Bladesworn Feedback Thread

[Tabootrinket.2631]

I'm very unfamiliar with the warrior class in general, but the concept and the execution of the Bladesworn really picked my interest.

So without going into detail, since I don't really have the profile for an insightful opinion :
I really like the idea and the playstyle of the class (especially the iai  concept with the blade).

The gunsaber however feels a little too slow to be truely satisfying.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Tabootrinket.2631

[StormCleric.2843]

I feel like the Bladesworn is a REALLY cool concept, and honestly, the execution wasn't awful. I just feel like the Dragon Trigger mode is so clunky and its almost impossible to get a full charge, especially in competitive modes because someone is gonna stun you or knock you down or something and so it just kind of feels useless to me. I had no problems with the gunsaber or utilities or traits though.

[adormtil.1605]

seems it has issues. Will they make a part 2 beta event with some fixes? 

[Infusion.7149]

15 minutes ago, adormtil.1605 said:

seems it has issues. Will they make a part 2 beta event with some fixes? 

There's going to be another beta with all the new elite specs.

[Katary.7096]

My experience is based on PvE.

General

The Bladesworn is a one trick pony. Spamming as many high level Dragon Slashes as quickly as possible was remarkably potent, if the situation allowed for it. (And at least in PvE that damage needs to be reduced significantly.) That said, I don't think the Bladesworn gameplay fits well with general PvE content. Building flow takes longer than adrenaline and often you will clear out most enemies in the area before you managed to build a notable amount of flow. In addition, what is even the point in charging up a Dragon Slash with enough damage output to deal 700% of a typical mobs maximum HP? In that sense the Bladesworn behaves like an extension of the Berserker, getting to 30 adrenaline is easier/ faster than gathering 100 flow and going berserk on some open world enemies is less overkill than a high level Dragon Slash. The rest of the Bladesworn's kit is unfortunately just "okay". The Gunsaber skills? They're okay. The armaments? Okay. The offhand pistol? Okay. The 3 versions of Dragon Slash are definitely stealing the show.

Mechanics

I could enter and exit Gunsaber mode with F1, but with the weapon swap action I could only exit the mode. If the Gunsaber is the permanent second weapon set than weapon swap should work with it.

Casting a Dragon Slash puts F1 on cooldown. Why? Seems to me that it enables simply camping on the Gunsaber set. And why is F2 only available while in Gunsaber mode? It really shouldn't be like that.

The hit detection of the Dragon Slash skills needs to be improved.

Crazy suggestion: Every version of Dragon Slash, regardless of charge level, should count as a tier 3 burst.

Traits

Unseen Sword: This trait should only trigger if the Bladesworn is already in combat.

Lush Forest: Cool design. Sadly somewhat prone to being abused.

Guns and Glory: Effect duration to 4 seconds. Maximum duration to 16 seconds.

Pistol

Gunstinger: A bit more range on this skill would be nice. Probably needs more damage in PvE.

Dragon's Roar: The self pushback seems more detrimental than helpful. Probably needs more damage in PvE.

[Nihlumis.9205]

I'm a bit late but I wanted to add my own feedback here after the beta event.

 

I thought that the traits synergizing with ammo skills and the new elite skill were interesting but I did not like how much of the Bladesworn specialization seems to be focused on the gunsaber. Even the Elite specialization lore description seems to be entirely about the gunsaber.

 

I think that it it kind of cheapens the new offhand pistol when so much of the spec seems to be centered around the gunsaber (Seriously, I did not even see a pistol in the concept art, only the gunsaber. All of other specs have their new weapons featured). It makes me wonder it would have been better to introduce the gunsaber as a new weapon instead. Then you could at least change the weapon skin to match your armor...

 

Since you can't swap weapon sets with the spec the gunsaber just feels like a second weapon set that you don't even get to pick and that you can't choose sigils for.

But I think my biggest gripe with it is that you cannot use the new flow mechainc without switching to the gunsaber and since you don't have adrenaline anymore that's kind of a big deal. I also do not like the fact that using 'Dragon trigger' procs the cooldown on weapon swap so that you're stuck with the stupid gunsaber even longer.

[Phalaphone.1642]

I think bladesworn is fun and to play and conceptually cool. My issue is that it feels like it is suppose to be pure dps (Berserker already has this niche) and is forced into power. Right now warriors 3 elite specs break down to berserker (has both power and condi builds), spellbreaker (which heavily favors power dps due to having only strike damage increase traits and attackers insight) and now bladesword with due to the gun blade and dragon trigger is forced into power builds.

 

With the focus on ammunition skills (which the warrior has plenty) it feels like blade sworn could be a flexible dps wanting to bring shouts, bolas, etc, to aid allies in small scale fights. Even the bladesworn utilities offer stability and cripple imbolize rather than raw dps. To emphasize this flexibility I would add 150 concentration and expertise to guns and glory. It help solidify the managing of explosion mechanics to improve all aspects of the kit rather than just damage.

