The Bladesworn changes, evaluated for PvP.

[UNOwen.7132]

Alright, with the new patch we got a few promised Bladesworn changes, which since Warrior is the class Id be most likely to play in PvP right now and Bladesworn is a concept I like, I have decided to do a bit of a deep dive on.

 

First, the new ranged components. As far as I can tell the scalings are 0.35, 0.45 and 0.6, each reduced by 2/3 if the melee part hits. This is a net buff of 0.116666 and 0.15 on the first two attacks, third attack remains unchanged. As for the ranged component, this comes out to a total of 1.4 per 2.13 seconds or a DPS of about 0.66. Thats ... actually pretty strong for a ranged weapon. Its now the highest ranged damage option discounting conditions. This change is good. There isnt much to say, its a good buff, it does fix a design concern Bladesworn had and its a clever solution on how to have a strong melee and ranged attack on the same weapon. Kudos.

 

Now, for the rest. Blooming Fire had its explosion changed from being at the apex of your slash to being a projectile that explodes on impact. Nothing else was changed. This skill remains terrible. Funny enough, this change also doesnt make sense because from what I can tell this is actually a straight DPS-loss at range, thanks to the new autoattack. The skill needed to either do more damage (especially at range), have its melee slash range increased OR do something in addition (like a short evade or something along those lines). As is, this change was pointless and needed to do more than it did.

 

Artillery Slash is frankly a downgrade. You lose a lot of damage, on a weapon kit that already struggled with sustained damage, in favour of a daze you dont need. Except its worse than I thought initially, because it also got a pretty big increase in cast time, so not only do you put all your eggs in one basket with the new mechanic, its much easier to dodge too. This went from the best skill on Gunsaber by a lot and the only reason to be in Gunsaber in PvP and WvW to a terrible skill. This change needs to be reverted, quite bluntly.

 

Cyclone Trigger. Straight buff, and a good one. Makes the skill fun to use, and less clunky, without really breaking it. No complaints.

 

The rest was untouched. Some things should've been changed honestly, like breakstep, but oh well.

 

Overall, two good changes, 1 pointless one, and one really bad one. I dont expect Bladesworn to be good in PvP, especially with the loss of Artillery Slash. Theres some good ideas here, but I do think that artillery slash needs to be reverted, and blooming fire and breakstep reevaluated, before gunsaber is a worthy weapon. Having a good autoattack chain isnt enough after all.

Edited February 14, 2023 by UNOwen.7132

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

39 minutes ago, UNOwen.7132 said:

Alright, with the new patch we got a few promised Bladesworn changes, which since Warrior is the class Id be most likely to play in PvP right now and Bladesworn is a concept I like, I have decided to do a bit of a deep dive on.

 

First, the new ranged components. As far as I can tell the scalings are 0.35, 0.45 and 0.6, each reduced by 2/3 if the melee part hits. This is a net buff of 0.116666 and 0.15 on the first two attacks, third attack remains unchanged. As for the ranged component, this comes out to a total of 1.4 per 2.13 seconds or a DPS of about 0.66. Thats ... actually pretty strong for a ranged weapon. Its now the highest ranged damage option discounting conditions. This change is good. There isnt much to say, its a good buff, it does fix a design concern Bladesworn had and its a clever solution on how to have a strong melee and ranged attack on the same weapon. Kudos.

 

Now, for the rest. Blooming Fire had its explosion changed from being at the apex of your slash to being a projectile that explodes on impact. Nothing else was changed. This skill remains terrible. Funny enough, this change also doesnt make sense because from what I can tell this is actually a straight DPS-loss at range, thanks to the new autoattack. The skill needed to either do more damage (especially at range), have its melee slash range increased OR do something in addition (like a short evade or something along those lines). As is, this change was pointless and needed to do more than it did.

