive outplay happens much more often in WvW roaming, but that doesn't make it a healthy spec for the game.

 

In conclusion, the main mechanic of the spec is conceptually a major flaw, and all I see in it is trying to be "cool" for marketing purposes, especially with how utterly overpowered this beta version is. I truly hope you will prove me wrong on that, or that you will fundamentally rework the whole thing.

Also, if you can finally rework banners so you don't feel justified not to give warriors any kind of healing or boon support option, that would be great.

[Axl.8924]

32 minutes ago, Hauwlyn.8051 said:

The whole main concept of this class is wrong. Once you look past the arbitrary "cool" factor and the current utterly overpowered state of the spec, you're left with a class that is supposed to achieve the strongest burst damage in the game? Is that what it's supposed to be?

Let's start with organized PvE content. There's 2 ways the spec could be nerfed for this, either you keep the massive burst concept and prevent actually casting it as frequently as it currently can so it doesn't do great potential sustained damage, or you foresake the whole concept and make it another sustained dps spec. We're of course assuming you may play it with or without banners, that really doesn't change any of the thought process.

If you do the latter, then it may or may not outperform power berserker, depending on tuning and fight mechanics. Which results in yet another situational build for warriors to do the same job. Some classes may change traits or utilities, exceptionally a weapon to adapt to certain mechanics, warriors have to change the whole elite spec. That says a lot about the lack of versatility and utility a warrior can bring.

 

If you do the former, things get completely whacky. You suddenly have the strongest burst in the game, but one you can't actually start the fight with, which makes the spec even more situational. Even if you can somehow set it up right from the beginning, it would either instantly outperform other bursty builds by providing enough burst for whatever phase you're trying to end, or very quickly fall behind because of how insanely slanted the dps curve is. Which means its performance would depend on the rest of the group even more than any other dps spec out there, emphasizing just how frustrating it is when it can't do its job because others can't follow suit.

 

That's organized PvE, the content in which it can actually do something, let's take a look at the rest:

 

In open world, the burst setup isn't worth it to farm things quickly, you lose way too much time for the small things you can kill quickly, and against big monsters you're either gonna have the same problems as in organized pve for easy ones, or run out of ways to not get murdered on the spot when your blinks and aegis are on cooldown. It's much too impractical.

In sPvP, even if a fully charged slash would kill players in one shot, it would still require massive outplay in duel situations, and would be impossible to land in teamfights....unless someone stealthed you, in which case you'd get free kills in a very uninteractive ways, with few and extremely specific counterplays, which would make spvp a very unhealthy gamemode.

 

In WvW, zergs have to move constantly or die, which make dragon slash impossible to charge up to full, even half would be a stretch, and I don't see how the reward would outweigh the risk with 5 charges even if the damage formula wasn't so extreme.
For roaming, it's basically the same dynamic as sPvP without having to play around small capture points, which means you don't even get the possibility to force your opponent to fight you to prevent you from capping/decapping. Once again, the only 2 ways you'd kill anyone is either massive outplay or using some cheesy stealth/ camping around the corner strategy. Arguably massive outplay happens much more often in WvW roaming, but that doesn't make it a healthy spec for the game.

 

In conclusion, the main mechanic of the spec is conceptually a major flaw, and all I see in it is trying to be "cool" for marketing purposes, especially with how utterly overpowered this beta version is. I truly hope you will prove me wrong on that, or that you will fundamentally rework the whole thing.

Also, if you can finally rework banners so you don't feel justified not to give warriors any kind of healing or boon support option, that would be great.

I disagree about that in pve settings, because other classes can get huge bursts zerker reaper weaver.

Sure its mobile but i don't see access to might gen for getting high damage, and no vuln either. max i did with number 2 is like 4-4.5k.

 

Granted i do think 10k is a lot for pvp and neither reaper nor warr nor anyone should be bursting that high, let alone more.

[Hauwlyn.8051]

11 minutes ago, Axl.8924 said:

I disagree about that in pve settings, because other classes can get huge bursts zerker reaper weaver.

Sure its mobile but i don't see access to might gen for getting high damage, and no vuln either. max i did with number 2 is like 4-4.5k.

 

Granted i do think 10k is a lot for pvp and neither reaper nor warr nor anyone should be bursting that high, let alone more.

