Your Swords overhaul wishes?

[Mikali.9651]

How would you change swords? What do you think is missing, and what would your approach be?

 

Here are some of my ideas:

 

1. Sword auto-attack chain is alright IMO

2. Savage Leap - inflict Cripple and 1 stack of Bleed (Number of targets: 5).  Evade for animation duration.

3. Final Thrust - no cast time, 1/4 sec Daze on hit, 2 stacks of Bleed, 5 stacks of Vulnerability.
    Gain 30 adrenaline if you hit target at and under 50% health.

4. Impale - range 900, inflict 5 stacks of Torment and 1/4 Daze on hit. Unblockable.
          Rip - range 900, 10 stacks of Might (Number of targets: 5), inflict 4s of Cripple and Weakness. Unblockable.

5. Riposte - block incoming attacks (2 seconds). If an attack is blocked, Deadly Riposte can be used  
    Deadly Riposte - range 600, create a wave of flames in front of you that inflicts 1 stack of Burning (4 sec)
    and removes 1 Boon per filled Adrenaline bar (number of targets: 5)

F1. Flurry - same as Flaming Flurry, but instead of Burning inflict Bleeding. Gain Swiftness for 4 seconds.
      For each adrenaline bar spent lower the Cooldown of Final Thrust by 2 seconds. 

 

Part in bold is what I think could work without any issue, part not in bold is just my more greedy wish. 

Edited September 22, 2022 by Mikali.9651

[DanAlcedo.3281]

• Savage Leap: 5 Targets.
• Final Thrust: Make it 180 Range. We extend our arm completly, make sense thematically.
• Flurry: More dmg and no root.

[Verdict is Vengence.6912]

In my heart of hearts, I'd change sword into a power weapon. The sword is the most popular weapon in all of fantasy yet ours is a condi weapon 🤮

But reasonably, I'd firstly want offhand sword changed. The 5 skill with block and counter is ridiculously outdated. The impale ability with skill 4 [impale] on sword needs ammo or allow the skill to reset if you successfully [rip].

Main hand sword, I believe like others here, need to remove the root. The immobilize can be on the initial strike while you're left to remain mobile.

[oscuro.9720]

My sword rework ideal is, uh, different.

 

Overall Concept: Sword should have a heavy focus on high strikes-per-second, bleed, and mobility. 
 

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 and be fast-paced. 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, 2 bleed, 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)

 

Final Thrust: 

Final Thrust should now be a movement skill. It should be a 450 range forward dash where you stab through all the foes in a line. This would be a line-based AOE attack. It would provide similar damage, with better bleed stacking; 5 bleed to foes >50%, 10 bleed to foes <50%
 

Flurry: 

Flurry is changed to a single target attack, has a drastically reduced cast time of 1s, and keeps the same damage and bleed numbers. 
It would look something like;

1s Cast, 1.998 coefficient, 9 bleed, scaling immobilize duration. 
 

Ideally, the sword animations on auto attack and Flurry are changed to quick, stabbing animations, as if fencing. This would really emphasize the whole “weapon master” concept I feel, and would fit the more precise, bleed-and-power based gameplay.

Overall, these changes are focused at bringing up the amount of bleed that can be stacked to make its bleed application a more realistic threat, while reducing the target cap to compensate for what will be a fairly dangerous hybrid weapon with that level of bleed output. The added mobility on Final Thrust gives the kit a much faster game play style that allows for more chase and run potential, ideally rounding out the weapon. All combined, it would probably be a pretty good hybrid weapon that is still dependent on proper setups and timing. 

Edited September 22, 2022 by oscuro.9720

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

35 minutes ago, oscuro.9720 said:

My sword rework ideal is, uh, different.

 

Overall Concept: Sword should have a heavy focus on high strikes-per-second, bleed, and mobility. 
 