 

Artillery Slash is frankly a downgrade. You lose a lot of damage, on a weapon kit that already struggled with sustained damage, in favour of a daze you dont need. Except its worse than I thought initially, because it also got a pretty big increase in cast time, so not only do you put all your eggs in one basket with the new mechanic, its much easier to dodge too. This went from the best skill on Gunsaber by a lot and the only reason to be in Gunsaber in PvP and WvW to a terrible skill. This change needs to be reverted, quite bluntly.

 

Cyclone Trigger. Straight buff, and a good one. Makes the skill fun to use, and less clunky, without really breaking it. No complaints.

 

The rest was untouched. Some things should've been changed honestly, like breakstep, but oh well.

 

Overall, two good changes, 1 pointless one, and one really bad one. I dont expect Bladesworn to be good in PvP, especially with the loss of Artillery Slash. Theres some good ideas here, but I do think that artillery slash needs to be reverted, and blooming fire and breakstep reevaluated, before gunsaber is a worthy weapon. Having a good autoattack chain isnt enough after all.

I'm going to be a bit more critical:

 

These changes (with the exception of cyclone trigger) are AWFUL.  Absolutely, unmitigatedly, awful.  

 

I'm running Berserker/scholar in PvP, and my ranged AAs are hitting for 600-1000  on a crit.   Blooming Fire is almost as bad, as the secondary explosions often do not hit for some reason, even on a stationary golem. I routinely got dmg <1k when using this skill, again on full glass gear.  

 

The changes to Artillery Slash are abysmal.  This was the one good damage dealing skill on gunsaber, and it is completely dumpstered (the dmg per shot appears to have been reduced significantly, and even when using 2 charges, I could get max ~4k; whereas I used to be able to get 3-4k on every single chage).  And the 3/4s cast time!!!!  This is a complete downgrade.

 

This is utterly disappointing, as Bladesworn was actually semi-close to being viable in PvP; it just needed blooming fire to do damage and to get stability back in Dragon Trigger.  Instead, we got a raft of unasked for changes that make the spec take a big step backwards.

 

Some of these issues could be fixed by (massively) increasing the dmg coeffs on the auto attacks and blooming fire.  However, the artillery slash change should be reverted entirely.

 

@Cal Cohen.2358I'm sorry to be harsh, but the bladesworn changes are NOT what the class needed.  Please address this ASAP so Bladesworn isn't relegated to the bench for the next 3  months.

 

[Ambrecombe.4398]

Personnaly I don't like the new Gunsaber. Yeah, skill 1 hits slightly harder and skill 4 is more reactive overall but skill 2 and 3 are horrible now. Waiting 45 sec to get a low duration stun and 100% damage buff isn't worth the loss of burst we had before with a 3 consecutive shells. Getting range on skill 2 is nice, but the skill issue wasn't the range but the damage it dealt, and you could also hit stealthed ennemies with the explosion, now you can't.

 

Honestly, lots of good changes on the other professions but Warrior got the short end of the stick, once again...

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

12 minutes ago, Ambrecombe.4398 said:

Personnaly I don't like the new Gunsaber. Yeah, skill 1 hits slightly harder and skill 4 is more reactive overall but skill 2 and 3 are horrible now. Waiting 45 sec to get a low duration stun and 100% damage buff isn't worth the loss of burst we had before with a 3 consecutive shells. Getting range on skill 2 is nice, but the skill issue wasn't the range but the damage it dealt, and you could also hit stealthed ennemies with the explosion, now you can't.

 

Honestly, lots of good changes on the other professions but Warrior got the short end of the stick, once again...

I think some of the changes to sword and berserker are good (probably inadequate, but still good), but, man, bladesworn.... Bladesworn is a dumpster fire.

[UNOwen.7132]

20 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

I'm going to be a bit more critical:

 

These changes (with the exception of cyclone trigger) are AWFUL.  Absolutely, unmitigatedly, awful.  

 

I'm running Berserker/scholar in PvP, and my ranged AAs are hitting for 600-1000  on a crit.   Blooming Fire is almost as bad, as the secondary explosions often do not hit for some reason, even on a stationary golem. I routinely got dmg <1k when using this skill, again on full glass gear.  