 

My grand wish would be a condi gunblade option. This would open up new weapon choices that play into a less damage focus. If you want range with power on a war you have rifle (and all of its glorious ammo skills) but it is a selfish weapon. Its cc is cripple or a melee knock back and it offers only projectile finishers (nice but not strategic). If a condi gunblade was an option you could use longbow which has ranged blind and cripple, while also having a blast finisher that offer group support (might, condi cleanse, stealth, etc). It would also make sword a stronger damage weapon option, allowing the warrior to have another easy accessed movement ability increasing the flexibility of the spec and trait choices.

 

The major concern for a condi gunblade would be the dragon triggers. How should they be handled? Large stacks of conditions (like bleed or burning)? This could work and would still feel cool but you run into 2 risks: epidemic might get abused in aoe situations and condi transfer would be very punishing (causing a bad condi bladesworn to be a bigger liability in pvp than other builds). Since EoD elites are about breaking the rules I think it would be neat if the condi dragon triggers scaled strike damage off of both power and condi damage (obviously reduced power scaling compared to the power gun blade variant). This gives bladesworn a unique niche compared to other condi classes, it would have strong condi presence from normal attacks with highly telegraphed strike damage burst. This would mean that both protection and resilience would benefit fighting them but they also get hurt by toughness and other such effects more than other condi classes. It creates a cool middle ground only really seen in things like cele weaver.

[Ausar.9542]

Support Bladesworn will be using Horn offhand. No Weapon Swap, a Pistol in the mainhand would be good for my build to help with mid ranged damage

[Yumesaki.7082]

Bladesworn Feedback

 

Gunsaber
- Blooming Fire saber2 skill 2feels like hundred blades cleave but with less restrictions.

- Artillery Slash saber3 skill feels like it could be merged with saber4 skill.

- Cyclone Trigger saber4 skill feels like it could replace saber3 skill if it had 300 more range.

- Break Step saber5 skill feels good to use, the animation is awesome.

 

Utilities
- Flow Stabilizer This skill feels impactful to use, a good way to generate a steady rate of flow

- Bulletproof Barrier and Electric Fence These skills feel too similar to each other. Uncapped immobilize is abuseable.

- Signet of Fury This has a cast time and provides 30 flow, not positive flow stacks.

- Signet of Rage Provides flow, but there isn't any visual feedback. (it could provide positive flow in combat, so you could see a buff that tells you it is working.)

 

Sheathing / unsheathing the Gunsaber is confusing
- Unsheathing Gunsaber only works with f1 and not weapon swap.
- Sheathing Gunsaber works with f1 or Weapon swap.

- Stow weapon doesn't work in Gunsaber to cancel attacks / skills.

 

Entering Dragon Trigger is confusing
- Entering Dragon Trigger only Requires 10 Flow to enter.
- Enter Dragon Trigger by pressing F2 in Gunsaber, but not in your other weapon set.(let me do this if I want to, or put dragon trigger on a gunsaber weapon skill.)

- Is charging speed / rate in Dragon trigger supposed to be affected by Positive Flow stacks/Quickness/Alacrity?

- You have ammo/flow/charges to manage as a warrior. Are the charges supposed to count as ammo for traits / skills?

 

Master Traits
- Lush Forest Could be a grandmaster trait possibly

 

Grandmaster Traits
- Daring Dragon Dragon Trigger can be accidentally canceled by pressing weapon skills 1-5 after using a Dragon Trigger skill.

 

Making Dragon Trigger less confusing
- Filling up the Flow meter to 100 is a requirement to enter Dragon Trigger.
- Pressing in F2 in Gunsaber or the other weapon set enter Dragon Trigger.
- Dragon Trigger Charges are the number of skills you can use in Dragon Trigger.(Should also count as ammo for traits.)
- Using up all the charges in Dragon Trigger leaves Dragon Trigger.
- Leaving Dragon Trigger manually loses all Charges as well.

[Axl.8924]

16 hours ago, Phalaphone.1642 said:

I think bladesworn is fun and to play and conceptually cool. My issue is that it feels like it is suppose to be pure dps (Berserker already has this niche) and is forced into power. Right now warriors 3 elite specs break down to berserker (has both power and condi builds), spellbreaker (which heavily favors power dps due to having only strike damage increase traits and attackers insight) and now bladesword with due to the gun blade and dragon trigger is forced into power builds.

 

With the focus on ammunition skills (which the warrior has plenty) it feels like blade sworn could be a flexible dps wanting to bring shouts, bolas, etc, to aid allies in small scale fights. Even the bladesworn utilities offer stability and cripple imbolize rather than raw dps. To emphasize this flexibility I would add 150 concentration and expertise to guns and glory. It help solidify the managing of explosion mechanics to improve all aspects of the kit rather than just damage.