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 and be fast-paced. 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, 2 bleed, 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)

 

Final Thrust: 

Final Thrust should now be a movement skill. It should be a 450 range forward dash where you stab through all the foes in a line. This would be a line-based AOE attack. It would provide similar damage, with better bleed stacking; 5 bleed to foes >50%, 10 bleed to foes <50%
 

Flurry: 

Flurry is changed to a single target attack, has a drastically reduced cast time of 1s, and keeps the same damage and bleed numbers. 
It would look something like;

1s Cast, 1.998 coefficient, 9 bleed, scaling immobilize duration. 
 

Ideally, the sword animations on auto attack and Flurry are changed to quick, stabbing animations, as if fencing. This would really emphasize the whole “weapon master” concept I feel, and would fit the more precise, bleed-and-power based gameplay.

Overall, these changes are focused at bringing up the amount of bleed that can be stacked to make its bleed application a more realistic threat, while reducing the target cap to compensate for what will be a fairly dangerous hybrid weapon with that level of bleed output. The added mobility on Final Thrust gives the kit a much faster game play style that allows for more chase and run potential, ideally rounding out the weapon. All combined, it would probably be a pretty good hybrid weapon that is still dependent on proper setups and timing. 

Love, love, love it. The AA changes and Final Thrust idea in particular are superb.

 

One thing that could be added to sword in some capacity would be to give it a source of Fury--maybe on savage leap.

 

Reasoning: warrior doesn't have a lot of good sources of Fury outside of arcing slice. This makes it pretty hard to build good power builds around, say, sword/axe as a GS replacement. Putting Fury on sword would help with that. Also, fury gives +180 condi dmg when you take Arms, which happens to be sword's trait line, so there is some synergy there too. 

[oscuro.9720]

2 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Love, love, love it. The AA changes and Final Thrust idea in particular are superb.

 

One thing that could be added to sword in some capacity would be to give it a source of Fury--maybe on savage leap.

 

Reasoning: warrior doesn't have a lot of good sources of Fury outside of arcing slice. This makes it pretty hard to build good power builds around, say, sword/axe as a GS replacement. Putting Fury on sword would help with that. Also, fury gives +180 condi dmg when you take Arms, which happens to be sword's trait line, so there is some synergy there too. 

Works for me. I agree that savage leap would likely be the place to add that. Everything else under the suggested changes would feel too loaded imo. 
 

Sword OH5 could use some modernization as well, but I’m not sure how that would function. The idea of Parrying (skill 5) is actually the inspiration from which I based the MH changes, so conceptually I really like OH sword. However, skill 5 needs some help. Perhaps another fury source on the activation part? Perhaps give it 3 ammo and a strong single target activation that stacks bleed+grants fury and has decent damage? I don’t really know, would probably have to think about it more.

Edited September 22, 2022 by oscuro.9720

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I think they have ideas already and that we may see them in November.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

1 hour ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I think they have ideas already and that we may see them in November.

I'd love that. And I'd also love for them to hear our thoughts while there's still time to consider implementing them. Here's hoping! 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 minute ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

I'd love that. And I'd also love for them to hear our thoughts while there's still time to consider implementing them. Here's hoping! 

From the context of how they are doing the balance on the 4th, they've heard/read our prior discussion over the past two years, so they've seen all our sword rework ideas, but yeah, there is time for some new ideas before November certainly.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

2 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

From the context of how they are doing the balance on the 4th, they've heard/read our prior discussion over the past two years, so they've seen all our sword rework ideas, but yeah, there is time for some new ideas before November certainly.

Yeah, I've been really impressed re: the degree to which or feedback has been acted on. Idk, maybe it's all just coincidence, but it's gratifying to see changes like these nonetheless. Here's hoping to many more! 

[Shagie.7612]

Honestly I'd just be happy with Flurry having an evade or deflect or something on it.

Feels real sucky landing like, a full combo inside a Combustive Shot with leap, Flurry, Final Thrust and still coming out worse for wear.