Keep in mind, ranged autoattacks hit less than melee ones in general. I tried looking, and I dont think anyone but Ranger has stronger ranged autoattacks. And even with Ranger its only at a certain range. But yeah, Blooming Fire sucks.

 

20 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

The changes to Artillery Slash are abysmal.  This was the one good damage dealing skill on gunsaber, and it is completely dumpstered (the dmg per shot appears to have been reduced significantly, and even when using 2 charges, I could get max ~4k; whereas I used to be able to get 3-4k on every single chage).  And the 3/4s cast time!!!!  This is a complete downgrade.

Damage per shot is normally the same, the scaling was untouched on one ammo, but 2 ammo is worse by a lot, its definitely a nerf.

 

20 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

This is utterly disappointing, as Bladesworn was actually semi-close to being viable in PvP; it just needed blooming fire to do damage and to get stability back in Dragon Trigger.  Instead, we got a raft of unasked for changes that make the spec take a big step backwards.

It really wasnt that close, Gunsaber did need changes, but some of these did miss the mark.

 

20 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Some of these issues could be fixed by (massively) increasing the dmg coeffs on the auto attacks and blooming fire.  However, the artillery slash change should be reverted entirely.

I dont think autoattacks need to be buffed. Theyre already very good. Its the rest that needs buffs.

 

20 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358I'm sorry to be harsh, but the bladesworn changes are NOT what the class needed.  Please address this ASAP so Bladesworn isn't relegated to the bench for the next 3  months.

 

Im not sure pinging a designer makes much sense.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

16 minutes ago, UNOwen.7132 said:

Keep in mind, ranged autoattacks hit less than melee ones in general. I tried looking, and I dont think anyone but Ranger has stronger ranged autoattacks. And even with Ranger its only at a certain range. But yeah, Blooming Fire sucks.

 

Damage per shot is normally the same, the scaling was untouched on one ammo, but 2 ammo is worse by a lot, its definitely a nerf.

 

It really wasnt that close, Gunsaber did need changes, but some of these did miss the mark.

 

I dont think autoattacks need to be buffed. Theyre already very good. Its the rest that needs buffs.

 

Im not sure pinging a designer makes much sense.

If other classes are getting 300-400 dmg on slow ranged AAs, they'd have a right to complain too.

 

AS does appear to have had its damage nerfed per the tooltips. It used to say something like "800" dmg when running zerk/scholar; now it's in the 600 range. Also note that the CD per charge has been reduced from 15 to 10s. It appears that they have nerfed the dmg per shot but made the shots recharge faster to "compensate".

 

Quote

Im not sure pinging a designer makes much sense.

I tried pinging Biden but couldn't find his account. Guess I'll have to settle for the guy in charge of balance 😉

[Aaron.1294]

I don't think Anet knows how multiple hitting skills work on power ... maybe  something like blooming fire for them hits for the same amount as arcing slice (1,2k dmg) 

[UNOwen.7132]

3 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

If other classes are getting 300-400 dmg on slow ranged AAs, they'd have a right to complain too.

Theyre not actually that slow, and you get more than 300-400 on just a regular attack let alone a crit. I tested out my spellbreaker which is just a bladesworn that I respecced in PvP.

 

3 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

AS does appear to have had its damage nerfed per the tooltips. It used to say something like "800" dmg when running zerk/scholar; now it's in the 600 range. Also note that the CD per charge has been reduced from 15 to 10s. It appears that they have nerfed the dmg per shot but made the shots recharge faster to "compensate".

Oh that part is confusing. You see how it notes that it does extra damage based on ammo? That works with 1 ammo too. Its basically showing 2/3 of pre-patch damage because its showing 2/3 of the actual damage. I dont know why they worded it that way, its confusing. Overall you basically do 3/4 of two shots now with a 2 ammo 1 shot, but you dont get to hold 3 shots.

 

3 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

I tried pinging Biden but couldn't find his account. Guess I'll have to settle for the guy in charge of balance 😉

I doubt he would read everything he gets pinged for, or be particularly interested in listening to it.