 

My grand wish would be a condi gunblade option. This would open up new weapon choices that play into a less damage focus. If you want range with power on a war you have rifle (and all of its glorious ammo skills) but it is a selfish weapon. Its cc is cripple or a melee knock back and it offers only projectile finishers (nice but not strategic). If a condi gunblade was an option you could use longbow which has ranged blind and cripple, while also having a blast finisher that offer group support (might, condi cleanse, stealth, etc). It would also make sword a stronger damage weapon option, allowing the warrior to have another easy accessed movement ability increasing the flexibility of the spec and trait choices.

 

The major concern for a condi gunblade would be the dragon triggers. How should they be handled? Large stacks of conditions (like bleed or burning)? This could work and would still feel cool but you run into 2 risks: epidemic might get abused in aoe situations and condi transfer would be very punishing (causing a bad condi bladesworn to be a bigger liability in pvp than other builds). Since EoD elites are about breaking the rules I think it would be neat if the condi dragon triggers scaled strike damage off of both power and condi damage (obviously reduced power scaling compared to the power gun blade variant). This gives bladesworn a unique niche compared to other condi classes, it would have strong condi presence from normal attacks with highly telegraphed strike damage burst. This would mean that both protection and resilience would benefit fighting them but they also get hurt by toughness and other such effects more than other condi classes. It creates a cool middle ground only really seen in things like cele weaver.

 

You forgot to add that gunblade is ranged so its a RDPS which zerker isn't plus rifle.

[Riot Inducer.8964]

Going to give some initial thoughts on Bladesworn after playing around with it enough to get a feel for it.

 

I like the overall feel of most of the skills and abilities and the general style but it's just far too clunky to realistically make use of in most situations. Imo it really needs a lot more qol to be versatile and usable outside of niche content where you can overcome the massive limitations of the spec's systems. 

 

I'm not sold on the frankly convoluted method of using Dragon Slash; flow builds much more slowly than adrenaline and then to use it effectively you have to make sure you are in Gunsaber then go into Dragon Slash and then wait while you convert your flow into charges to actually use the Dragon Slash skills. That's a lot of hoops to jump through to make use of the profession mechanic. I appreciate the idea of Dragon Slash mode being akin to the Deadeye's kneel skills limiting mobility in exchange for massive damage but given the need to build up flow so much before hand then being made to pour all that time investment into an easily broken vulnerable state all for one massive strike that can still be blocked or disrupted even once it's executed...it's just asking far too much for something so unlikely to actually land in a satisfying way.

 

Some qol changes that I think need to happen regardless of any systemic changes:

1. Dragon Trigger mode needs to be uncoupled from the weapon swap cooldown, using your burst mode should in no way interfere with weapon swapping, it's making the loss of the second weapon set even more painful as you can't even make use of your single remaining weapon set due to being stuck in Gunsaber mode perpetually.

 

2. Movement should be locked while in Dragon Trigger mode, it's far to easy to accidentally ruin your own attempt at a Dragon Slash by accidentally bumping your movement keys. The mode is hard enough to pull off without the Bladesworn themselves bungling it. 

 

3. Make Dragon Trigger available regardless of your  weapon set. Without being able to use core warrior burst skills on non Gunsaber weapon sets it further disincentives doing anything but camping Gunsaber. There shouldn't be so many barriers to using your profession mechanic. If Dragon Trigger really must be linked to the Gunsaber then allow the use of weapon burst skills in exchange for flow when not in Gunsaber mode as currently the mechanics make it feel like you're being punished for not exclusively using the Gunsaber. 

 

As for systemic changes I'd like to see in the spec:

1. Change how Flow and Charges work. Instead of flow being a massive bar to fill it fills similarly or even more quickly than Adrenaline but once the bar is full the flow is converted into a Charge that persists until it's used to charge a Dragon Slash. This would let Bladesworns more easily move between fights as currently flow builds too slowly and drops too quickly out of combat for Dragon Trigger to even be used in most PvE and small scale encounters. And the ability to carry full charges into a fight is still countered by the need of Dragon Trigger mode to charge up to use them, so it wouldn't be as oppressive as when warriors could open every fight with a burst skill. 

 

2. Make Gunsaber's swap cooldown independent from normal weapon swap and give Bladesworns their second weapon set. Bladesworns are already giving up core warrior burst skills in favor of a difficult to use charge up mode, they shouldn't also have to give up their weapon sets. Bonus points if Fast Hands can affect Gunsaber mode's cooldown.

 

Other changes I would like to see:

1. Give the pistol at least one actual ranged ability. I'd really appreciate it if pistol #4 was at least a 600 range attack. I like the feel of the skills but, come on it's a gun, let it shoot at least a little distance.