I assume you mean "pvp settings" otherwise it makes no sense, but yes, right now it doesn't hit remotely as hard as it should, I said "even if a fully charged slash would kill players in one shot", meaning it doesn't. I'm saying if it did, it still wouldn't be a good spec, assuming the only change is giving the slash higher damage in pvp.

[pawelchuck.6240]

I love bladesworn. Super nice addition would be to have skins for gunblade, maybe just add possibility to use greatsword skins?

 

Also, can you add a possibility to sheathe the gunblade?

[CroTiger.7819]

From pvp perspective.

PROS: Great design after you get into. Unblockable and not being able to miss is great trait for dragontrigger utility. Bladesworn opens up alot of least used core weapons to work after some things are fixed which is best design way to go. Those ppl trying to build up max charges should stop asking for huge berserker like dmg because it is clearly utility kit with solid dmg right now in pvp (if you don t know how huge unblockable aoe stun is go play pve). Since building 10 charges is same dmg like 4 from what i saw i would like it to stay that way but reduce max charges to 5 (maybe integrated into unblockable trait since it will be mostly used in pvp). Even doing the 1/4 sec build up instead current 1/2 sec, and than cutting the dmg by half could do the work. Pls don t let those ppl which want to stay in place for 5 seconds be able to do that in pvp because 2,5 sec is already long enough for most of pvp scenarios.

CONS: Dragontrigger should not put weapon swap on cd. This is what many ppl say and it is pretty obvious that it kills the flow of spec and kills potential combos with core weapons. Skill 4 should be more consistent in dmg because it seems bugged and sometimes hits hard in with followup but feels weird rng so far. Dragon trigger skills have weird ways to be avoid even by jumping but thats bug section and clearly needs to be done. Utility with stability should give 2 stacks or add some condi cleanse on it because it looks like it could open up some plays with less used weapon sets. Pistol offhand is not bringing much to the table should have some evade or blind integrated. The gunsaber 2 should do short 1 second aoe blind aswell because that would make it a perfect set. Teleport on dragontrigger should potentially also blind around radius and be quite bigger range but i can see it used for vertical terrain combos already but bit more range like jaunt would make qol much better (it has pretty long cd anyway).

Overall great proffesion opening theorycraft for few weaponsets which wasn t case before. Best thing is it needs time to grow in terms of playstyle and i apreaciate that. It rewards good plays and punish bad plays which is again great design. Problem is if most of this cons don t get fixed it will not work in more serious pvp scenarios which would be shame. I think dragon trigger being locked behind gunsaber is fine but dragontrigger puting weapon swap on cooldown is definitly clunky and feels bad for this spec.

Edited September 25, 2021 by CroTiger.7819

[Zappi.8307]

Don't know if it has been mentioned before but I'd really like to have skillshots for trigger #2 and 3. Feels a bit weird having to first person and move camera to move anywhere else but target. I'd also support some kind of lock mechanism like deadeye that would be cancelled with another tap of f2.

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

Introduction:

I hereby present my feedback on the Bladesworn elite spec for the Warrior class. I will divide my feedback into several sections and will try to look at things from mostly a PvE perspective. I think that Bladesworn is in the best spot out of all elite specs shown so far. What it does it does very well. Unfortunately the spec gets massively carried by two things: both Dragon Slash and Lush Forest are heavily overperforming in their current state, to the point that a Dragon Slash powered by Lush Forest is responsible for over 85% of your DPS in your rotation. There is pretty much zero reason to ever swap out of the gunsaber and use your normal weapon skills.

 

This means that the Bladesworn comes dangerously close to being a one-trick-pony. And even while it does this one trick extremely well, there is no way that Dragon Slash and Lush Forest won’t be hit with the nerf bat. And when that happens, what does the spec have left? Balancing this spec’s two major overperforming parts while also finding a way to make us want to use the rest of our skills will probably be Anet’s greatest challenge with the Bladesworn.

 

Possible issue with the theme:

Are you kidding? I love it! I adore the idea of this “anime weeb slash’ warrior. I think it’s hard to come up with something for warrior that truly makes sense, and I like the modern-tech samurai-like approach this spec brings to the table. It might not be for everyone, but for me it works thematically.