Offhand sword is in a rough spot too. Torch is the condi offhand, shield is the defensive one, mace is the CC, axe is the power. A hybrid weapon like sword struggles to find a niche.

One thing that'd be an easy buff is to make Impale's debuff not fall off when you Rip it. Thematically it makes sense, but similar flip skills don't behave that way (Guardian torch 4, for example, doesn't stop when you throw it despite the buff disappearing). Another could simply be changing Riposte to be a flip skill like ranger's GS4, so you got a full duration block against melee attackers.

 

Making it a stabby stab fencer weapon with a line attack does sound pretty cool though.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Having Rip also be an evade might help OH sword find a niche coupled with turning Riposte into a block like Ranger GS4. A weapon based on blocks, parries, and evades while attacking at the same time.

[Zekent.3652]

SW3: Animation is way too scuffed.
SW Offhand: needs to be just better, in an offensive way.
SW F1: Remove the selfroot.

[Kalthea.4326]

So long as sword stays as the condition weapon for warriors but is a melee weapon at the same time, balancing it is going to be nigh impossible without dedicating it entirely to condi or power damage. That being said, I like the suggestion that @oscuro.9720 made, changing it over to a single-target themed weapon and dedicating it wholly to Condi. The animations i argue would need to keep a couple slashes in there for the purpose of most swords not looking awkward using fencing animations, since there are only a hand full of rapier style swords in the game, but dedicating the weapons to bleeds and mobility is a good alternative to the greatsword being the power and mobility weapon.

[oscuro.9720]

3 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Having Rip also be an evade might help OH sword find a niche coupled with turning Riposte into a block like Ranger GS4. A weapon based on blocks, parries, and evades while attacking at the same time.

Perhaps if Rip was a leap skill as well? Like leap to your sword so you can rip it out. It would, again, give more mobility, which I think is one of the identities of sword. It would also improve the hit reliability of the skill. The damage on rip is actually quite good.

[Kalthea.4326]

1 hour ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Perhaps if Rip was a leap skill as well? Like leap to your sword so you can rip it out. It would, again, give more mobility, which I think is one of the identities of sword. It would also improve the hit reliability of the skill. The damage on rip is actually quite good.

I would say make the 5 an evade and come up with a different ranged engagement skill for the 4. The double cast system is okay, but it's too inconsistent to be of a lot of use. It needs a personal flare to it that doesn't rely on positioning.

[eXruina.4956]

i think the only skills that need looking at is sw f1 sw4 and sw5, to a lesser extent sw3. also more dmg plz.

 

here are some easy low effort fixes. 💡

 

for sw f1, Flurry needs a remake, copy paste a recolored guardian sw3 here with higher coef and bleed on hit, ez fix 🤣

 

for sw4 Impale > Rip, make Impale pierce and when that hits make Rip pull. Up to 5 targets.

 

for sw5 make the block last the whole duration and the counter hit manual.

 

sw3 is too slow, just increase the cast animation.

[Ferus.3165]

reducing the aftercast and overall "clunckyness" of the weapon should be number one priority.

 

When you don't fully complete the autoattack chain (because you want to f1 or any other skill) there is almost a whole second where the warrior does nothing and no skill gets activated.

 

Give sword 2 a 600 aoe hit radius similar to guardian greatsword leap. Because guardian gs 3 reliably hits enemies (as long as you don't leap downwards) and warrior sword 2 never hits a moving enemy. This skill could oneshot people and most players would not care about it because it never hits.

 

Sword 3 needs a range increase and a cast time decrease.

 

You should also reliably be able to weapon stow the f1 skill. Sometimes i can't even move my character for the whole duration of the kitten animation that lasts way too long because for some goddamn reason i can't stop the animation with moving or weapon stowing.

