Bladesworn Feedback Thread

[Malus.2184]

6 hours ago, Mesket.5728 said:

Hundred blades was our tactical playstile for years when gw2 launched. So if anything, this espec is going backwards to a hundred blades on steroids. Again, nothing new on this espec.

I mean tactical playstyle as in can do something in response to actions done to them. Anything else is the Barbarian-style of mashing buttons ahead of the opponent doing something even if it's purposefully timed. 
I've been thinking that narratively the Boon shold be called "Chéngxi" or something like that since it's the Mandarin word for the concept of exploting an opportunity.

Instead of the Gunsaber they should have an F2 where they enter a Calm Ctate. The calm state enables them to use Chéngxi." The Calm State drains Focus slowly. Just give them a pistol as a new weapon and add "Chéngxi" abilities to some existing -Skills. F1 should be a normal Burst Skill, with the Chéngxi ability of inflicting some sort of CC to the target regardless.

Healing Skill:

Like Water:
Heals the Warrior for X health.

Chéngxi: Heals the Warrior for Y health instead.

Utility Skills:
Like Wood:

Grants the Warrior Quickness.

Chéngxi: Grants the Warrior Quickness and Alactrity.

Like Fire:

Grants the Warrior Might.

Chéngxi: Grants the Warrior Might and inflicts Burning on the target.

Like Earth:

Grants the Warrior Protection.

Chéngxi: Grants the Warrior Protection and Vigor

Like Metal:

Inflicts Cripple on the target.

Chéngxi: Inflicts Cripple and Slow on the target.

Elite:

Still Mind:

Being in the Calm State drains no Focus while this Skill is active.

 

This would make the playstyle the opposite of the Berserker in playstyle and it would be an "easy to learn and hard to master" situation, which would be ideal.

[Mesket.5728]

39 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

I mean tactical playstyle as in can do something in response to actions done to them. Anything else is the Barbarian-style of mashing buttons ahead of the opponent

You are either new or forgot about the old days of warrior in pvp way before HOT. Hundred Blades was the way to go DPS BUT warriors screamed that it should be a mobile skill because it was imposible to land in PVP, thus, people were thinking strategies to land it from stuns to immobilize. Hundred Blades was already our tactical skill. Bladesworn is just memories of it but worst.

[oscuro.9720]

2 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

I mean tactical playstyle as in can do something in response to actions done to them. Anything else is the Barbarian-style of mashing buttons ahead of the opponent doing something even if it's purposefully timed. 

You aren’t playing spell breaker right. Full Counter and Dagger 3 should be used predominantly reactionary in response to animations to ensure it lands, mitigate attacks, etc. and start a counter offensive. 
Easy example; why do spells dueling not want to engage and the first 15 to 20 seconds is going to be GS 4, maybe a GS 3 through each other? Because spell excels at counter attacks by leveraging longer animations, and warrior has the longest animations. 
Another example; soul beast uses smoke scale evade thing, just as the last hit lands, you FC to prod the daze, then counter burst with arcing+whirlwind. Hell, whirlwind and even bulls rush are frequently used in this manner
Using skills in advance of an opponents action, at least in a smaller setting, is a sure fire way to get rolled on by good players. You will run out of cool downs, open yourself to easy counter attack, etc. 

Perhaps I did not understand fully what you meant. If there is a misunderstanding, please clarify 🙂 

[Malus.2184]

12 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

You aren’t playing spell breaker right. Full Counter and Dagger 3 should be used predominantly reactionary in response to animations to ensure it lands, mitigate attacks, etc. and start a counter offensive. 
 

Perhaps I did not understand fully what you meant. If there is a misunderstanding, please clarify 🙂 

You're partly right. I play little to no Spellbreaker as when I'm on my Warrior I want to hit someone with a meaty weapon rather than a butter knife.

And it's only responsice in some situations, namely when the target has a cast-timer and is generally useless in any other situation and you might as well just mash your buttons.

What I suggest is a playstyle where you get a noticable additional effect against everyone when you play optimally yet can also be decent at the style if you just mash. What you describe sounds like an all-or-nothing effect. This still makes it Barbarian-style only with conditional use to get the "all" effect or else you'll end up with "nothing."

