Bladesworn Feedback Thread

[Saniyah.1984]

I would like the Gunb;ade skinnable too

[Spirit Ritulist.9315]

My main problem (other than the quite disappointing pvp damage scaling and issues with core warrior) is that the gunblade F2 feels very rigid. 

 

What if instead of having to sit there for 8 seconds to charge all the bullets instead everytime you charge a bullet it stays charged. So for example I go and stun my enemy for 1 second, and in that second I charge a single bullet, then get back to fighting, then maybe later I see a good opportunity to charge 3 more bullets, and then maybe I activate an invuln and charge the last 4 and unleash the dragon slash setting all the charges back to 0.

 

This would promote far more tactical play and charging ammo while the enemy can't react. 

[Drakonhammer.2148]

Not giving the other Armaments the same mechanic as the heal where activating them again gives another effect feels like a missed opportunity for the skilltype overall imo.

Flow Stabiliser and Electric Fence kinda have that, but I feel like the other two utilities - Bulletproof Barrier and Dragonspike Mine - could use the flavour too to really set them apart as this new skilltype. (Dragonspike would need to become an ammo skill for this).

Edited September 22, 2021 by Drakonhammer.2148

[Geoff Fey.1035]

As mentioned above,

• Gunsabre too slow/not impactful. If it is meant to be the primary weapon either the damage needs to be increased (offset speed & lack of weapon swap) or the CDs need to be reduced and ammo count increased.

• Dragon Trigger should be accessible whether in Gunsabre or not. Locking out Warrior "Burst" due to weapon cooldown is antithesis to entire design of Warrior and does not work with all other traits.

• Dragon Trigger should make Warrior immune to CC. It's already a huge risk going into Trigger to charge up--one CC and you lose all flow, all charges, and it locks you out of all burst traits as a result.

• Flow cap needs to be reduced or rate needs to be increased; we gain Adrenaline on hit, and Dragonsabre is too slow (in attack & CD) to reliably generate enough Flow. You should be able to generate full Flow vs. 2-3 PvE without all your Gunsabre skills being on CD.

• Electric Fence should be similar to Dragonhunter's Bow 5/Guardian Staff 5 in that it creates an uncrossable barrier unless you have multiple stacks of Stability/Teleport outside of it.

• There is not enough utility in Warrior mainhand weapons to offset the losses of offhand by using Pistol offhand. While by itself it feels nice in a vaccuum it doesn't do enough spike damage to warrant taking over axe, or enough utility to warrant taking over shield/sword especially since we are locked out of Burst.

 

 

Summary: concept is great, execution needs revamping.

• Gunsabre: needs revamping. Focus on reducing CD to bring it in line with the CD's of Greatsword. The ammunition system is fun, but the cooldowns are ludicrously high compared to other weapons (Rifle longest CD is 20 Sec, Gunsabre shortest CD is 25 sec)
• Gunsabre: Loss of 2nd weapon set too big penalization to Warrior based on current Warrior traits and playstyles. If the CD's & damage are left as-is on Gunsabre, Warrior should have its 2nd weaponset back, allowing us to swap between all 3.
• Dragon Trigger: is too easily nullified in PvP/WvW. Since it's a "Meditative Stance", either pulsing 1-2 Stacks of Stability (1s every 1s while in Stance) would allow counterplay. Alternatively, making Warrior immune to CC while in Dragon Trigger would assist, but may be too OP.
• Dragon Trigger: takes too long to access in PvE. Reducing the Flow cap or increasing the rate would fix this. Think of the Spellbreaker's reduced Adrenaline level. You can still have Flow cap at 100 but we need to reliably reach it without blowing all our CDs.
• Dragon Trigger: should be accessible in both weapon sets (Gunsabre & Regular set)
• Dragon Trigger: burst levels needs to be revamped. A lot of Warrior traits are tied with the burst. Achieving the 10 Stacks consistently vs. our normal bursts is unrealistic, making those traits have much lower value comparatively.
•  

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Geoff Fey.1035
Rewording

[Erkki.9145]

the dragon trigger damage was a huge disappointment, at least in pvp.