 

Possible issue with the mechanic(s):

 

Dragontrigger:
I get what this skill sets out to do, and it feels extremely satisfying to land (who doesn’t love big hits). But there is no way you can call a single skill being able to dish out anywhere between 500k- 2.5 million damage balanced. It completely warps the entire spec, and with this comes the danger that when this inevitably gets nerfed the spec is left with nothing.

 

The design behind the three different slashes feel fine in PvE to me, as I started using them I started to recognize what situation was the best for which of my 3 Dragon Slashes.

 

The fourth skill, Triggerguard, was..okay. It might save you from a mild tap, but mild taps aren’t the issue while charging, we have the protection trait already. It might be good versus blockable one-shots, but in other situations some additional stability might have been a better choice. Missing stability in it's core kit (so before traits or utility slots) feels like a problem for a spec that is such a sitting duck while charging it's main mechanic.

 

The fifth skill, Flicker, is in my opinion not good enough. It tries to solve a problem that is not unlike the one that DeadEye struggles with: Becoming immobile in a game where movement is key and mandatory. Standing still does not work in GW2. Make this skill a dodge that doesnt break the trigger, greatly increase the teleport range, or just think off something else and allow us to move while channeling Dragon Trigger (possibly at reduced movement speed) would probably be a better solution. Standing still for 3-5 seconds in a game that emphasis movement simply doesnt work. Don’t turn this into a melee- DeadEye of sorts Anet.

 

Dragon Slash Specific Proposal:

I understand the design of this being a burst class, but I think the damage on Dragon Slash (and especially the Force variant) is way overloaded, and it might be better to tone down the massive numbers (over 500k or even millions from a single skill? Really?) on this skill a bit in favour of some more sustained DPS or supportive options.

 

Right now Dragon slash is anywhere between 85-95% of your total damage in an optimized rotation, and that’s just too much, launching it into one-trick-pony territory. That’s even a higher percentage than Axe Power Berserker gets out of spamming Decapitate, and most of us know how much power Berserker loves to spam that one. And at least Berserker absolutely smashes that F1 skill, while Bladesworn spends a sizeable amount of its time just standing absolutely still, doing nothing except...charging up. That stuff may work in your average action anime, but there isn’t much fun to be had in doing nothing for 3-5 seconds every Dragon Trigger. Activation/charge time really should be lower (doing nothing is boring, and even in PvE you will often get ccéd out) and that damage output really needs proper balancing.

 

If not you run the risk of Dragon Slash making this spec mandatory for DPS in higher end PvE because nothing else can even come close to its burst, while at the same time providing us with extremely boring gameplay ( don’t tell me standing still for 3-5 seconds every Dragon Trigger is fun). I have zero issues with the damage on Bladesworn being very good, and high numbers are cool, but it should not become untouchable by any other DPS spec numberswise. Not to mention that when you become this reliant on this one skill for your DPS, it means we will never see any off-hand usage, means we will never leave the gunblade because we need to spam the ammo skills to recharge dragon trigger (with Lush Forest), and that it’s essentially doing the exact same as Decapitate F1 Berserker spam, just with forced charging for max Dragon Triggers, resulting in spending a big part of our combat time just...standing.

 

A damage reduction ( and/or partial redistribution of the damage to other parts of the Bladesworn) and some changes to the time it takes to charge-up might be the way to go without completely gutting the spec’s main way to deal damage.

Talking about charge-up times, in essence the Bladesworn has to charge its burst skills twice when compared to other warrior specs: First they have to fill their Flow bar, and next they have drain said Flow bar again to unleash their skill. That feels counter-intuitive, why do I fill something first, and then before I can use the thing I just charged for,  I have to drain what I just charged?

 

A QoL proposal:

 Allow access to Dragon Trigger even when outside of the gunsaber. Having no ordinary bursts but also having to go into the gunsaber to access the only burst we have feels overly punishing. So allow us direct access to Dragon Trigger or give us our core bursts back when not in gunsaber.

As for PvP, the skill needs better damage (compared to PvE it’s almost not worth using, you can spend the full duration to charge and still only hit for 5-7k), but also an update to its hitbox and tracking, jumping and sidestepping can completely negate all three types of slashes, and there is no way that is intentional.

