Bladesworn Beginner

[jayraeflower.8612]

Hello,

 

I'm just getting back into GW2 after a year or more draught and I wanted to unlock the bladesworn specialization. 

 

My char is a warrior, it's lvl 80, with all core skills at 100% and I just unlocked all the skills for bladesworn. I received two items, Breach Loaders for my hand armor and a bladesworn pistol. My skills are still greyed out for the off-hand pistol and I don't seem to have the option to use a gunsaber (nor do I have one?) 

 

Sorry, I'm very confused on how to use this specialization and not sure if I missed a step. If someone could walk me through on how to exactly unlock this specialization that would be greatly appreciated! 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 minutes ago, jayraeflower.8612 said:

Hello,

 

I'm just getting back into GW2 after a year or more draught and I wanted to unlock the bladesworn specialization. 

 

My char is a warrior, it's lvl 80, with all core skills at 100% and I just unlocked all the skills for bladesworn. I received two items, Breach Loaders for my hand armor and a bladesworn pistol. My skills are still greyed out for the off-hand pistol and I don't seem to have the option to use a gunsaber (nor do I have one?) 

 

Sorry, I'm very confused on how to use this specialization and not sure if I missed a step. If someone could walk me through on how to exactly unlock this specialization that would be greatly appreciated! 

Did you select Bladesworn as a traitline?

[jayraeflower.8612]

Oh god, I didn't... Thank you so much!! 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

24 minutes ago, jayraeflower.8612 said:

Oh god, I didn't... Thank you so much!! 

Np. If you need any build advice feel free to come back and ask.

[Styopa.2538]

They may not but I will!  (I posted this on reddit as well, so pls ignore if you see it there too)

 

ELI5 Bladesworn.

This is going to sound like a cataclysmically stupid question, but truly, I've been playing a warrior for 10 years and I simply cannot wrap my head around Bladesworn; either it's so astonishingly easy I'm unwilling to accept, or (more likely) I'm missing the point entirely.

 

IF (big "if") I understand correctly, BS game rhythm is:

1. Go into 'unsheathe gunsaber' mode.
2. At some point once you've accumulated energy from fighting (is there a difference between the bar, and the bullets, or is that literally the same information?) you can kick into Dragon Trigger F2.
3. When F2 is active, you have a different action bar. This consists of Triggerguard (aegis) or Flickerstep (blink) or 3 attacks: Force (most damage), Boost (charge to 750, less damage), Slash (least damage, range to 900) all of which burn whatever energy is built up. Any one of the attacks, or movement other than Flickerstep or Boost, kicks you out of F2.
4. Rinse, repeat.

•  

But the wiki on Dragon Trigger is confusing AF to me: "While channeling, you drain flow. Each interval increases the charge level of Dragon Slash." This basically says that as long as you stay in F2 Dragon Trigger (no matter if you're doing anything) you're draining 'flow'. I'd say that this just makes it like garden-variety adrenaline...but it says 'channeling' which (in MMO parlance) generally means DOING SOMETHING OVER TIME....none of these abilities is CHANNELED, is it? You don't HOLD Dragon-Slash Force (1) for bigger hits or do you?

 

And then it says each interval increases the charge level...but it just said it's DRAINING the energy too, no?

 

If it really is just 'build energy, go into f2, do a thing, repeat' I mean, I get that, it's pretty simple albeit ...weird?... that a game fundamentally based on MOVEMENT AND DODGING DAMAGE basically designed a *warrior* class that is required to just sit there and not even twitch or it loses massive amounts of dps? Great against Octovine, I guess but everything else...?

 

It also seems...a little frustrating that one can't really even SEE the Dragon-Slash abilities in game unless they're in Dragon-Slash mode, ie in combat. Or am I missing something there too? (Sure, we all can go to target dummies, but I'm talking about browsing ones abilities and such while, say, waiting for a meta to pop or in a lobby.)

 

THANKS!  Sorry for the dumb question.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

51 minutes ago, Styopa.2538 said:

They may not but I will!  (I posted this on reddit as well, so pls ignore if you see it there too)

 

ELI5 Bladesworn.

This is going to sound like a cataclysmically stupid question, but truly, I've been playing a warrior for 10 years and I simply cannot wrap my head around Bladesworn; either it's so astonishingly easy I'm unwilling to accept, or (more likely) I'm missing the point entirely.