But I really like the pistol skills.

[Drakonhammer.2148]

Another point I forgot: the icons of the first three skills in Dragon Trigger look too similar, it'd be nice to be more clearly able to identify what they do differently from a glance, not just the skill descriptions and the small icon differences they have now.

OH Pistol is fun but not having a MH pistol too as an alternate ranged option for warrior feels like a missed opportunity.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Drakonhammer.2148

[Gomes.5643]

Oh my god is the Bladesworn fun to play .... played some Drizzlewood Coast as a testrun and basically two-shooting these elites feels so statisfiying. I was a little bit afraid that everything dies to quickly for the Bladesworn to really shine - and for some events that is true but if we have a little bit more space to seperate from the main zerg things worked fine for me. So I will probably threat it like my dead-eye sniper builds - only activating it for certain events and keeping bersi for the rest of open world.

 

I like the inclusion of the pistol, nicely tied mechanically to the class with its ammo skill and the small dash for flow. Also like that you can pick how to generate the flow instead of just hitting things.

 

Burst on F2 .... i needed togetting used to that. Also I noticed that you are super vulnerable in Dragon Trigger as any little cc will get you out of that. And because you normally use the stability skills before to get extra flow they are also on cd .....

 

Secret favorite are the traits - exspecially GM 2. Was a little bit worried because I thought they were not really interesting bit my god can that trait destroy breakbars. Exspecially as it has the same effect on all 3 "strikes" meaning you can use it from realitive safety with skill 3. I didnt run exactly the numbers but it felt more impactful on breakbars then headbutt from my normal bersi build ..... but that needs further testing.

 

For improvements I would like to acess Dragon trigger from both the normal weapon and gunsaber as it feels kinde clunky when you have full flow but the saber is on cooldown. So then you can basically do nothing. Oh And some skins for the saber would be cool.

Oh and it would be great if we could use bladesworn ult while still beeing in dragon trigger. For now it kicks you out of it because of the small animation, which makes not too much sense as the dragon trigger also has ammo skills. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Gomes.5643

[Vidit.7108]

I took the bladesworn into t4 fractals, while it has some nice damage on the gunblade, the dragon trigger skills are a little useless. They take too long to really help clear trash mobs. Stationary objects like bosses are mostly going to get out of the vulnerable stage by the time it charges up, and even if i hit them it's not like I've made up that much more of the damage i missed out on doing while I was rooted doing nothing. Breakstep not really stopping at an enemy means it's a little less useful than greatsword 5

Maybe with some time and practice I can improve on getting the most damage out of dragontrigger but even learning has a bit of a cost, if i step out of  the dragon trigger to avoid an aoe it resets and goes on cooldown. That ground target teleport is kind of hard to use because it's so short range and might not even help. Also it would help if crit chance at full charge was 100% because it really really sucks for the rng to waste that much of my time with normal damage

I wouldn't say the gunblade needs to do top dps but when it's paired with the fact that I lose another weapon set and can't skin it or give its own sigils or anything it adds to the feeling of being stuck with it. Also since I can't enter dragon trigger without the blade drawn it's like there are two cooldowns for using the profession mechanic. If i want to be sure I don't waste any time I need to already switch to it before dragon trigger is ready, so if for some reason I don't anticipate a break bar going down correctly, I just have to keep at it with the gunblade until we're ready or if I'm in dragon trigger keep sitting there doing nothing which is worse. In that respect it's a little bit like being stuck while playing Weaver but at least Weaver doesn't HAVE to take the sword.

With risk versus reward in other specs your penalty in error is messing up your rotation a little, or taking damage. Here it seems like when you mess up it's a huge set back in being able to contribute at all.

I like the spec though, it's just a little rough. 

[shwar.8976]

I'm absolutely loving the assets for the new spec - the audio and animations are great and it 'feels' good connecting hits, but that's kinda where it stops for me. 