 

Flow:
Flow is a *potentially* interesting take on the adrenaline mechanic that requires a different way of managing it. Maintaining flow will be key for this spec, and getting more positive flow will be the main thing utility skills get selected for. The current implementation however isn’t quite there yet.

 

The challenge will be for the amount/speed of flow build-up to feel just...right. Currently however you will either find yourself preparing extensively and build up flow extremely fast, or you don’t and flow will simply..flow a lot slower. Right now I feel there is rarely a middleground between these two. If the idea was that you can generate flow with the same speed that you could normally generate adrenaline the idea failed. Because generally building flow takes a lot longer. Adjusting the speed with which we generate flow (so we can generate it faster) should probably be considered.

 

Another thing I noticed is how the way you can generate flow from skills isn’t a single system. Some skills add certain durations of the ’Positive Flow’ buff, while others like Berserker Stance add a flat value. You see the same thing happening in core traits where some traits give the Positive Flow effect, and others simply give a flat value. To me that was at times confusing. Not to mention there are also many traits that interact with adrenaline but do not interact with flow. Either make all core adrenaline-trait-options interact with flow or none, but no ‘case by case’ decisions please.

 

And then we get cartridges. Why are these even a thing? Are they just there to show us how powerful our Dragon Slash is going to be? Because if so, that’s a very modest role while having a very prominent spot in our UI. Often I was wondering if I had to pay attention to draining flow, to how many cartridges I had, or maybe both... It’s possible that this is simply a ‘learn to play’ issue, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Put complexity and intricacy in the gameplay, don’t put complexity in the UI please.

Gunsaber:
So I trade my second weaponset for this, but the cooldowns...they hurt. They even hurt when investing in cooldown reductions and ammo restocks. This could use a shave on the cooldowns in my opinion, including a buff to its damage (perhaps an idea for when the inevitable nerf to Dragon Slash hits).

 

Gunsaber-Skill specific:

 

Auto-attacks:
Nothing special. Like everything else in the kit, lacks damage.

Blooming Fire:

 It’s fine, I like how it counts each hit as a seperate explosion (just like pistol), that’s a nice touch. But the range on this thing is extremely short, and if you move while using it the explosions can actually happen BEHIND you. I would appreciate a fix for that. And like everything else in the kit, damage is lacking.

Artillery Slash: 
Suppose it’s nice for when stuff runs out of melee range or as an opener, I don’t feel the short cripple is going to do a lot for you, not even with the net utility skill (which seems like it was meant to combo with this to a certain degree).

Cyclone Trigger: 
This is mainly a defensive skill, I wonder if the block (that currently only works versus projectiles) could also be changed into working against melee attacks?

Break Step: 
Fury is always appreciated, but the movement part on this skill feels hard to control, it is very easy to overshoot your target. It couldn’t hurt to make this move towards your target and stop when you reach it, just to stop the awkward overshooting situations. Something else I noticed is how the damage of the skill happens at your starting position, and not at your ending position. It might be better to shift the damage component towards the ending/landing.

 

It’s obvious that gunsaber right now is less there for damage, and more for keeping the Guns and Glory bonus and spamming all charges so you can combo it with cooldown reduction from Lush Forest (The reason I feel gunsaber could use better damage and lower cooldowns is because I don’t think Lush Forest and Dragon Slash are going to stay like they currently are, they extremely overperforming in a spec where most other things underperform, especially in comparison).

 

General thoughts concerning the Gunsaber as a weapon:

Overall, the gunsaber is supposed to replace a warrior weapon, but it currently does not bring the utility a warrior weapon normally brings, nor the damage. Damage should go up, and utility should be added.

 

Your mobility is unreliable (so inferior to gs), you don’t apply conditions (inferior to longbow and s/s), your damage is abysmal (inferior to axe/axe), you have no melee blocks or cc’s on it (so inferior to mace and shield variants) and outside of an occasional Artillery Slash you have no real reliable ranged option on it either (so inferior to longbow again and...even...rifle)and it lacks any form of cleansing (making it also inferior to the warhorn in that department).

 

I understand that the gunsaber should not excel at every possible role in the universe, but right now it is undertuned for all of them aside from being Lush Forest bait. Consider what roles you want the gunsaber to have, and balance/change accordingly.

