Bladesworn changes

[dragon.1596]

I'm sorry Anet but what is this ? The kit visually makes no sense at all now. The only thing I disliked about the swagsaber was the look of the shell from skill 3, it was too big and too slow. Now it's on 1 and 2 ? Thanks  but no. The whole weapon feels akward now and I don't see why it had to be tuned to a ranged-type weapon. It was very fine before and we had enough gap closer/range damage with 2 & 3 of dragon slash. Those 2 moves feel very rewarding and challenging to the class. I am trying to think about what the changes are bring with them but I really can't see what it's gonna do. Before, when the enemy got away after a slash, we had to run to them while bursting out our 3 shells from skill 3 (+ spin) then once in melee range, slash again. Now what has changed ? Nothing but we press 1, 2 and 3 (+/or 4). The real change is actually skill 3 using up all charges in one GCD.

Maybe this is all experimentation but please listen to the community's sentiments about this ! I am sure to not be the only one miscontent about those changes.

The Bladesworn didn't need more range in my opinion and most importantly, it didn't need it at the cost of looking nice. (Maybe if you had put the projectiles of skill 4 on skill 1 that would be better... But I am no game dev, what do I know.)

 

I liked the fantasy of having a gun mounted on a sword to propel the slashes. The idea of estoc into big boom. Not the idea of frenetically firing shells the size of the handle.

This is a Gunsaber, not a grenade launcher.

 

I dislike it, it's not for me.

Edited February 15, 2023 by dragon.1596

[Infusion.7149]

I think it is a PvE oriented change to increase DPS uptime.

[Rongaron.9213]

Lets face it, Arena net simply hate warriors and C%$# us again from another good changes, why they simply wont give us a reroll coin so we can change class without loosing or invest huge amount of time into making new main GG ARENA NET you showed down our throath once again how much you hate us and how deep in your bside you have our comments and please about good changes and you give us is OverNerfs or Absolute Dogwater worth reworks

[Zaret.1450]

Mmm bladesworn changes dont seem that bad thoug? i mean maybe its because i dont main it, but all they did was add a ranged part to skills 1 and 2, and making 3 consume all amo at once, the auto having a ranged part isnt bad, i mean they sait they did it so you could upkeep dmg in pve bosses, in wvw and pvp it might be a bit worse against reflects though, but reflects are pretty strong in wvw right now so i wouldnt be surprised if they got some kind of nerf.

If warrior got huge nerfs overall id understand the pesimism, but if you only count BS it doest look that bad.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

When they rolled out the promo video of BSW originally, I got excited because I thought it was going to hit at both melee and range for a great switch hitter weapon. I was mad when that turned out to not be the case. Aesthetics aside, I happy that they made this change. I think they are moving in the right direction with Gunsaber, but there are still things that they need to do.

1. They've stated that skill #2 on a weapon is meant to be damage positive. Blooming Fire is not very strong. It either needs more strike damage, a burn stack per explosion, or might gain per foe struck per explosion.
2. Cyclone Trigger should get it's range increased to 900 to match the rest of the range of the kit.
3. Artillery Slash feels off. I get the approach they are going for, but it feels not good in execution. 

[Fueki.4753]

Aesthetics of Junksworn aside; how is the ranged damage, compared to Rifle?

Edited February 15, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

1 minute ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Aesthetics of Junksworn aside; how is the ranged damage, compared to Rifle?

Terrible. The AAs are barely noticeable. Booming fire seems to somehow be even worse than it was in terms of damage despite being ranged (secondary explosions often don't hit).  The artillery slash change isn't terrible (charges have a 10s CD instead of 15s, which feels good), but it's still significantly less dmg output overall and the increased cast time of 3/4s feels awful.

 

The ramged AAs needs like a 25% dmg bump on all levels. Blooming Fire needs like a 150% dmg increase to make it worth using over auto attacking (having your 2 skill hit for 800-1200 dmg most of the time is just pathetic).

[Fueki.4753]

6 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Terrible. The AAs are barely noticeable. Booming fire seems to somehow be even worse than it was in terms of damage despite being ranged (secondary explosions often don't hit).  The artillery slash change isn't terrible (charges have a 10s CD instead of 15s, which feels good), but it's still significantly less dmg output overall and the increased cast time of 3/4s feels awful.

 

The ramged AAs needs like a 25% dmg bump on all levels. Blooming Fire needs like a 150% dmg increase to make it worth using over auto attacking (having your 2 skill hit for 800-1200 dmg most of the time is just pathetic).

So, they managed to have the ranged part of the not-a-sabre a worse than Warrior's Rifle, which already was one of the worst ranged weapons, if not even THE worst ranged weapon?

Good thing I wasn't expecting any value out of those changes.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[UNOwen.7132]

20 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Aesthetics of Junksworn aside; how is the ranged damage, compared to Rifle?

The autoattacks are significantly stronger (almost 50% damage up), range is worse, and the damage skill is worse. Its ... probably better compared to rifle without its burst, but worse compared to it with its burst? Though thats assuming the burst hits.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

Just now, UNOwen.7132 said:

The autoattacks are significantly stronger (almost 50% damage up), range is worse, and the damage skill is worse. Its ... probably better compared to rifle without its burst, but worse compared to it with its burst? Though thats assuming the burst hits.

The rifle AAs pierce, tho. Not saying that entirely makes up for rifles crap damage, but there's some added value there that is not present on the gunsaber AAs.

 

Only the 3rd AA out damages longbow's AA. The 3rd AA also does splash, which is nice. It's the only decent part of the ranged AAs.

[eXruina.4956]

i liked the gunblade changes, reading the preview got me really excited. honestly the range is a very welcome change.