 

2. Cut the cooldowns of Gunsabre skills a bit. The lowest cooldown is 25s on that, the skills need either lower cooldowns or to be a lot more impactful and powerful to justify utility skill level cooldowns. 

 

3. Give Dragon Trigger mode some more reliable defensive abilities, specifically access to stability and ways to cleanse/ignore blindness. If you're going to be putting so much effort into a single strike you should be able to have ways to ensure that strike goes through, if it can be reliably shut down by as low tier cc as the blind condition then it really hurts the overall usability of the ability. 

 

4. Give more variety in the traits. This is a critique that can be used on most of the EoD elite specs so far, but the trait tiers being "three flavors of the same thing" is really uninspired and makes the Bladesworn feel even more one note than the Gunsaber focus does. How about some traits to let there be a condi build? Make explosion effects even more customizable (condi on explosion perhaps??). The traits seriously need variety and it would do wonders for making the Bladesworn feel more rounded as a spec. 

 

[Pete.8251]

- nerf the DPS in PvE obviosly, but still keep it as this bursty dps as there is not that much of fun playstyle like this. This needs to be thinked about and adjusted so it reamins its identity and not to keep it as just another bannerslave power dps.

- in pvp i am not sure how this will be as i would love to see this assasiny feel to it and oneshoting oponents, but i am afraid of stealth and othe mechanics that may make it extremly annoying to play against so the damage there so probebly ok eventhgouh nobody wants to wai 5 seconds for those hits.

 

- how the hell can gun have 240 range? 😄 

 

- overall i think this is very unique class and i will love to see how it turns out just hope the dragontrigger will get some skins and they will not be in gemstore

Edited September 27, 2021 by Pete.8251

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I mentioned this in another thread but I'll place it here.

Return weapon swap.

Gunsaber should be a 'mode' like Shroud or Photon Forge. Entering Gunsaber requires having an amount of flow, and flow drains while in Gunsaber, but can be increased while in Gunsaber with trait interactions/utilities.

Dragon Slash should be Gunsaber 5, and NOT exit Gunsaber Mode on use. It should have munition charges like the rest of Gunsaber. Given that this will decrease it's spaminess the rest of Gunsaber should have its damage increased and CD's decreased. 

Dragon Slash can be turned into 'Boost' or 'Reach' based on one of the 2 GM traits.

Immortal Dragon should turn DS into DS-Boost.

Unyielding Dragon remains as is and is the 'Force' version of DS.

Daring Dragon should turn DS into DS-Reach, but is changed to recharge DS instantly for the flow cost.

Flickerstep and Triggerguard should become utilities.

Triggerguard should become a 1s evade instead of Aegis, a stunbreak, and replace Dragonspike Mine.

Flickerstep should have it's range increased to 600, maybe 900 and replace Flow Stabilizer. Add 1 stack of stability for 5s to the skill.

[Graven X.6091]

Daring Dragon - cooldown after using a Dragon Slash feels too clunky.  1/2 sec would feel more responsive.

Daring Dragon can feel like it locks you into Dragon Trigger, as weapon swap goes on cooldown after each Dragon Slash. (Esc still works, but feels like pressing F1 or F2 should also cancel Dragon Trigger?)

Dragon Trigger should be accessible from other weapons.  Restricts build diversity.

Weapon Swap cooldown after Dragon Slash also feels like it restricts build diversity.

Flame Shell Burst should have 240 radius to work with Dragon's Roar self-pushback.

Maybe Unshakable Mountain could give barrier to 5 targets instead of just self?
 

[oscuro.9720]

21 hours ago, Yumesaki.7082 said:

Making Dragon Trigger less confusing
- Filling up the Flow meter to 100 is a requirement to enter Dragon Trigger.
- Pressing in F2 in Gunsaber or the other weapon set enter Dragon Trigger.
- Dragon Trigger Charges are the number of skills you can use in Dragon Trigger.(Should also count as ammo for traits.)
- Using up all the charges in Dragon Trigger leaves Dragon Trigger.
- Leaving Dragon Trigger manually loses all Charges as well.

These changes would only exacerbate the problems the spec has in competitive modes. I personally don’t think DT is really confusing in any way, and I don’t think these changes would make the spec much better. Just my opinion though 🙂 

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

I'm not a warrior main, but I did spend some quality time with this spec (practically abandoning other two) and feel I've got a solid grasp of it's fundamentals, synergies and issues.

Overall this is fun fun spec and as many noticed - it's a spec hated by warriors, loved by non-warriors with some extreme pros and cons.

The good:

- bossing damage performance. Guardian and rev have been disgustingly overperforming in these areas for ages. Nice to see THE offensive soldier profession finally get some numbers to back it up!

- build variety - shout and tank warr are starting to see some love. With dragon slash getting huge chunk of our dps potential, non pure dps builds can still keep up in damage and do their job. Which is what an offensive soldier profession should offer.