Another thing I noticed is that the Gunblade sits on your F1, where usually your burst skill is situated. Considering across all warrior specs the burst was on F1, is there any chance for the Gunblade to go into the F2 slot with Dragon Trigger going into F1? And while we are at it, it feels really strange to be locked out of bursts if I am not actively using the Gunblade. Would it break things if we could press F1/F2 to access Dragon Trigger directly, so we don’t have to go into the Gunblade first?

 

A last small QoL request:

We can use weaponswap to swap OUT of the Gunsaber, but we cannot use it to swap INTO the gunsaber. Either allow both or neither, this is a bit confusing.

Possible issue with the Pistol skills:

No big issues. I like how pistol 4+5 have synergy with not just each other, but also with the elite skill and several traits. It’s pretty clear the weapon's purpose is all to help you do cool stuff with pistol 5. I also like how the separate hits from pistol 5 each trigger the Guns and Glory trait, meaning it’s instantly at its max duration of 10s after using it.  But you might want to consider changing how the movement works. Pistol 5 is meant to be used in short-range, and then it moves us out of the way as if we are ice-skating? Consider if moving us out of melee range with the skill is justified (and if so, give it a proper 'jump back' animation).

 

Another problem is that you are probably never going to use the pistol due to the nature of Dragon Slash, where everything that is not a gunsaber ammo skill to trigger Lush Forest becomes a DPS loss. So, this fits the main theme of my worries perfectly: Good design in a vacuum, but won’t be used due to the heavy overperforming of Dragon Slash and Lush Forest.

Something I would have loved to see was a mainhand pistol as well, but I suppose you can’t have everything.

 

Possible issue with the artwork of skills and traits:  

Like most of the EoD icons so far, I feel they are missing details and polish. There is a very clear difference between EoD skill/trait icons, and the basegame/HoT/PoF ones. I do think Bladesworn suffers a bit less from this issue than other elite specs so far, but there are still a few icons where the difference is very noticable, making them feel out of place to me.

Proposal:
Do another pass over the icons so they won’t look as out of place as they currently do when compared to their basegame/HoT/PoF counterparts.

Possible issues with Utility skills:

Combat Stimulant:  
This is an amazing heal. It gives you a clear choice: Do you save the 2nd charge for later, or use it right away to take a risk for boons? Combined with the elite skill this has the potential to become completely bonkers. Why? Because you can now chain this skill up to 3 times should you so choose. That comes down to 3x 3299 heals + 1x delayed 7238 heal for a total of 17.1k healing (spread over 5-7 seconds, so no insane instant burst heal to balance it out a bit), in addition to 17-21 seconds of vigor,fury, and 7-10 seconds of quickness. Meanwhile you can also opt to either get barrier or cooldown reduction through traits when you spend the last charge (traits which effects will activate twice, if you use the elite to get 1 charge of Combat Stimulant back and use it again). Excellent in my opinion.

 

Flow Stabiliser:   
Strong effect, even stronger if someone else gives you stability so you don’t have to use your second charge for the bonus flow (or do and get double bonus flow). This skill might become mandatory in DPS builds (due to how flow currently works). Good skill, albeit a bit simple and straight forward.

 

Bulletproof Barrier:  
Some damage, but more importantly warrior gets a placeable projectile block with this, a form of utility we did not yet have, and you get 3 charges of it each worth 6 seconds. Perhaps not for every situation, but good to have when the situation calls for it. Fine skill imo, additional utility is rarely wrong.

 

Electric Fence:  
I think you are usually better off with throw bola’s in comparison. And why does an electric fence not give a lightning field or a daze?

 

Proposal: 
Make it worth using, right now the only thing it has on throw bola’s is range. Perhaps a small daze/stun in tandem with a lightning field?
 

Dragonspike Mine:  
Not overly amazing, but calling it bad would go a bit far. A stunbreak, an evade, cripple (this does make electric fence better, but needing this skill to work properly says a lot about electric fence imo) and also recharges dragon trigger? Could be pretty good, but getting the mine to reliably trigger is an issue at times, and it could do with a lower recharge time ( let’s say 20 seconds).