Edited November 5, 2021 by Malus.2184

[anbujackson.9564]

A quick summarize about crucial aspects (PvE perspective):

1. If you dont want to change your twitter description about the combat of gw2, you might want to consider the following: Allow movement at half speed while in F2 (I leave it to you if it should ignore speed increases like swiftness or not), which stops your channel as long as you move. Allow to dodge with the same criteria. Seriously you guys need to play regular RPG's like Nioh and copy/tweak the mechanics. Last but not least, keep bullets you charge, no matter if you get interrupted or leave dragontrigger before hitting somehow. If needed, give them a timer to decay one by one if you are not in F2. The decay should stop when you go back in.
2. Pistol: While the effects work well together, the range of them is just awful. Another problem is, that you most likely never play it in the first place. Axe is too strong in the offensive aspect in general and people just play warhorn at the start of the fight/after phases to use skill 4 to increanse the first dragonslash. Also midfight you never switch out of gunsaber because you keep spamming F2 thanks to lush forest. Its not like you can change freely either since you have the weaponswap cooldown after F2 currently.
3. Gunsaber: Those cooldowns man... What else is there to play besides lush forest and tactical reload? Skill 4 should block everything, the mobility of skill 5 feels bad. The damage from 1-3 isnt that good either, not that it really matters. 90 % of your damage is just dragon slash and you only spam those skills to reduce F2 cooldown.
4. F2: Exponential damage calculation, a projectile that can miss with the slightest movement of the enemy, reaching t3 burst only with 10 bullets... There are a lot of points to consider and you missed the mark on pretty much any of them. Also from a PvP perspective because that video drained out the remaining life I had left: The animations are wayyyy too obvious. A shiny bright effect before the hit starts that literally screams "dodge me!" or worse "JUMP ME!". Seriously? Jumping? You MUST have tested this spec somehow, I cant believe this wasnt noticed before. And the same problem with bursts in general: If you dont hit, you cant trigger your burst traits (correct me if I am wrong).
5. Utilities: Flow stabilizer, the elite and maybe combat stimulant. The rest might as well not exist. The effects are whatever in any scenario. I also like that I have no CC whatsoever on any new aspect besides a traited dragon slash, which I would want to use AFTER a breakbar is broken.
6. Traits: Oh boy... I already questioned why Im stuck with one specific mechanic in each tier. What if you want to take two traits for better flow? Well too bad. Not much to say about the minor traits. 4 seconds protection every 15 seconds and no stability, some ferocity and thats it. The adept tier is for flow. You most likely will only ever take unseen sword in PvE since you dont have to press anything for it, does some damage and it happens regulary. The master traits focus on last ammo use. The barrier is,,, nice I guess? The burning trait makes no sense whatsoever and then there is lush forest, the most op trait. I wonder how hard the dps falls if it would have a ICD of like 3 seconds or if it wouldnt effect F2. It doesnt matter how strong the other two traits are because lush forest is just an absolute requirement. Lastly the grandmaster traits. Your supposedly strongest traits are... pretty much worthless (keep in mind: PvE). I can see immortal dragon being somewhat useful in open world (where stuff dies too fast or there is too much kitten going on like AoEs) but thats it. Unyielding dragon is pretty much a PvP trait and daring dragon... Well check point 4 again. Exponential damage increase means that two five bullet slashes wont do the same damage as a ten bullet one. So whats the point of this trait exactly? 
7. The interaction of ammo with the reworked skills and traits (rifle and shouts) might sound fine on paper but thats it. Rifle skills barely do any damage and are slow. You dont have access to F1. Shout support is a big meme, just like tactics in general. You have to spam EVERYTHING you can to do a fraction of support that another class can do with 5 or less buttons. Your stuff is 5 man, the only boons you do are might and fury (and swiftness/vigor if you take banners/warhorn). These are boons that are thrown around so much (partly on 10 targets too) that you might as well not bother at all. A tempest for example uses horn 4 on fire... and thats it.
8. Contrary to what some people say, you are still a slave of discipline (burst mastery, weapon swap and of course banner effects)

 

Make point 1 your highest priority, with damage and trait interactions right after. Its hard to find anything good about the way this spec works currently...

