A Conceptual Restructuring of Sword!

[oscuro.9720]

Hello my warrior brothers! We are defined as the masters of weapons. This implies that we, as warriors, have practiced our usage of a weapon to the point of mastery. This is contradictory to how we use many of the weapons, namely sword. "Savage Leap" really doesn't scream expert finesse and skill in sword-craft. What I am here to propose is to rework sword to be used in a rapier-like fashion, with a continued focus on a bleed and power combination. The kit will function with the intent of balancing high strikes/minute and plus movement speed paired in a main-hand weapon. 

 

Auto Attacks:

Conceptually, these are just slashes, same as every other classes sword. Instead, they should be replaced with quick stabs with a single target limit. In return, each strike in the auto attack chain should have multiple strikes with altered cast times. Bleed should be on every strike, with a total of 6 strikes in the auto attack chain. Ideally, the after casts on every skill but the last in the auto chain would be extremely small to make it function smoothly. It would look something like;

Thrust: Deliver a quick thrust into your foe, bleeding them. (1 strike, 1 bleed, 1/4s cast time)

Vital Combo: Combo into a quick pair of strikes into your foe. (2 strikes, 1 bleed, cripple, 1/4s cast time)

Flourish: Finish your foe off with a flourish of deadly strikes, causing your foe to bleed with each (3 strikes, 3 bleed, 1/2s)

 

Skill 2: Savage Leap

The 2 skill is a good one. Savage leap functions very well imo. This can remain exactly the same, its a very functional skill imo. 

 

Skill 3: Flurry

Skill 3 will now be Flurry. Flurry will be reworked to be a single target skill with a drastically reduced cast time of 1s. The damage coefficients and bleed stacks would remain constant. It appear as such;

Flurry: Deal a flurry of lethal strikes to your opponent's vitals, immobilizing them and causing them to bleed with each strike. (9 bleed, 9 strikes, 1.998 coefficient, 1s cast time). 

 

Burst Skill: Final Thrust

Final Thrust is now moved to the burst slot. This skill is conceptually altered. It is now a 450 range ground targeted dash skill (skill shots r the bestest) that thrusts through all targets in the path (cap 5). The skill has the same damage increase from sub-50% bonuses. However, it will now apply bleed and immobilize regardless of health level, and is, instead, predicated on adrenaline level. It looks something like;

Final Thrust: Use all of your physical ability to deal a finishing strike that does bonus damage to lower health foes. (>50% damage coeff: 1.25, <50% damage coeff: 2.5, 1/2s cast, range: 450, moves quickly)

Adrenaline level 1: 3 bleed, 2s immobilize

Adrenaline level 2: 5 bleed, 3s immobilize

Adrenaline level 3: 7 bleed, 4s immobilize

 

I didn't do offhand sword, mostly because, conceptually, you fence with just 1 main-hand sword. In my view, focusing aspects on single target DPS, increasing strikes per second, and giving it additional mobility gives stronger condition tacking ability, and decreasing some cast times to increase the direct damage slightly will overall make it a more flexible and useful weapon that can be played as condi, power, or hybrid. It also pairs much better into warrior's stun heavy kit with Flurry being a set value with a faster cast time, and final thrust giving a nice range. I would also argue its net cleave burst increases by restructuring final thrust as a 450 range line-effect, since existing final thrust doesn't cleave particularly well. Please, let me know what you all think 🙂

 

Note; this is focused on wvw/pvp gamemodes. The numbers I'm bringing up are all the wvw/pvp mode numbers. Thank you for listening to my ideas and have a nice day. 

 

 

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Good ideas, but seeing dagger's performance, I'd say keep the target limits to 3 for AA and Final Thrust. Leap can probably tag 2 people since you launch with the sword forwards. 

Target caps should not be reduced. 

As for Final Thrust, I have simply commented in the Arms rework, how (if it still remained in the same spot) it should apply 2 sec of slow when traited. 

For OH it just needs Riposte to behave like a block with a flipover skill and Rip to deal Bleed stacks and give might when pulled for half the power damage. 

Riposte when traited should deal Torment on the counterattack instead of Bleed. 

[Ferus.3165]

Any rework for sword would be nice. And your suggestions would actually be really awesome.

Anything to remove the aftercasts and clunkyness of this absolutely outdated and almost worthless weapon. The mobility part of sword 2 is the only thing that keeps it "semi alive".

But because there are only about 5 devs working for anet and they are busy with different things in this game any rework other than pure numbers changes is just wishful thinking and is (veeeery likely) never going to happen.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Final Thrust should still cleave, even if it is a dash, strike at enemies along the dash path. This means: it does not stop at the target, and will hit stealthed targets along the path.

Flurry should use the Flaming Flurry animation and be mobile. You didn't state it but I assume a 2s immobilize?

[oscuro.9720]

2 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Final Thrust should still cleave, even if it is a dash, strike at enemies along the dash path. This means: it does not stop at the target, and will hit stealthed targets along the path.

Flurry should use the Flaming Flurry animation and be mobile. You didn't state it but I assume a 2s immobilize?

The wording I used for final thrust was to convey that it hits all targets (cap 5) along its path. Sorry if that was not clear. 
 