- ammo management and 2/3 of it's traits. Really fun and helpful for many builds.

- offhand pistol. Really nice utility, letting you keep the ammo traits procs going and giving you on demand aegis that is much cheaper to get than Dragon Trigger version.

- 2/3 of armaments are actually good and bring value to the table (combat stimulant, flow stabilizer, bulletproof barrier, tactical reload)

- gunsaber #5 skill that slashes through enemies. All the people here wanting it to just be regular dash to enemy...
No thank you. I don't want to stop in front of their face just to eat their point blank aoe. I want to dash through them, behind their backs avoiding their pbAoE and looking good doing it! Not to mention the value of doing 180 on an enemy in pvp that has to keep up with you zipping though them!

The bad:

- full weapon swap cooldown after Dragon slash, denying you access to your regular weapon set. I do hope this one is a bug. Losing one weapon set in combat  is punishing enough.

- no regular burst skills is a huge price to pay. Warrior weapons are balanced around their burst skills. Axe and GS are non issues due to dragon slash, but everything else is. Sword and longbow can't do their job proper (condi). Mace and hammer are gutted without their bursts (control). Rifle is a piece of junk without kill shot (ranged  burst dps that lets you go back to sniping and not force you into melee).

- completely gutted condi. We're looking at 3rd warrior spec that's all about direct damage (core, spellbreaker and now this). Heck, dragon slashes have burning death animations on'em but 0 burns..

- build variety needs a push. Shout support warr and tank warr are closer than ever to becoming reality, but not close enough yet. This is a core warrior issue mostly, but since Bladesworn almost solves it, it deserves a mention. Shouts need to do more. For example Shake it Off! breaking stuns for allies as well. Where's my AoE taunt to round up mobs and get them off my allies? Warhorn is really begging for ammo system (some REAL support value that is not bannerslave).

- no main hand pistol. 3.5 (the 0.5 part being pistol) outta 5 offhands Bladesworns can use work perfectly fine in ranged setups, yet there's not ranged main hand to take advantage of that...

- flow generation is too punishing for those that don't invest in it and too rewarding for those that do.

- gunsaber is a mediocre mandatory weapon with overly big cooldowns on everything that's not an auto. Also no hard cc on a generalist weapon we're pretty much stuck with feels off..

- electric fence and dragonspike mine are underperforming.  Electric fence is mesmer's temporal curtain, only if you deprive it of any additional utility and slab nearly twice the cooldown.

Mine is a 35s cd stunbreak that is not an ammo skill. So it better do something awesome. It doesn't.
Evade + stunbreak + cripple + dragon trigger reset + damage sounds awesome.. if you're not aware that warrior does all these easily with other skills and to a better effect! Warrior does not suffer from shortage of dodges, stunbreaks, cripples and dragon trigger is mostly capped by flow generation, not cooldown timer.
 

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[Raolin Soulherder.3195]

15 hours ago, Riot Inducer.8964 said:

2. Movement should be locked while in Dragon Trigger mode, it's far to easy to accidentally ruin your own attempt at a Dragon Slash by accidentally bumping your movement keys. The mode is hard enough to pull off without the Bladesworn themselves bungling it. 

Yea, the accidental cancellations were a major annoyance. But I suppose if they changed it, there would be other people that would start to complain because they don't like anything forcibly locking them in place.

 

15 hours ago, Riot Inducer.8964 said:

3. Give Dragon Trigger mode some more reliable defensive abilities, specifically access to stability and ways to cleanse/ignore blindness.

tbf, there is the "Unyielding Dragon" grandmaster trait, which feels almost mandatory.  And Flow Stabilizer provides a quick stability, though unfortunately not enough to cover the whole DS. But yea, it's still hard to fight on a capture point in pvp. You are getting nuked from every direction and have pulsing fields that will easily wipe away the aegis from Triggerguard. 

 

Due to the way adrenaline/burst works, half the core-warrior synergies with Bladesworn end up incentivizing you to use DS (adrenaline/burst) as much as possible, but there just isn't enough stability to safely use it that often. The pvp stability's only cover half the charge-up, and have super long CD's, so you're stuck doing a partial charge-up which does hardly any damage, or having a high failure rate of using the skill. 

[Rune Darkmoor.3269]

PSA about Flow for all the suggestions about you need 100 of it, when I did just a minimal of optimizing my build for flow and went into raids I realized why it's called FLOW.

 

Cause it continues to gain constantly as long as it's positive, even when you go into stance. I'm seeing lots of suggestions about "100 Adrenaline before stance". You're warrior habits are playing against you.

 

If your flow is positive enough you can go into stance at 50% or 75% flow and reach Max charges still. Matter of fact if you wait till 100% you are WASTING Flow.