Flow:

The building of flow is such a chore. Even with several traits, shouts, and signets I feel like I'm attempting to force flow in order to 'use the cool attack' (dragon trigger) rather than enjoying the other attacks and abilities in the game. Had this been 3 bars of adrenaline via attacking, then I'd be enjoying dishing out damage while building this up. The decision currently is 'wait' or replace fun skills with 'Flow-building' skills to get to the fun attacks. 

Dragon Trigger:

A great premise, but just feels clunky and so so slow, even with Daring Dragon. Quickening this up would make the attack feel much more enjoyable. 

 

So to conclude, I'd like to see the same rough build, but with a faster, more fluid dragon trigger and flow mechanic. Perhaps the base attacks of the gunsaber (1-5) could generate flow in chunks (high stack, short duration) and the trigger itself charge faster. Clearly asking for this to be faster and generated from damaging abilities should offset with lower damage than touted in the stream/in the beta (dragon slash etc), but I think this would be a fair trade for the spec feeling fluid and fun to play.  

[Aesalas.6759]

I really like the Bladesworn overall. Dragon Trigger is fun and creates a period of anticipation before big damage. I also like how ammo ties the gunsaber, pistol, and utilities together. Pistol seems designed for occasional use, which works well with the gunsaber and Dragon Trigger. My only issue is the Master Traits, having them all activate on using a final ammo makes them feel too similar in my option. Additionally Fierce as Fire seems weak and out of place since it is the only condi damage Bladesworn has.

[Apolo.5942]

This Elite is a NON STARTER in WvW and SPvP.

[Malus.2184]

Having played around with Bladesworn I'll say that the narrative of the spec is A+ and the acutal gameplay feels really bad.

The spec and none of the associated utility skills have any way at all of inflicting Defiance damage, well, you get one edge-case that feels extremely limited and needs some setup. Due to the weapon locking it also makes it impossíble to actually swap to a weapon that can inflict Defiance damage.

Dragon Trigger feels overly gimmicky and aside from that has little actual substance. The Aegis you can give yourself will also do little to actually protect yourself if the AoE starts flying. Having the ability to do something is useless unless you have the opportunity to use it. Having the ability to fly is the most useless ability if you only ever are in tunnels that are close to your height.

Dragon Trigger is also extremely limited. If you have to move it sheaths the sword, which starts a 10-sec cd before you can activate it again. I know it's so it fits with having two weapon choices, it also makes it feel extremely clunky and make the spec feel slow, which is something I in no way associate with that kind of fighter. Combined with the self-root and  the other restrictions it just feels like bad.

There's this misconception amongst developers that this ki8nd of wArrior is slow and less kinetic than the raging berserker. This is flat-out wrong and in some cases the physics and mentality of the raging berserker makes it slower than the deliberate warrior. A Berserker is highly predictable in what they'll strike you with. They'll always strike you with whatever hits the hardest even if this is slower and unoprimal. Their emotional state makes them unable to think that far. The deliberate warrior is an utter nightmare to face as they're highly unpredictable and fight in the tactical manner that the raging berserker is unable to. This means that they'll respond to what their opponents do and can set up stuff that only pays off four moves down the line and is then utterly devastating. There's none if this represented in the actual gameplay of the Specialization. It's dissonant in the design.

I think a couple of changes that could alleviate that was to reduce the damage of Dragon Strike and reduce the charge of Dragon trigger. I did a 55k crit on a mob after having channeled Dragon Trigger to two ammo. That's still one second where I took absolutely brutal punishment from the mob even with Aegis and if I use the blink my charging stops, and even though I can resume it just feels slow. The Trait that gives Protection while chanmneling probalby did more for my health. In fractals like Fallen Oasis I see this as being absolutely useless on the last boss on t3 and 4 as she has a lot of AoE and the Instabilities can add even more. You pretty much have to keep moving constantly. And if you move after having charged then the entire charge is removed.