EDIT: Forgot one Important thing... so you spam explosions but no skill inflicts vulnerability except pistol 4 that you hardly use? Really?

Edited November 6, 2021 by anbujackson.9564

[oscuro.9720]

44 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

F2: Exponential damage calculation, a projectile that can miss with the slightest movement of the enemy, reaching t3 burst only with 10 bullets... There are a lot of points to consider and you missed the mark on pretty much any of them. Also from a PvP perspective because that video drained out the remaining life I had left: The animations are wayyyy too obvious. A shiny bright effect before the hit starts that literally screams "dodge me!" or worse "JUMP ME!". Seriously? Jumping? You MUST have tested this spec somehow, I cant believe this wasnt noticed before. And the same problem with bursts in general: If you dont hit, you cant trigger your burst traits (correct me if I am wrong).

I can speak to the pvp/wvw aspects of this; I don’t think the mechanic itself is necessarily horrible (aside from the whole jumping thing, that’s not good). Using Immortal Dragon, it’s an unblockable stun with good mobility on boost. Gun Saber is most effective in mid range (3+4 skill are the hardest hitting & projectiles, part of its usefulness in mid range is because it’s melee damage is kitten, and the kit sets up mid range very well w/ boost and break step). This gives a fairly decent combo of a quick boost->gb3->gb4 for somewhere around 6-8k if everything hits (unlikely). After doing that repeatedly, people get into habit dodging, at which point you can just wait a second, since they dodge the initial setup, they waste a dodge, you get 4-5 bullets, then can do the same thing for higher damage on boost. The problem is that the “extra” damage on boost from 1 to 5 bullets is like 2k, so it’s still pretty bad. The biggest payoff is the 2s stun that guarantees a projectiles land. Most people didn’t learn the whole “jump” thing in the beta because there weren’t a lot of bladesworn after the first day, so as long as that’s fixed I think the actual mechanics will be usable atleast as a duelist. However, in competitive modes it certainly needs cover (namely stability, since any decent thief or Mesmer will completely shut you down from doing anything on this spec).

[THE FORGE.7198]

Bladesworn will remain useless class in 2/3 game modes until major reworks are done to change this.

First of all, when looking at any elite spec on any class, -usually- it is to bring a brand new playstyle to the class. Something that it hasn't had before, right?

When looking at core warrior, it has always been the most versatile of the all core classes because it wide variety of weapons.
You always had (and still have) access to power or condi (or hydrid dmg) based weapons, be they melee or short range.

Now with Berserker Elite Spec, we moved away from the so called "building up F1 burst over time" into more fast paced, explosive damage role, where F1 burst skill could be spammed one after another in really fast pace, before reaching the cooldown period.
With Beserker you had pretty decent options within the trait lines. One "row" was for power based damage dealing while middle one was more condi based damage, while bottom row offered some tanking/utility flavor to mix and match.

Next we got the Spellbreaker Elite Spec, which main purpose was more PvP/WvW oriented, as it provided more crowcontrol, boon ripping playstyle, which usually isn't needed in PvE most of the time.

Spellbreaker offered new flavor for the warrior, now letting warrior to have access to more powerful interrupts than before, giving that more counterplay, interrupt playstyle while still able to dish out decent ammount of damage.

Now looking at the two previous elite specs and the core warrior by extention, they are all about dealing damage. Sure, you may build warrior with shouts and take banners to be the group support, but mainly damage is the -main- thing here.

Why is that bad?

Well the Bladesworn is also a damage dealing elite spec, so it has to compete with the previous elite specs, as well as against other classes and their damage dealing capabilities.
Bladesworn was given new flow mechanic, which works same way like adrenaline does, yet the build up felt longer. But it was for a reason, because the F2, that has the new burst skills, had the ultimate pay off.... Massive burst damage! Or is it?

Yes, in PvE, the numbers can get pretty "insane" numbers with the F2 skills, but in PvP and WvW enviroment, it won't see day of light as it currently is.

Why is that?

First lets compare some numbers (keep in mind that these are from the beta). First lets look at Bladesworn with full berserker stats and scholar runes damage in Dragonslash.