 

If you use To the Limit and Flow Stabiliser with Signet of Rage (passive) you can start a raid boss in dragon stance and reach max charges and let dragon slash be your opener if you want even.

 

Another trick. Did you ever find you ended up with 1 or two charges missing and your out of flow? THIS is what Flow Stabiliser is for, you can use it while IN stance to get the last few charges.

 

To me this is great design, it allowed me to play around boss mechanics and not feel like I was wasting flow on many bosses as I could pick and choose my moments to enter stance and still expect to reach Max charge as long as I kept my flow positive. If I played with a 100% flow mindset it would be significantly WORSE.

 

When I tried daring dragon with this setup I could easily use it 5-6 times in a row allowing for insane mobility with Dragon Slash: Boost.

 

Overall I had immense fun with the spec in raids and did not feel like it was a hindrance at all.

[nopoet.2960]

Completely random idea.

What if the skills on bladesworn 2 and 3 would change based on what off hand you had equipped on your weapon swap.   So assume the weapon skills we saw in beta are a result of having pistol equipped.  If you had warhorn in your weapon swap 2 and 3 would provide buffs and be blast finishers.  If shield you would get an interrupt and perhaps a block/parry.  If sword your going darth mal style spinning aoes. 

What about two-handers?  Maybe rifle leans more to range attacks over melee and Two-handed swords would do the opposite. 

[Roshyu.2987]

Bladeworn I really wanted to play around with before making any final assessments, so I did. There were some issues starting out, but not so bad I felt they couldn't be fiddled with to see if they ended up feeling better. There's a lot to unpack here, so stick with me. Also, since this did take more time to ATTEMPT to fully articulate most of my thoughts, I've ended up rushing some parts so I could get all of this posted. These are just one man's set of experiences and opinions with the elite specialization, so take it with a grain of salt. I suppose I should note that I enjoyed the specialization enough to play with it a good long while, though it eventually became mostly running around with rifle and having a fiesta blasting skills like no tomorrow, which, admittedly, was great. The core concept of the gunsaber I think is genuinely great, too. This,, however, will largely be addressing issues I ran into. 

Traits:
Minor Adept: Gun X Sword - Flow is described as being gained at a constant rate while in combat, but I ran into extended brawls (in excess of 15 seconds) with absolutely no flow generation, and since there's no generation from attacking, I was locked out of ever using Dragon Trigger. I wasn't able to discern what was causing this anomaly.

Minor Master: Dragonscale Defense - This just feels...really weak. At most you'd be getting 20% protection uptime from this but...that's it. And that's assuming you're regularly using Dragon Trigger. I feel like it could maybe be merged with one of the Grandmasters since they all deal with Dragon Trigger. I would argue the core mechanic is/should be the gunsaber, not specifically Dragon Trigger, so having a minor that's related to a particular section of the core mechanic feels a bit underwhelming.

Minor Grandmaster: Guns and Glory - Now this is really good and rewards timing and chaining skills effectively. It's reminiscent of Explosive Temper in engineer's Explosives trait line, but with its own spin. Not much else to say here, I just like it!
Major Adept selection (All pertain to flow): I think all of these are fine. Some numeric tweaks might be in order, but it feels like I can reasonably choose something based on my intended style and each one can be meaningful. On Unseen Sword, it might be tweaked to give the Positive Flow on weapon swap rather than on hitting with the attack proc.

Major Master selection (All pertain to using a final ammo round): Lush Forest feels like it might be significant ahead in power over the others here. That said, I don't think it's necessarily over-tuned, rather, that the others could be tuned upward. The barrier on Unshakable Mountain does look solid, but reducing ALL skill cooldowns after using a final round is tough thing to beat. Fierce as Fire (FaF) probably needs numeric tweaks, especially since it also has a half second internal cooldown (ICD in case I use this elsewhere). FaF should probably be streamlined to 130 range instead of 120, as 130 is what basically all really close range melee skills are.

Major Grandmaster selection (All pertain to Dragon Trigger): While I don't think any of these intrinsically are bad, to have the most important selection be on a single skill that is prohibitively hard to access (at a significant level) in general play feels bad. I think this selection could do with an option to bring back regular bursts at some sort of cost if the develops feel the strict need to not have regular bursts intrinsically in the elite spec. More on this when it comes to the actual Dragon Trigger.

Utility Skills:
I didn't have much of a chance to look at these before the beta ended, unfortunately. My sentiments on the heal are neutral - it ties in with the intended gameplay style. The flow booster feels like a necessity if you're wanting to do anything with Dragon Trigger. The elite also feels like a must, but it's more of because of just how powerful it is and has synergy with many other aspects of the elite specialization. The remaining skills didn't seem to have anything significant at a brief glance, but like I said, I didn't have a chance to really get to these, so my opinions are pretty much moot.