 

IF (big "if") I understand correctly, BS game rhythm is:

1. Go into 'unsheathe gunsaber' mode.At some point once you've accumulated energy from fighting (is there a difference between the bar, and the bullets, or is that literally the same information?) you can kick into Dragon Trigger F2.
2. When F2 is active, you have a different action bar. This consists of Triggerguard (aegis) or Flickerstep (blink) or 3 attacks: Force (most damage), Boost (charge to 750, less damage), Slash (least damage, range to 900) all of which burn whatever energy is built up. Any one of the attacks, or movement other than Flickerstep or Boost, kicks you out of F2.
3. Rinse, repeat.

 

 

 

But the wiki on Dragon Trigger is confusing AF to me: "While channeling, you drain flow. Each interval increases the charge level of Dragon Slash." This basically says that as long as you stay in F2 Dragon Trigger (no matter if you're doing anything) you're draining 'flow'. I'd say that this just makes it like garden-variety adrenaline...but it says 'channeling' which (in MMO parlance) generally means DOING SOMETHING OVER TIME....none of these abilities is CHANNELED, is it? You don't HOLD Dragon-Slash Force (1) for bigger hits or do you?

 

And then it says each interval increases the charge level...but it just said it's DRAINING the energy too, no?

 

If it really is just 'build energy, go into f2, do a thing, repeat' I mean, I get that, it's pretty simple albeit ...weird?... that a game fundamentally based on MOVEMENT AND DODGING DAMAGE basically designed a *warrior* class that is required to just sit there and not even twitch or it loses massive amounts of dps? Great against Octovine, I guess but everything else...?

 

It also seems...a little frustrating that one can't really even SEE the Dragon-Slash abilities in game unless they're in Dragon-Slash mode, ie in combat. Or am I missing something there too? (Sure, we all can go to target dummies, but I'm talking about browsing ones abilities and such while, say, waiting for a meta to pop or in a lobby.)

 

THANKS!  Sorry for the dumb question.

You can start off in Gunsaber, but it is not required. Typically you initiate combat while also spamming Flow Stabilizer. You then do Pistol 5-4-5, then go into DT.

You build 'Flow' in combat per second, and with some traits gain it directly instead of building adrenaline. Once you have enough 'Flow' you can enter Dragon Trigger. While in DT you expend Flow per second to build Bullet Charges that increase the damage of the three Dragon Slash Variants.

Yes, you are required to charge one resource, so that you can spend +2.5s self rooted to charge ANOTHER resource, for a 6 digit damage attack. God help you if there is lots of CC flying around while you do that as well, or any source of boon corruption.

Edited August 29, 2022 by Lan Deathrider.5910

[CaffeeCup.5742]

@Styopa.2538

About Flow: Unlike Adrenaline, Flow goes up as long as you are in combat, hitting things won't make it faster.  In order for Flow to boost faster, you need to use Flow boosting skills and trigger Flow boosting traits. In PvE, this means, you can tag a mob to enter combat (like with an axe throw), activate all your Flow boosting skills, and pretty much start the fight with an immediate max charged Dragon Slash (in Open World, this will usually delete at least all non-elites it hits).

About Bullets: When you enter Dragon Trigger Stance (the skill bar that lets you Dragon Slash) the Bladesworn can load up to 10 bullets to their Gunsaber, but in order to do so, they need to have flow.  Running out of flow while in this stance means you stop loading bullets to your Gunsaber.  The more bullets you load, the more powerful your Dragon Slash hits for.

You do not need to be using the Gunsaber to enter Dragon Trigger Stance.  You also do not need to have max Flow bar to load 10 bullets into your Gunsaber.  As long as you have high Flow generation, meaning you used Flow boosting skills, so now your Flow bar goes up very fast, you can enter Dragon Trigger Stance sooner and load up to 10 bullets for maximum Dragon Slash damage.

Edited August 29, 2022 by CaffeeCup.5742

[Styopa.2538]

OK so here's what I was missing - the transfer from flow to bullets.

I didn't realize (my stupid) that the play-style was (when flow is up) f2 and THEN WAIT while flow converts to bullets before doing a dragon-slash (or whatever).

Once I grasped that, all makes sense now.

 

Thanks all for the explanations.