PvE min dmg: 1,583
PvE max dmg: 47,668

PvP/WvW min dmg: 1,020
PvP/WvW max dmg: 2,472

Now let us keep in mind that these damage numbers -can- crit. These are just the tooltip values. But what is so bad about these numbers?

Firstly, F2 on bladesworn will root you immobile, similar to deadeye kneel, which leaves your character extremely vunerable in competitive game modes as -any- type of cc or interrupt will cancel the stance and puts it on cooldown (not to mention draining your flow).

"But just use balanced stance for stability and problem solved 🙂 "
This is true, but is that worth the pay off?

2,500* dmg for a burst skill that you need to remain still for several second, without interrupts, to gain full stacks and execute the ability? To compare, let us look at core warrior with 1h axe with same stats and runes. 

F1 Eviserate WvW dmg: 2000

It's (nearly) instant damage, and without any traits, it has 8s cooldown before you can use it again, provided you got enough adrenaline to cast it at level 3 again. How about greatsword?

F1 Arcing Slice WvW dmg: 1,336 (or 2,005 against foes with below 50% hp).

What about other elite specs? Let's look at Berserker  with axe first. 

F1 Decapitate WvW dmg: 2,237

And Greatsword:

F1 Arch Divider WvW dmg: 2,598

Just looking at these numbers, the Bladesworn falls short on damage and execution front. To being able to justify it being a "sitting duck", the pay off needs to be way bigger than the current numbers are to justify using Bladesworn over other elite specs or even core warrior in competitive game modes.

Next up is the issue with single-weapon-kit mentality with Bladesworn. Warrior at it's core (no pun intended) has always been master of weapons and weapon swapping. It even has entire traitline "dedicated" to the weapon swap.
So why restrict it now? I'm not going to post the numbers of the F1 gunsaber here, since people can do the rest of comparisons themselves, however..
The point still stands that you are now shoehorned into 1-set of weapons that you need to combo with the gunsaber. That isn't healthy gameplay for the warrior and it doesn't flow well either. If anything, bladesworn should keep the F1 gunsaber but give also access to the 2nd weapon set as it always was with warrior. This would definetly make it flow alot better.

TL;DR version:

- Carefully adjust the numbers on F2 skills in WvW and PvP, to bring it to viable level.
- Give ability to weapon swap to 2nd weapon set.

Doing those two things will fix Bladesworn before launch and makes it viable in all game modes.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

6 minutes ago, THE FORGE.7198 said:

Doing those two things will fix Bladesworn before launch and makes it viable in all game modes.

Except they won't sadly.

 

Clown spec 

[LucianDK.8615]

What is the pve verdict on Bladesworn? I didnt get to play around with it when it was up.

Also, the gunsaber, it takes up your weapon switch? I believe I heard something about it.

[Ezikeo.5047]

Auto attack chain animation(1) for the Gunsaber is the same as the Greatsword 1. Please change it to a different animation.

[Mesket.5728]

On 11/14/2021 at 6:57 PM, LucianDK.8615 said:

What is the pve verdict on Bladesworn? I didnt get to play around with it when it was up.

Also, the gunsaber, it takes up your weapon switch? I believe I heard something about it.

If you only care for the dps in raids, it can be top dps easily (until they eventually nerf it and your group starts asking to bring banners again) BUT 90% of the damage comes from that ridiculous weeb pose attack. Meaning if yoy only loose one attack your dps suffers a lot and good luck on more mobile fights. 

The class is just based on a trick pony so i guess it is what it is.

(And it was nerfed during beta time so no, no longer top dps. Not even that).

Edited December 4, 2021 by Mesket.5728

[Geoff Fey.1035]

On 11/15/2021 at 4:47 AM, Mesket.5728 said:

you only care for the dps in raids, it can be top dps easily (until they eventually nerf it and your group starts asking to bring banners again)

It wouldn't make sense to nerf the damage without some kind of tradeoff (not saying this sarcastically). Literally the only thing this spec brings to the table is damage, without that it's meaningless.

Berserker can bring damage, but also banners/shouts due to having 2 weapon sets with high damage output (GS + x/Axe), 2 sets of fast bursts, and maybe 1 skill Headbutt as an Adrenaline setup.