 

And all of those skills need their aftercasts completely removed. Sword is honestly in such a bad state and i was not even talking about offhand sword. Offhand sword should just be reworked completely because imo there is nothing to save here it's just so bad. Remove the projectile (imaple) and replace it with something that is actually usefull, we have projectiles on axe and greatsword already and projectiles suck in this meta.

[Vancho.8750]

On 9/23/2022 at 1:47 AM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I think they have ideas already and that we may see them in November.

I think October is the Warrior patch, November will be just tweaks here and there so the new stuff might get Buff/Nerfed, might be some work on BS when it falls off ( kinda hope they touch up the PVE Build rotation cause it is kinda clunky even though the patches are PVP centric).
I think another profession will get the spotlight November, might be FB, Scourge, Mirage, Renegade since they are the ones almost non existent in PVP. 

[Sylvia.4870]

On 9/23/2022 at 12:54 AM, Verdict is Vengence.6912 said:

In my heart of hearts, I'd change sword into a power weapon. The sword is the most popular weapon in all of fantasy yet ours is a condi weapon 🤮

But reasonably, I'd firstly want offhand sword changed. The 5 skill with block and counter is ridiculously outdated. The impale ability with skill 4 [impale] on sword needs ammo or allow the skill to reset if you successfully [rip].

Main hand sword, I believe like others here, need to remove the root. The immobilize can be on the initial strike while you're left to remain mobile.

    At first, many years ago, as  a new player, I thought sword for the warrior profession could inflict physical damage as effectively as condition damage. I was wrong. It is suitable for condition damage. lol I wish it was good for power damage.(Maybe I didn't play it properly. Correct me if I am wrong)

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

1. Final Thrust needs some love.

It's animation promises an ugly death for those who are countered by it (getting impaled).
Not to mention this skill is dead while enemies are at above health treshold.

I propose to add 1/4s daze to it with bonuses for interrupting enemies.
Interrupt high health enemy - double the direct damage and bleeds get applied regardless of health threshold.
Strike low health enemy without interrupt - works the same as now.
Strike and interrupt low health enemy - direct damage is not only doubled, but 100% crit. Daze becomes 1s stun, bleeds become torment.


2. Rip - make it at least 600 range leap.

If impale can be used as a ranged move, it makes sense the follow up can also cover some range. I'm not expecting my warrior to telekinetically pull out his blade, but jumping to the target to reclaim your sword would make sense.

This flows with parent move (cripple them than leap to finish the chase), and would do justice for hybrid damage mace users, as no condi offhand offers any mobility and neither does the mace, unjustly divorcing main hand mace from condi/hybrid setups.

3. Make bleeding attack the follow up skill to Riposte.

Landing a successful counter should not gate over 50% of this weapon's damage.
Manual activation for bleeding attack  ensures consistency of performance.
Landed a counter? It'll automatically bleed them for you (like now) and pay out a fat adrenaline bonus.
No opportunites for a counter? Just skip to meat and potatoes by stabbing them manually (no adrenaline gained).

This would also greatly vibe with rest of my offhand sword's design. Impale them to cripple, then follow up with rip, closing the gap. After that you can Riposte and either defend against their attack or just ignore outplays and go straight for damage if that plan is not working.


 

Edited September 24, 2022 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[Verdict is Vengence.6912]

10 minutes ago, Sylvia.4870 said:

At first, many years ago, as  a new player, I thought sword for the warrior profession could inflict physical damage as effectively as condition damage. I was wrong. It is suitable for condition damage. lol I wish it was good for power damage.(Maybe I didn't play it properly. Correct me if I am wrong)

No, you're right. I'm a bit unsure but back then, sword could be used as a reliable physical weapon. Then they streamlined the traits and deemed sword a condi weapon while making changes to it. That's when they added the final thrust because people did not only want to use sword for bleeding.