I would suggest remove the blink, allow charges to remain while moving, the character still has to stand still to actually charge the Dragon Trigger, and replace the blink with skill called Phoenix Slash, or something like that, a fast attack that uses Flow instead of bullets. It does relatively weak damage, is an instant use ability, and instead gives Boons and Conditions instead, for each 30 Flow used Phoenix Slash does more damage and the Boon/Condition duration/stacks are increased.

In addition this, change Dragon Trigger so that any Attack Skill used during it will also inflict Defiance Damage along with regular damage. This will emphasize that the Bladesworn is a lot more tactical in their attacks as they strike where it hurts the most while at the same time creating the most inconvenince. This would contrast nicely to the Berserker who just hacks at the enemy until they stop moving, and even then the Berserker still able to do Defiance Damage via their Elite Skill. The Berserker is expressed ion the gameplay to be more tactical in their fighting-style than the Bladesworn and this is just wrong.

Flow itself is painfully slow to generate, as Berserker I can fill my Adrenaline bar extremely fast, so fast that I can get multiple burts off during a Berserk. This further helps to make the Bladesworn seem painfully slow.

I also assume this is a bug that needs to be fixed like yesterday, I hope it's a bug else it's probably one of the worst gameplay choices ever, when using the 1 Attack Skill I have to press the key each time to get it to make a strike instead of it just stating an auto-attack chain. The Skills in the chain are higly similar to each other. None of them gives you Boons or the enemy Conditions, so being able to decide when to use them, which would be a tactical choice, it just creates RSI in the player as they have to manually use what should be their auto-attack and makes the spec feel even slower than it already does.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Malus.2184
Made the post more readable.

[daiball.5349]

1 hour ago, Conncept.7638 said:

I would argue that not every spec is intended for every game mode.  The Deadeye was the same basic idea as the Bladesworn, a fun gimmicky PvE one-trick, and in trying to get it to work for PvP they just ruined it for every game mode.

I do see what you mean as older elite specs have been extremely overtuned at release but as WoodenPotatoes said they can make drastic changes between pvp and pve in the bladesworn showcase the devs said it would do less damage in pvp but would make your dragon slash charge faster as of testing it is not any faster than the pve version might be changed in the future. They could have totally different playstyles in pve and pvp which I think should be the cases for more classes but they might not want there to be a big disparity.

Edited September 21, 2021 by daiball.5349

[Malus.2184]

Oh, and a minor nitpick is the design of the sword. Specifically the handguard. Instead of spherical I feel it should be oblong so on all sides there's as much free space as there is behind the gun part. While a sword does follow Newtonian physics it's also desirable to reduce the weight on it and having a huge handguard would be destrimental to this. It would also be extremely painful for the wearer as the kitten would constantly dig itself into their flanks or upper hips.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Dragon Slash Boost must become a 1/2s evade

[MGdawg.3958]

I can understand getting rid of a weapon swap, but the cooldown for swapping from your gunblade to your main set after using a dragon trigger skill needs to be removed. It feels very clunky and you have to spam the last of your ammo skills to reduce that cd in like a 4s window to maybe save 1s in swapping to your main set. It removes the fluidity of switching weapons and makes you feel like you have to camp the gunblade weapon when I believe you should be encouraged to swap from gunblade and your main set more frequently to diversify gameplay. 

 

Additionally, it feels awkward to revolve the kit around ammo when many warrior weps do not have ammo in the first place. A benefit for any weapon should be given. For example, since a weapon set is being locked out, giving a cd reduction to normal skills after using tactical reload would make longer cd 2 hand weapons feel like a better option to use with gunblade. 

 

Finally, the utility skills seem fairly mundane and dont seem to fit with the kit very well. Electric Fence and Bullet Proof Barrier seem like they should be engi skills. Flow stabilizer seems like a "press and forget", but mandatory skill for the kit. Making this skill do something more proactive would be much more engaging. The evade is nice and fits with the samurai kit well. The heal skill is unique and cool, but the cd needs to be removed for pressing it twice. There is a slight delay when trying to use the skill consecutively in order to grant yourself boons and it feels very clunky.