To make Bladesworn (current state) work you need to camp gunsaber (1 weapon set), weapon damage comparable to Greatsword without the dodge/effective gap closer, and easily interruptable bursts, PLUS Flow Stabiliser, Tactical Reload (2 skills) and 99/100 Lush Forests (trait). Nothing else truly works for the entire spec in almost all game modes.

Has ANet whispered/tweeted anything about reworks/updates/anything for any of the Elite specs at this point? Or hinted there'd be a rebalance of the specs for the final Beta on the 30th?

 

[Mesket.5728]

10 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

Berserker can bring damage, but also banners/shouts due to having 2 weapon sets with high damage output (GS + x/Axe), 2 sets of fast bursts, and maybe 1 skill Headbutt as an Adrenaline setup.

Yeah but this is an issue, not a feature. Berserker is not supposed to bring banners. It is not a support class and it is fullfuling a weird mixed undefined role of dps and support without tools for it. Berserker brings banners simply because is not good enough on its own. And BS is only here to nail that coffin.

What will be the point of berserker when BS comes out? It doesnt make any sense at all to force a berserker bring banners. BS will come as a berserker 2.0 in terms of roles and it will kill it completely. 

This is why from the begining some of is are saying that bladeswan has no room in current warrior specs

[Geoff Fey.1035]

58 minutes ago, Mesket.5728 said:

What will be the point of berserker when BS comes out? It doesnt make any sense at all to force a berserker bring banners. BS will come as a berserker 2.0 in terms of roles and it will kill it completely. 

I always felt ANet should reinvest in Berserker being the "condi elite spec" for the warrior and pushing things back towards that.

When HoT first released you had Gunflame, Scorched Earth, Skullgrinder, and Flaming Fury which were all pretty good condi-wise for the condi damage (ignoring the overtuned Gunflame strike damage) Primal Bursts. Heck, even today going into Berserk baseline causes burning and originally Bloody Roar would cause bleeding when you when into Berserk. Decapitate (Axe Primal Burst) wouldn't be inreasonable to cause a high spike of Bleeding on hit, or adding Torment to Arc Divider. Or even keeping them the same and just reinvigorating the "condi" weapons (mace rework should cause confusion on hit)

The fact that the torch itself (the Elite Spec's weapon) is specifically geared towards a condi build to me implies that it was a mistake for ANet to move Berserker towards power builds since those builds have zero use for the actual weapon of the elite spec.

Changing up the Bladesworn to a Hybrid build (burning or bleed on explosions would be an easy trait, burning on Gunsaber attacks since the blade is literally red-hot would also/either make sense) would be a good direction as the warrior currently only has 1 hybrid build via Celestial Spellbreaker(of all things) in WvW (LB + S/S). They can still keep the payoff damage high with Dragon Trigger, just allow 2 of the 3 final traits to change if you're causing more condi damage or power damage.

Like you've said @Lan Deathrider.5910, right now Warrior has:

• Core: Power (Primary), Condi/Hybrid (Secondary)
• Berserker: Power-Condi
• Spellbreaker: Power
• Bladesworn: Power

If they reworked Berserker to focus more on condi damage and made bladesword more hybrid you'd see it change to:

• Core: Power (Primary), Condi/Hybrid (Secondary)
• Berserker: Condi
• Spellbreaker: Power
• Bladesworn: Hybrid

Which would give all 3 warrior Elite Specs a different feel, gear focus, and playstyle from one another.

Note: That isn't to say you can't still have a power-focused Berserker, but just they need to rejig stuff to give some identity to the different warrior specs because currently all 3 are competing for top power-dps-spec and Bladesworn swept the other 2 off the table.

[Mesket.5728]

1 hour ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

I always felt ANet should reinvest in Berserker being the "condi elite spec" for the warrior and pushing things back towards that.