 

Tactical Reload:
Amazingly strong elite skill, completely broken. The synergy this has with your entire kit is INSANE! It helps pistol skills, gunblade skills, throw bolas, throw axe if using an axe,  it helps support builds with ammo based shouts, this does more than people may realise. Great design, great skill, and any nerfs to Bladesworn recharges should be aimed at Lush Forest, and not at this. This is NOT the culprit, despite being able to feel that way when it gives everything 1 charge back, followed by ‘everything’ to reduce recharges due to counting as a ‘last charge’ again.

 

Possible issues with Bladesworn traits:

River's Flow:
Can potentially be very good when combined with Combat Stimulant and Tactical Reload, which together would be good for up to 15 seconds of flow..if the Flow this trait generated was more than just 5 seconds. Perhaps this has a higher value in WvW or PvP settings, because in PvE you are just going to grab ‘To The Limit’ for its 15 seconds of Flow Boost or Mending for the buff from Peak Performance.

 

With the 5 seconds from this trait you get less value out of it than out of simply using To The Limit in PvE (because you can’t effectively stack it for a ‘flow burst’). This trait suffers more from how Flow and the Positive Flow buff are currently implemented (and how Positive Flow’s duration is distributed among skills extremely unequally) than suffering from its own design.

 

Swift As The Wind:
Looks nice on paper, especially with swiftness giving you uptime on Warrior’s Sprint, but how many movement skills are you realistically going to have? Maybe bull’s charge in situations where throw bola’s (if you even have room for it) somehow isn’t enough? Or supportive builds running sword/warhorn so you benefit from sword 2? Maybe skill 5 in gunblade?

 

Perhaps this makes greatsword (because of GS 3 and GS 5) a better option as your DPS weapon over Axe mainhand (if, once again...you had ANY REASON to use anything not gunsaber)? I think your other two traits may turn out to be better for flow management, but this one really isn’t half bad either. But unlike the other two this one needs to be more actively built around. And once again, this suffers from the current implementation of the Flow mechanic and the unequal distribution of the Positive Flow buff.

 

Unseen Sword:
Probably will be picked for 100% DPS builds (because it seems that swapping from gunsaber to dragon trigger counts as a weapon swap which triggers both the damage AND flow bonus). Something I noticed: Why do the other two adept traits that deal with flow each have a 5s recharge but this one has 4? Furthermore, it feels a bit like an insult to injury that we get a trait involving weaponswapping on a spec that takes our secondary weapon slot away from us.

 

Dragonscale Defense:
Only 4 seconds on a 15s cooldown. This is honestly a trait I am not very excited about. Perhaps it is key in getting a Dragon Trigger off in PvP, I don’t know.  If it’s indeed PvP oriented, perhaps this could also give some stacks of stability when entering Dragon Trigger, because else the Bladesworn is likely to get consistently cc’ed out of it, rarely if ever getting the Dragon Slash off.

 

Proposal:
Consider adding stability to this trait.

 

Fierce as Fire:
The burning is largely irrelevant, considering it is the only condi in your Bladesworn-specific arsenal, and only 2s of it at that. The power damage on this also isn’t extremely high. Why would anyone take this when Lush Forest exists, the extreme value on that one will make it better in every possible situation.

 

Proposal:
Buff/change/redesign this skill so it gets its own niche, right now it is outperformed in every possible situation I can think off. Probably needs to go together with a nerf to Lush Forest. Maybe this skill could make explosions inflict burning as well? Because Bladesworn has no real condition damage options it seems to me that you either make the burning work, or just scrap it for something different (perhaps a trait dealing with armaments?

 

Lush Forest:  
Without a doubt the best trait in the entire spec. Your goal on ammo skills is to spend the charges. You have plenty of ammo skills. This recharges ALL of your skills by 1 second when you spend all ammo on a skill, and it has NO downtime. This is not just high value on your DPS skills, but also massive value on support shouthealer builds, with the ammo shouts and ammo on warhorn. The potential this has is insane! Frankly this is potentially so extremely strong I feel it’s a candidate for the nerf-bat. It’s 50% of the reason this spec is such a one-trick-pony.