Gunsaber: 
I was really taken aback by these cooldowns initially. You basically have to take Lush Forest and/or Tactical Reload (Bladesworn elite) to make these work, which you want to because you only have one other weapon set and that set doesn't have access to its own burst skill. All skills have an explosive component to them except for Cyclone Trigger (4) which is good and reasonable. The damage on the skills themselves aren't bad, but it did just occur to me why they feel weak - their long cooldowns. I don't take much issue with how the skills perform though. There's just numerics in terms of cooldowns and damage that can be adjusted. Fundamental issues, as far as I'm concerned, aren't there. Break Step (5) should be adjusted to stop at a target, if you have one, though. It feels like it's intended to be a solid engage, given that it deals a bit of damage, counts as an explosive, and gives fury. Allowing you to stop at a target would also make give it stronger synergy with Swift as the Wind (Major Adept). 

Dragon Trigger + Dragon Slash:
While it is comical how much damage the first burst option for the gunsaber can do, the play style is...questionable. You'll spend an exorbitant amount of time accumulating the flow or invest heavily into building it up. Then, to deal max damage, you just sit there...for 5 seconds. Sure, you could charge up for less, but, I vaguely recall it being mentioned that your charges increase damage exponentially, or something along those lines, so if you want the most bang for your investment, you want that really big burst. Using Dragon Slash also puts your weapon swap on cooldown. Why exactly? Also, it's rather annoying to find out what each Dragon Slash does while within the game. There are 3 different options and, and since they're locked behind Dragon Trigger, you won't have a chance to see them unless you're in combat, which means you may be at risk of getting interrupted. With regular burst skills, your skill is just there above your weapon skill bar and you can just see what it does (though I guess this little issue I have could be made for Berserker as well, to an extent). Is it a game breaking issue? No, but I do feel like you shouldn't have to lock yourself into a position in game or view the options in a third party source, such as the wiki, to find out what something does, the damage it'll do with your current stats and boons, etc. I feel/hope they can be incorporated as other F skills. One thing that a guild mate of mine and I discussed is the possibility of being able to move while charging your Dragon Trigger, but the more charges you accumulate, the slower you become, eventually becoming rooted in place at full power. 

Additional notes:
I feel like warrior loses out on a lot of flexibility, which seems to be a core philosophy with the class. With Spellbreaker, warrior gained main and off hand dagger, meaning it got a new auto attack chain, 4 weapon skills, and a burst skill, coupled with the fact dagger is one handed, so you could make tons of new weapon combinations. With pistol, while I do like the skills, you don't get a new auto attack chain, there is no new burst to have fun with, and it is only 2 skills, they're overshadowed drastically by gunsaber, and I'm not sure how the other main hand weapons really tie in with pistol, gunsaber, and/or the elite specialization as a whole. Honestly, it feels like the elite specialization was intended to couple with rifle. 2-4 on rifle are all ammo based skills and the 5th skill also refreshes ammo. And this is just a pedantic thing, but why BLADEsworn? It's a cool name, don't get me wrong, but the core themes of the specialization are about guns and ammunition. It feels a lot more like a warrior spin on a gunslinger or the commando April Fools' joke.

[Noz.4650]

This is my list of things I'd like to see changed (PvP focused):

• Gunsaber/Dragon Trigger badly need weapon stowing
• Activating Dragon Trigger should let you move at -66% speed (chilled speed) so you can activate it while moving and because the self rooting is a bit harsh, or maybe gradually slowing you to a complete stop the longer you charge
• Dragon Slashes should all be aimed skillshots
• Gunsaber 4: I would trade the range damage for a regular short duration block to counterbalance the fact that we're very limited on weapon sets and lose 2 sigil slots, but don't have the tool variety of an engi or ele
• In the same vein, consider giving gunsaber its own sigil slots in the equipment UI
• Gunsaber 5 should deal damage where you land, not where you start
• Some utilities need a rework, maybe make them spend a bit of flow to make them more powerful as Bladesworn isn't starved for it and rarely charges more than a second or two
• Small QoL but I'd really like F1 to be the regular weapon swap and Dragon Trigger to be F1
• Not sure if it would make the class too strong but F2 not resetting your weapon swap cooldown would be nice to test
• Dragon Trigger 3 needs so much bug fixing, it's the wonkiest projectile
• Dragon Trigger 2 flinging you in the air can be frustrating

These alone would go a long way to push Bladesworn up the tier list.

[BlackTruth.6813]

 

[yanoch.7051]

On 9/27/2021 at 11:38 AM, Pete.8251 said:

 

 

- how the hell can gun have 240 range? 😄 

 

 

...and being able to throw their greatsword at 900 range.

I think longbow's skills started at 600 when game launched.

Edited September 29, 2021 by yanoch.7051

[VergilDeZaniah.3295]

A really simple feedback compared to the previous ones, I will simply focus on the design in general. I am mainly a WvW player so I'm talking about my experience in that mode only.