 

I get where this is coming from, but it is my opinion (/flameshield) that this is a common misconception because previously warrior had very poor condi options. Before HOT everyone and their mothers run zerk gear with power builds because nothing else was "optimal". HOT introduced not only several condi options for classes but also several new gear sets and enemies, where condi was best option to deal with. As a whole, HoT was a condi oriented expansion as it was ANets first iteration to open up build diversity. This is why I think people tend to think of Berserker as a condi spec when actually it is a pure damage spec whether it is condi or power.

 

Etiher way, if BS is power and Zerk is condi, we still have to much options for damage and little to nothing for other complementary roles Condi and Power are not two different roles, they are the same. SpellBreaker relies on mechanic that are more pvp oriented than pve (counter, CC, boon rippin). This is why I keep on saying BS is a mistake. As a whole is a mistake. Besides all the obvous issues with its weird mechanic, it will not properly fit other roles unless you break immersion with extremely weird to explain mechanics (like shouting and ammo sinergy, where does this ridicule idea come from? a warrior, who relies on technology and magical bullets, screams like a madman to heal and cure condirtions?).

 

When you have 2 features developed that compete with each other, you are actually diminishing the value of your effort. BS vs Zerk will only result in ANets loss. Another espec, with another role would've been a real expansion to their game. This is not.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Mesket.5728

[DemonCrypto.6792]

1 hour ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

they need to rejig stuff to give some identity to the different warrior specs because currently all 3 are competing for top power-dps-spec and Bladesworn swept the other 2 off the table.

That, this is the point where i'm asking myself and all who read why the kitten we didn't get a true support e-spec.
Why stagnating only in dps (yes the gameplay change but still dps) and no banners isn't real support.

and serously bladesworn is the ugliest exemple of stagnation to the extreme  this class have (who really look at it and said  "yes that can compete with other e-specs" just NO)

Edited November 18, 2021 by DemonCrypto.6792

[Grand Marshal.4098]

I don't think Berserker needs to turn more into a condi spec than Core warr has to, in order to fullfill interesting niches with all it's specs.

 

Instead, with some tweaking making Berserker's condi/self sustain lines better along with rage skills and a decent reevaluation of Arms, Defense, Maces and Swords (as well as something like reinvation of Body Blow, just how Great Fortitude was tweaked), we should focus on something else.

 

1. Maintain Power DPS Bladesworn at relatively similar levels to power Berserker
2. Introduce a team-oriented role for Bladesworn focused around minor boon-share (Stab, Fury and maybe some Aegis)
3. Rework some of the Bladesworn traits as suggested in the thread to reflect said role and improve Armaments, if not completely renaming them into Gadgets and opening up the possibility of a rune that helps 2 classes at once, or simply heavily focus on explosion synergy and how it should impact the player a.e. big self heal if traited for it, or smaller aoe heal for team support.

The ideas are there. There's a niche BsW can cover without butchering power Berserker, because I personally would not want to see Berserker playstyles be restricted to condi DPS and therefore make our already small build pool, even smaller (tldr RIP WvW Burstzerker, it will die if it mains condi and BsW will never have the same power burst dmg, cleave and movement to match it) so guys think again b4 asking for some things pls.

[Fueki.4753]

Weapon Swap remains disabled.

Pistol remains a melee weapon.

There's still no Distortion or Evade while charging Dragon Trigger.

No mention of fixing the issue with Dragon Trigger being too easily evaded.

There's still no reason for me to play this over core Warrior.

[Ezikeo.5047]

Please give Gunsaber a unique auto-attack(1) chain animation, the current one is identical to the greatsword.

[Myror.7521]

My Clue about baldesworn is simple...... just a full meme e-spec like deadeye was back then. For Real i could not find that spec srs. Its basicly a 1 Button spam spec in pve. And a "im not doing decent damage but also dont have mutch sustain" spec. For Real who on anet made this spec and thinking "yea 1 Button carry thats the best". I Was in first beta like okay in pvp it does a okayish Job (edit: they nerfed the only wurf skill using from Stability to fury so have fun made that spec playable im pvp now lel) and was a bit too broken in pve. How ever ... it Was clunky af. Now they reduced the selfroot time and flow gain need to half. Im not sure if it will now stand good but we will see.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

40 minutes ago, Pati.2438 said:

My Clue about baldesworn is simple...... just a full meme e-spec like deadeye was back then. For Real i could not find that spec srs. Its basicly a 1 Button spam spec in pve. And a "im not doing decent damage but also dont have mutch sustain" spec. For Real who on anet made this spec and thinking "yea 1 Button carry thats the best". I Was in first beta like okay in pvp it does a okayish Job (edit: they nerfed the only wurf skill using from Stability to fury so have fun made that spec playable im pvp now lel) and was a bit too broken in pve. How ever ... it Was clunky af. Now they reduced the selfroot time and flow gain need to half. Im not sure if it will now stand good but we will see.