 

Proposal:
This and Dragon Slash are massively overperforming and on top of that have massive synergy with each other. Before anything else can be done to get BladeSworn into a nice spot with interesting gameplay, this trait is one of the things that needs a nerf somehow. Perhaps lower recharge bonuses or an internal cooldown/cannot trigger more than X times every X seconds? Or when you spend all charges of a skill, X happens along with a cooldown. Right now it does not really encourage intricate plays, instead you are encouraged to blindly spam everything with ammo to get recharge times down (and this is why you will pretty much never leave your gunsaber).

 

Unshakable Mountain:  
Spend all ammo, get 1300 base barrier. Not sure how this is going to compete against Lush Forest. Lush Forest will probably need a max amount of triggers within a certain timeframe before people even start to think about considering this one. I can see you spamming some ammo skills to quickly build up the barrier, that is for sure. Would adding some stability to this trait make it OP? Not bad, but overshadowed.

 

Proposal: 
I feel this could give some stability ( on a cooldown if no CD stab breaks PvP). Can’t say much about the amount of barrier, will largely depend on how easy it will be upon release to stack it in PvP.

 

Guns And Glory:
Fine with me. If anything it will change up the normal warrior rotation by giving you an incentive to weave in explosion-typed skills on the regular. Extending duration instead of stacking intensity is a nice touch, and I love the synergy with skills with multiple explosions like pistol 5 or gunsaber 2. Now just find a way to balance it so triggering this doesnt involve simply camping the gunsaber...

 

Daring Dragon:

I am going to guess that this trait is meant to give up short-term burst power for some higher sustained damage in the long run. That’s fine if it would actually work. But it doesnt.

The culprit being how Dragon Trigger scales (exponentially) with your amount of charges, making this trait such a massive DPS loss nobody should EVER use this trait in its current form.
Has potential, but needs careful balancing of Dragon Trigger’s scaling formula to end up in just the right spot.

 

Proposal:
Rebalance this together with Dragon Trigger/Dragon Slash so grandmasters become a choice between healing, burst, and this (more sustained DPS for the long run).

 

Immortal Dragon:
Consider Dragon Trigger has a base 8s cooldown and does anywhere between 100k to 2 million damage in PvE.  Thats possibly a full heal every 8 seconds. For hitting one target. Who needs their heal skill when each Dragon Slash potentially heals you back to full? Potentially broken and in need of the nerf bat, at least for PvE, but all depends on how Dragon Slash will eventually be balanced.

 

Proposal:
Make sure this trait does not turn into effectively a full heal every 8 seconds on glass cannon build, possibly compensate the reduced healing with a different bonus. I know it’s just PvE, but this would make things...overly trivial. Balance together with Dragon Trigger/Dragon Slash.

 

Unyielding Dragon:
Partially solves the issue of Bladesworn having low cc in the base kit. This might become the go-to PvE trait in more organised groups. The blind immunity and unblockable part feels very busted for PvP mostly ( but it will be fun in certain fractals!) At the same time, I wonder if this shouldn’t be baseline behaviour for a burst skill getting charged this long.

 

Proposal: 
Make sure this trait does not break PvP by completely ignoring 2 out of 3 major melee counterplays ( blocks and blinds, leaving only dodge for the most part). I am not saying that it will break it (you are still an immobile sitting duck for 3-5 seconds), just keep an eye on it in case that it does. In case it underperforms (also likely), consider making this effect baseline and think off something else for this slot.

 

Closing statement

PvE Bladesworn is on the right track, but because of how massively Dragon Trigger/Dragon Slash and Lush Forest overperform (in a spec that without them probably underperforms) it comes close to a one-trick pony which results in a very one-dimensional rotation with an inactive playstyle.

 

Before anything else is done, these 2 outliers need to be brought in line (nerfs in PvE, possibly buffs in PvP) in a way that does not completely destroy the spec or the feel that Dragon Trigger is supposed to give. When that is done they can tweak numbers and recharges on the gunsaber, the charge-rate of flow, and the pistol to encourage us using it, hopefully providing us with a rotation consisting of more than just ‘Stand still, use Dragon Slash and spam ammo skills and the occasional flow skill between Slashes’.

Make us want to use the entire kit, and not just a single thing. Get rid of the one-trick-pony, transform it into a multi-trick-one.

 

Thanks for reading!