Also, I must admit I haven't read all the feedback (yet), so I don't know how many times my remarks have already been brought up, if at all.

 

1. Pistol

Why add two daggers but only one pistol? It would have been great to make the Bladesworn an expert in guns using show-off skills (à la Devil May Cry's Dante) with crazy animations. Here, the skills barely feel useful: Gunstinger's range is too short, and Dragon's Roar doesn't feel that impactful. MH pistol is lacking, as Bladesworn is forced to use pistol as a short-range weapon.

Imho, Dragon's Roar could be Gunstinger follow-up if the skill connects. This way, Pistol 5 could have another skill. The flow of battle would feel faster.

 

2. Gunsaber

Love the idea, hate the execution. Animations should be better: why simply put a greatsword stance while the artwork is selling iaido vibes? Make it stand out, not just another recycled stance (I'm still bitter about Daredevil's and Revenant's staff). Too slow, too greatswordy, I feel like you're missing the potential of the whole spec.

Dragon Slash in WvW is ridiculous: why would I put myself in such a dire situation when I can do more damage with any other Warrior, or other professions, spec?

Gunsaber is finally bringing something new to the game, but in such a shape I'd rather stick to simple weapons: it's supposed to be a "stance" in which I want to stay as much as possible, not to avoid it... Also, please... Gunsaber skins (NOT in the cash shop) or simple make it a new weapon type. I know people will play pissed if they only get it for warrior, but in the end they'll forget once you add new weapon types to other classes as well.

 

3. Skills

In one word, they are meh. It's just utility skills, nothing more: no flavor, no real impact, they simply feel "there" rather than "needed".

 

 

Just as with Vindicator, I'm sorry to be negative about the spec, but I feel like you could go far beyond what we have here to make the specs feel more unique and not a patchwork of other things that don't always go well together.

You are creating WONDERFUL ideas and butchering them when implementing them. I really feel like it's a waste of creativity to restrain the spec to follow "rules", just go crazy on them and make them full-fledged specs, instead of preliminary drafts that are going to be put that way in the game...

Edited September 30, 2021 by VergilDeZaniah.3295

[VodCom.6924]

Game mode : PvE (Open world and raids, fractals not attempted on this beta character)

 

General comments:

• The class boils down to a one trick pony that is bonkers in some areas of PvE (i.e raid bosses that are kind enough to leave the bladesworn (shortened BLS) in peace) and quite difficult to play in other PvE areas especially HoT and PoF where packs of ennemies can down you quickly if you don't defend yourself.
• This can be mitigated with the use of dedicated open world gear or the use of some more defensive traitlines. However, no matter what gear one uses, playing a BLS in group meta events is a pain. Mobs below elite die too quickly to make the gunsaber worth using.
• Overall the BLS does not build up on the core warrior archetype like berserker and spellbreaker do while being very narrow focused on one specific type of content.

UI comments

In general, the BLS suffers from poor UI representation. The UI is readable but does not reflect what your character is doing.

• Dragon trigger should be renamed into something that better describes the actions modeled in game (eg. "meditation"/"focus mode" etc.)
• The UI should not include bullets. No dragon slash skill involves a gun being fired and in dragon trigger mode you don't see your character loading the gunsaber. At best you get a wave of energy. Replace bullets by an image of the gun saber that is accumulating energy.
• The "positive flow" buff should be integrated as little arrows in the flow reserve. Something similar to the revenant's energy UI. Also use this UI to represent the consumption of flow during the dragon trigger mode.

Comments about skills

• The gunsaber in general feels like a filler. It is a weapon that is good at nothing. The range capabilities are almost inexistant. The melee abilities are ok-ish but pale in comparison to the greatsword or a pair of axes. The only reason why I am sticking with the gunsaber is to be able to re-activate the dragon trigger asap.
• The skill 4 should be channeled (doesn't have to root you) with an animation like 100blades or blurred frenzy or zealot's defense to reflect the projectile blocking capabilities.
• Gun saber skill 5 should track your target. I'm sick of using this skill to close the gap with my target only to use my gunsaber skill 2 into nothing.

Comments about traits

• Unseen sword : in PvE this trait should never activate while out of combat even if an ennemy is within range. For PvP this can stay as it is.
• The master traits (common feedback). Adding an effect when expanding the last ammo is appropriate with the theme of the class but skews builds and encourages mindless spamming. I would rather have these traits add effects when the last ammo of certain skills is used. Ideally the effect would be related to the skill itself.
• The grand master trait "daring dragon" is cluncky to use in PvE. Ideally you would want to take it in open world because fully charging the gunsaber leads too often to ridiculous overkill. However, in its current implementation you get rooted immediately making it very hard to reposition and switch target. It should be reworked to allow repositionning at the cost of less damage (and no the blink in dragon trigger is not enough).