To this day, I hate condi damage on warrior. DoT damage in my opinion, should only be for magic classes or rogues (thieves). What warrior in any lore of any story waits for their opponent to bleed out to defeat them? None of them.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

6 hours ago, Verdict is Vengence.6912 said:

No, you're right. I'm a bit unsure but back then, sword could be used as a reliable physical weapon. Then they streamlined the traits and deemed sword a condi weapon while making changes to it. That's when they added the final thrust because people did not only want to use sword for bleeding.

To this day, I hate condi damage on warrior. DoT damage in my opinion, should only be for magic classes or rogues (thieves). What warrior in any lore of any story waits for their opponent to bleed out to defeat them? None of them.

I on the other hand like condi on warrior and very much dislike power options. To each their own.
That's what's great about this game - every profession can be played in various ways and none is locked out of power builds or condition builds. If it's any consolation to you, we both know warriors have far more power options in their weapons and specs than condi ones.

[artharon.9276]

sword 3 to go faster

sword 4 (rip) to pull target

sword 5 (adrenaline rush) to do series of attacks like eso's dual weild skill flurry.

[xellink.7568]

On 9/23/2022 at 1:54 AM, Verdict is Vengence.6912 said:

In my heart of hearts, I'd change sword into a power weapon. The sword is the most popular weapon in all of fantasy yet ours is a condi weapon 🤮

But reasonably, I'd firstly want offhand sword changed. The 5 skill with block and counter is ridiculously outdated. The impale ability with skill 4 [impale] on sword needs ammo or allow the skill to reset if you successfully [rip].

Main hand sword, I believe like others here, need to remove the root. The immobilize can be on the initial strike while you're left to remain mobile.

 

On 9/25/2022 at 1:23 AM, Sylvia.4870 said:

    At first, many years ago, as  a new player, I thought sword for the warrior profession could inflict physical damage as effectively as condition damage. I was wrong. It is suitable for condition damage. lol I wish it was good for power damage.(Maybe I didn't play it properly. Correct me if I am wrong)

 

On 9/25/2022 at 1:45 AM, Verdict is Vengence.6912 said:

No, you're right. I'm a bit unsure but back then, sword could be used as a reliable physical weapon. Then they streamlined the traits and deemed sword a condi weapon while making changes to it. That's when they added the final thrust because people did not only want to use sword for bleeding.

To this day, I hate condi damage on warrior. DoT damage in my opinion, should only be for magic classes or rogues (thieves). What warrior in any lore of any story waits for their opponent to bleed out to defeat them? None of them.

 

Just wanted to share some history.

 

Severe artery -> Gash -> Final thrust 

 

Was a build that came from gw1.

 

It was the most widely used combo to deal condition pressure for swords. Back then monks (and rits) were main healers and with consistent damage and the ability to reapply condition damage over time provides a lot of pressure for the team to keep their health's up. Many skills like reversal of damage did not affect conditions so monks had to prep heal over time or condition removal skills in advance especially if a team has 2 warriors carrying 2 different builds.

 

Condition damage and power damage weren't split then. If u wanted to alternate condition damage and power or have a balance of both, it could be done. However you can only equip 8 skills and if it's a sword skill. Switching weapon would disable that slot. That is why final thrust is a 'power skill' and does double damage to foes in the low health threshold.

 

Axe was traditionally a 'power' (melee spike) weapon and hammer is for CCs. There were no maces in gw1.

 

Usually after applying pressure, when an enemy health accidentally slips below the threshold, the two warriors will use final thrust and evicerate to 'spike' the enemy with split second accuracy. This is to prevent the monks from having enough time to respond to heal the target back to full health. Impale wasn't even a warrior skill. Some of these mechanics did not carry well into GW2. Some things didn't even make it to gw2. Eg. Deep Wound which lowered max health by 20% didn't make it to gw2, all players can now carry heals. Etc.

 

However the sword skills and their description continue to work exactly as the gw1 build.

 

I personally feel that the sword being a condition weapon makes sense for warrior as you could play another class.  You can use a sword for power if you wished to do so eg. ranger. Making it half assed power is not viable and I rather play axe.