 

Overall, I enjoyed toying around with it so far and like the mobility and dps potential this build brings.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Sadly this spec feels awful. The gunblade skills dont feel impactful, and the f2 form feels really clunky. You have to go into f1 which swaps your skills, and then you enter f2 which swaps them again and makes you stationary...

 

Stop replacing existing mechanics like dodging, weapon swapping etc. with gimmicky "special forms". It honestly feels like the living world team who made the horrible "special action" encounters designed these specs.

[Vancho.8750]

First impressions on PVP. 

The flow is cumbersome it should not degenerate out of combat, it also needs multiple skills and traits to work like the on crit traits . IT IS REALLY REALLY SLOW TO GENERATE ANYTHING. The skills on core that fill full adrenalin 7 flow really, really, didn't CMC say they thought 100 is better than 30, I seem to not see that somehow the math doesn't add up at all, might need to fire that accountant. Might be bugged up .

Discipline locked build yet again, that is just lazy at this point.

PVP damage scaling terrible, damage is way too low on all skills on even a glass build.

Best part 6k crit  full 5 second charge dragon trigger on full signets stack and 25 might. Hope that is the fancy math behind being buggy cause I was kinda hoping for at least minimal 40k crits there for sitting on one spot for 5 seconds. As it is now there is no point of charging it more than 1 second cause it does almost the same damage at 4 k.

Also about the worries about the Dragon spike mine being allot of  stun breaks nah this is eating ccs line no tomorrow, also why is it 35s cd when it is worse lightning reflexes.

The gunblade is worse than Ranger GS HOW ? Can we get that one instead? A block a 2 cc 2 dodges big spike damage attack that would be cool and maybe a little bit more range, Remember that is a core weapon and gun saber is worse.  A little cc will be nice a pseudo rapid fire also a little block and a little dodge.
Cyclone Trigger needs a dodge not projectile block, Break step needs longer range. Trigger Guard needs stability. At least one trait needs to give Damage reduction while charging the stance, maybe it starts high and goes down till you reach 5 seconds, Flame Shell Burst is perfect for this the spec doesn't need condition damage trait anywhere.
Why is Daring dragon so clunky and can be quick tapped, why does it have ICD, why can you go in the gun blade skills and press the auto by mistake and interrupt the chain. Also Burst mastery does nothing seems like a bug but idk might be there to do nothing.
 

There is a dire need of condi cleanse somewhere, and no excuses here kitten, death magic necro has 2 traits that remove conditions just on that traitline and CMC worries that warrior would have too much stunbreaks and condi cleanse the kitten man.

Dragon trigger should be able to be activated from all weapons no just gunbsabre. Core weapons are quite bad with burst skills even worse without, like they do not have any synergy between the spec or themselves.
The gun needs to be mainhand at least. Maybe it needs a dodge, the Dragons Roar needs to count as movement ability and maybe give Flow and maybe shorter recharge and little bit more range to count as pseudo basic attack. To point out there is no good mainhand weapon for warrior so kind of hard to combo this one with anything.

No weapon swap or no weapon swap out of combat is even more atrocious than a I thought, Pretty sure losing the core burst was enough of a drawback to the spec.

For something that has mechanic called flow it doesn't seem to have any flow and it seems quite flawed. 

PVP for this is  garbage and it gets spammed out of existence , it is not a good look, this is somehow worse than Willbender.  How is Berserker better than this it doesn't make any sense? Hope this because of bugs.

I hope after the reworks from the beta feedback Bladesworn works more like Holo or Ranger for pvp instead of whatever this is. CMC Stop with the sidenoder kitten for all Warrior specs. ALL SPEC SHOULD WORK AND HAVE A POSITION IN PVP THAT DOES NOT SIT ON SAME ROLE.

Personally I was expecting to at least one shot people for kitten and giggles with really bad full glass build with yet another damage spec, too much RP on it not much substance, if it wasn't meant for PVP but for PVE ,why ??? ,Berserker already exists. 