All professions have 1 button carry builds (Range Longbow 2 WvW/Greatsword 3 PvP/PvE, Necromancer Reaper Shroud 1-1-1-1, etc) but there's counterplay to them in different ways.

Deadeye Rifle is primarily Mark-2-2-2-stealth-Ambush, but there are Deadeye builds (power/condi) that require different finesse for greater impact. Sustain for Deadeye's is largely by staying at 1200 range or being able to disengage easily (stealth on roll, rifle 4, Shadowstep, etc).

Deadeye vs. Bladesworn are similar playstyles (i.e. patience bursts) but beyond that they're completely different in how they operate--most obvious is the range.

Bladesworn the damage in PvE was a little obscene. Yes, you wouldn't see 800K crits in open world, but having that in Raids was a bit over the top. Sustain on Bladesworn is actually remarkably good, especially with Immortal Dragon (+ Defense *chef's kiss*); if the damage is still largely comparable after the changes, you might end up seeing Bladesworn Tanks in raids since they can take a hit (Full Cavaliers toughness) and do decent damage (Sigil of Cleansing + Intelligence). That'll need to be checked with the revamped Fierce as Fire/Lush Forests.

For Stability, now you get it upon going into Dragon Trigger which was a big thing that players had requested. It depends on stacks, duration, and ICD (currently 15s). If they make it too strong (2-3 stacks for 3s), then it may synergize too much with Brave Stride (especially with the reworks to what counts as movement skill for Bladesworn).

The Fury on Flow Stabilizer is.... weird. Honestly I'd have preferred to keep Stability on it for insurance but the main draw of that skill was always the "additional fury". It'll be okay enough as a Warrior to get Fury from utilities and Breakstep currently gives 5s Fury so you can Engage-StackFlow right off the bat.

The clunkiness is still a concern, but there's room for improvements/changes.

Historically GW2 has always used Beta Weekends as a Preview Weekend (i.e. little-to-no-changes for release); this truly is a beta by giving us iterations of the new Elite Specs to work out the kinks.

[LucianDK.8615]

Quick question: What is the mainhand used by Bladesworn?

And pistol is used for off, or is it too poor a choice?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

49 minutes ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Quick question: What is the mainhand used by Bladesworn?

And pistol is used for off, or is it too poor a choice?

Axe is the only MH weapon that makes use of Ammo charges to mesh with the traits. Besides that if you branch out into 2h weapons then LB and Rifle also make use of the ammo system but they are not particularly powerful weapons, especially without core F1 on Rifle.

Pistol makes use of the traits, but is inferior to OH Axe for DPS. All in all Anet should move Pistol to the Mainhand or make it a dual wield option with a MH and OH.

[artharon.9276]

4 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Quick question: What is the mainhand used by Bladesworn?

And pistol is used for off, or is it too poor a choice?

tbh I found little use for all mh weapons, and as mentioned only rifle is the potential candidate due to ammo based skills.

axe is alright, but until rifle gets some buff I'll stick with sword for extra mobility. they actually should buff any ranged attack when bladesworn is equipped. why warrior didn't get main hand pistol is just weird. I could use some water and dark fields.

 they got their inspiration from samurai movies right? where's my smoke field?

[Fueki.4753]

4 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

 All in all Anet should move Pistol to the Mainhand or make it a dual wield option with a MH and OH.

I'd be happy enough, if they at least made it ranged, so it could be used while engaging the enemy.

That way, we could couple it with Sword for the leap into melee range, before hopping onto the Gun-not-a-sabre.

This could end up being a slightly more interesting gameplay loop than the junk that Junksworn currently offers.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Fueki.4753