Flurry I removed the immob and kept it on the burst skill. I was unsure which way to go with it, and ultimately ended up doing it like that because I thought 5 target immob would have more use in competitive play since warrior already has fairly sufficient lockdown access. Additionally, it’s still there on the final thrust, allowing for a combo of sorts. I’m not sure if this would be the best way to go with that or not, perhaps leaving it on final thrust would be better. If it were, the immob duration would need to be shorter (since the skill is only a 1s cast now instead of 2.5s).
 

I also intended for flurry to remain rooted since it’s now been chopped down to a 1s cast, with its main focus being on combining with a lockdown on a single foe (I.e. following a bulls rush or shield bash). Ik my views on rooted skills are different than most though. Ideally, a range increase to 240 (same as holo mode auto attack) would be applied also, since technically fencing focuses on extending the reach of the combatant compared to more traditional sword play. This would allow it to cover over half the range of the Final Thrust dash, allowing it to combo more fluidly in my head. 

[JTGuevara.9018]

I actually think main-hand sword is mostly ok. I would just increase the auto-attack speed and actually fix Savage Leap so it reliably hits the target! Off-hand sword, however, would get an immediate overhaul. The rework is as follows:

Impale - a 400-500 range sword thrust that inflicts Bleeding(3 stacks) and Torment(3 stacks) followed by a dual upwards cross-slash that inflicts additional Torment.

 

Riposte - Replace this skill entirely with something like Spellbreaker dagger's Bladestorm.

I would also rework the burst (Flaming Flurry) to be mobile as well.

[oscuro.9720]

11 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Good ideas, but seeing dagger's performance, I'd say keep the target limits to 3 for AA and Final Thrust. Leap can probably tag 2 people since you launch with the sword forwards. 

Target caps should not be reduced. 

As for Final Thrust, I have simply commented in the Arms rework, how (if it still remained in the same spot) it should apply 2 sec of slow when traited. 

For OH it just needs Riposte to behave like a block with a flipover skill and Rip to deal Bleed stacks and give might when pulled for half the power damage. 

Riposte when traited should deal Torment on the counterattack instead of Bleed. 

I disagree with your sentiment. Reducing target caps for appropriate trade offs is appropriate as long as the trade offs don’t exceed the threshold of acceptable balance. I think a rapier-style combat with high bleed stacking and good damage coefficients could function well as a single target weapon in my view. These are all just opinions though, and disagreement is a good thing! 
 

 

3 hours ago, Ferus.3165 said:

Any rework for sword would be nice. And your suggestions would actually be really awesome.

Anything to remove the aftercasts and clunkyness of this absolutely outdated and almost worthless weapon. The mobility part of sword 2 is the only thing that keeps it "semi alive".

But because there are only about 5 devs working for anet and they are busy with different things in this game any rework other than pure numbers changes is just wishful thinking and is (veeeery likely) never going to happen.

Yes, I agree that savage leap is doing a lot of heavy lifting on the weapon kit. That’s why I wanted to fully rework Final Thrust as a burst skill to give the kit a second mobility-oriented skill, allowing the kit to be more mobile, since that is already its strength. Combining that high-speed play style with slow, clunky skills on the current weapon is unfun imo. So I dropped cast times on flurry to make it a quick burst, and final thrust is completely reworked to ideally be quicker and more fluid to use. Then you get a high attack/second auto that really would cement that feel of a high-speed, continuous onslaught kind of play style. I was watching fencing on YouTube and thought the concept of a continuous onslaught of precise strikes would fit perfectly. Glad you like the idea :) 

 

Im aware that reworks are not exceptionally likely, but coming up with ideas is both fun for me and there is a non-zero chance they can be of some sort of use in some regard. I’m far less cynical compared to a lot of the people on the warrior forum I think though. 

[Grand Marshal.4098]

23 minutes ago, oscuro.9720 said:

I disagree with your sentiment. Reducing target caps for appropriate trade offs is appropriate as long as the trade offs don’t exceed the threshold of acceptable balance. I think a rapier-style combat with high bleed stacking and good damage coefficients could function well as a single target weapon in my view. These are all just opinions though, and disagreement is a good thing! 

Yeah, you see, the issue I got, is not even my issue. It's anet not making that trade-off work. And although I'd love for impactful single target skills, history shows that these got no place in the warrior's kit. Maybe only throw axe is the exception hmmm.

Otherwise, I stand by the idea that the sword trait should improve 1 skill from each sword with better condis like the necro traits alter axe and scepter to stronger forms.

The rest is flavour at this point. But not anet's flavor. 

[oscuro.9720]

2 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Yeah, you see, the issue I got, is not even my issue. It's anet not making that trade-off work. And although I'd love for impactful single target skills, history shows that these got no place in the warrior's kit. Maybe only throw axe is the exception hmmm.

Otherwise, I stand by the idea that the sword trait should improve 1 skill from each sword with better condis like the necro traits alter axe and scepter to stronger forms.

The rest is flavour at this point. But not anet's flavor. 

I’d actually argue single target skills in this game have been well executed. Ranger Long Bow, axe throw, early thief dagger. Old rev sword when in a 1v1 fight was a super interesting weapon (old rev sword 2 is mostly what I’m talking about). Granted there’s sparingly little melee examples.
 

But it’s a very fair point, ask for as many good things as possible, because somethings are probably going to be a bit screwy. 

 

As for sword trait, I haven’t thought of that. Perhaps if the trait added an additional condition in addition to bleed for warrior would be best. Warrior already has quite low condition diversity, keeping the bleed and adding another may work better.