I hoped Bladesworn would be cool and some work would trickle down to warrior and the other elite specs, but what I see here is not really helping .

Edited September 21, 2021 by Vancho.8750

[Ronnie Hu.1694]

Gunsaber with no condition damage feels bad. Specially power build really weak compare to celestial and condi builds.

[Loading.4503]

from a wvw pov
 

IMO the only way to make this work is to actually forget the whole burst mechanic. You have to spend all this time building up flow just to stand there and hope you dont get hit, which will never happen in wvw, and then hope you land the actual attack. Because of that i just ditched the whole burst attack and every single trait that even has anything to do with burst or adrenaline/flow and just went all out spamming my attack skills and ammo.

 

i just ended up spamming the burst for a quick mobility skill and hope it lands for a small heal or daze so i can go back to spamming my attacks and ammo.

 

I just find it stupid how warrior is all about burst, all the traits and everything, but this burst is pretty much useless in wvw because realistically you cannot stand there charging it up and not get hit by anything, or even just simply having your target move away because everything nowadays has mobility.

This is just my opinion for playing maybe 20 mins only, but from what im reading, most people are having similar opinions on everything.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Loading.4503

[xan.5472]

Why even playing this spe in PvP ? 

 

Let's compare it to core warrior : 

 

You need to build up 100 adrenaline instead of 30

Then you need to stay still and wait 5 secs where you are very vulnerable

All that so you can deal only 4-6k. 

You can do the same in one sec with any other skill and can do the same with core warrior with greatsword or axe F1. 

Less damage. More vulnerable.

Why would anyone bother playing it in PvP ?

 

 The 5secs awaits need to do a insane amount of damage. Just as the deadeye stay still and get big value from it.

It needs to get buffed or no one will ever use it in WvW/PvP.

[Tessa Astralfall.9051]

Bladesworn PvE is fantastic the damage vs risk is fun the 10sec charge is long so the damage needs to be 400k which it is.

but. in WvW the Bladesworn is GARBAGE 6k crit after 10secs of charge and no movement! WHY? 

 

Sitting around for 10+secs after build flow and then criting for less than a instant attack this cant be right I can see a huge crit after all the build up. Please address this.  

Everything else is balanced well for WvW why did you break the dragon triggers. 

Great build love the play style the flow is great and all the different builds are good fun.

400,000 pve 6,000 conquest seems fair...

[Rayzen.9406]

Hello Arenanet, 

 

I rarely post on the forum but this time I need to give my opinion to improve the game.

 

First of all I would like to know why the Crack Shot trait does not work on the pistol. Also, Forceful Greatsword doesn't work either. So the gunsaber is neither a ranged weapon nor a greatsword. This is weird.

 

The mechanics of bladsworn are good. There are some good ideas, however some finishing touches are missing to give this elite spec the Guild Wars 2 dynamism that we love so much :

 

• First, the possibility to enter F2 without necessarily being in Gunsaber mode. 
• Secondly, after using the Draggon Trigger, we should be able to weapon swap. The fact that you can't switch weapons and have a CD on it restricts follow ups and combos. This is really frustrating.
• Thirdly, even if Break Step is an interesting spell that shows some mobility, Blooming Fire should work like holo sword and make a small leap forward to add some dynamism and pressure.
• Finally, you must give the player the possibility to to cancel their skills with the stow weapon or whatever when using Gunsaber. 

 

These are the biggest problems I have noticed as a main warrior +10 000h of play and a former competitive player.

 

Best regards,

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Rayzen.9406

[Grand Marshal.4098]

The more I play PvP the worse things look. At the very least add 3s Blind on Artillery Slash 

[Gorem.8104]

I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it I love itI love it I love it I love it I love itI love it I love it I love it I love it

 

There is no way they let Warriors actually be able to do something like this. Please let Warriors actually be able to do something like this. 

 

Its AWESOME having fun playing warrior again. the BLADESWORN IS AMAZING