 

but as expected something just had to be off.

 

they're giving us something we asked for, but always with a twist.

[UNOwen.7132]

1 hour ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

The rifle AAs pierce, tho. Not saying that entirely makes up for rifles crap damage, but there's some added value there that is not present on the gunsaber AAs.

And gunsaber 3 explodes. Piercing is pretty rarely useful too tbh.

 

1 hour ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Only the 3rd AA out damages longbow's AA. The 3rd AA also does splash, which is nice. It's the only decent part of the ranged AAs.

Im talking the whole chain, its 0.66 per second. You have to keep in mind that attack 1 and 2 are also faster than longbow.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

1 minute ago, UNOwen.7132 said:

And gunsaber 3 explodes. Piercing is pretty rarely useful too tbh.

 

Im talking the whole chain, its 0.66 per second. You have to keep in mind that attack 1 and 2 are also faster than longbow.

We can go back and forth all day about numbers and comparing different skills. My point is that the damage on the AA chain is too puny/back loaded in the 3rd attack to be meaningful most of the time. It's certainly far too low to allow you to trade with other ranged classes. This, combined with the rest of gunsaber having pretty meh offense, is a problem.

 

It's also important not to focus on raw dmg numbers on skills in a vacuum but rather how they actually perform in game situations. For instance, DH's LB auto does only a little more dmg than some of the gunsaber AAs on the tooltip, but in practice (thanks to mods and buffs etc) it hits for over 2k--a sizeable upgrade over gunsaber's DPS. If BS were reliably able to stack tons of mods and buffs to do that kind of dmg on it's AA, that would justify making the base numbers (power coeff) low. However, if that's not feasible, base numbers should be buffed to compensate. 

[ori.5829]

from a WvW point of view the skill changes were nice. But the blade feels extremly slow now with several skills having a casting time of 3/4 of a second. That feels as slow as charging the blade up. Also the autoattack doesnt really work on range 900, if you opponent runs away from melee range, I often see that my character just stops attacking. And even autoattack feels extremly slow.

[Foe Blade.2508]

I'll have to wait to see what people find to be the optimum rotation but it definitely doesn't feel as nice and as fluid to use as before. The range on the skills is a nice addition but those cast times on all of the skills feel a bit rough and clunky to use.

[UNOwen.7132]

8 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

We can go back and forth all day about numbers and comparing different skills. My point is that the damage on the AA chain is too puny/back loaded in the 3rd attack to be meaningful most of the time. It's certainly far too low to allow you to trade with other ranged classes. This, combined with the rest of gunsaber having pretty meh offense, is a problem.

If it came down to just trading autoattacks, Bladesworn would win. The problem isnt that, the problem is that the non-autoattack parts of the weaponset suck at range. 

 

8 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

It's also important not to focus on raw dmg numbers on skills in a vacuum but rather how they actually perform in game situations. For instance, DH's LB auto does only a little more dmg than some of the gunsaber AAs on the tooltip, but in practice (thanks to mods and buffs etc) it hits for over 2k--a sizeable upgrade over gunsaber's DPS. If BS were reliably able to stack tons of mods and buffs to do that kind of dmg on it's AA, that would justify making the base numbers (power coeff) low. However, if that's not feasible, base numbers should be buffed to compensate. 

Youre confusing damage per shot with damage per second. Longbow fires once a second. Both halves of the first 2 chain attacks fire faster than that. Plus, Bladesworn itself has plenty of modifies too, not to mention stuff like "For Great Justice" which gives you a sizeable boost. In practice the damage on the autoattacks is high. Its the rest where it suffers. Ranger longbow has rapidfire, rifle has volley, gunsaber has ... nothing.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

22 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I think it is a PvE oriented change to increase DPS uptime.

Damage is significantly lower than before because they added weird aftercasts to most of the skills. Its like trying to play in molasses even with Quickness unless you cancel every animation.

 

The entire kit now plays like Reaper greatsword. 😞

Edited February 16, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Infusion.7149]

12 minutes ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

Damage is significantly lower than before because they added weird aftercasts to most of the skills. Its like trying to play in molasses even with Quickness unless you cancel every animation.

 

The entire kit now plays like Reaper greatsword. 😞

RIP Bladesworn in PVE at range.

[Greyrat.2378]

I am not sure about this change when you are shooting projectiles from huge a$$ sword. I kind of get the reasoning behind this change, but from visual standpoint I don't like it at all.

I was under impression that they got inspired by Gunbreaker from FFXIV, but at this point I am not sure what's the idea behind this spec outside of some jumbled mess.

Also why are they not reworking rifle that is notoriously crap if they want to give us more ranged options?

I think I will rather stick with Spellbreaker/Zerker/Core that have some kind of identity. Bladesworn feels just weird right now.
Feels more like band-aid solution, rather then sticking to the initial idea of the spec and finding solution to make it perform well.
Not impressed at all by this tbh.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Greyrat.2378

[Fueki.4753]

25 minutes ago, Greyrat.2378 said:

Also why are they not reworking rifle that is notoriously crap if they want to give us more ranged options?

I think it's that they are now fine with giving us the illusion of one more ranged choice, but they still aren't willing to let us have better ranged options.

Apparently, Warrior having as little as one viable ranged option is too much for them.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Greyrat.2378]

Can't wait for that cool rifle rework where you get to bash your enemies with the stock!
Oh and you also get to throw the rifle at enemy (since throwing your sword is indeed pretty neat idea as well, just to keep it consistent, because apparently warrior likes to throw his weapons at enemy). 
We are the masters of weaponry afterall, and throwing our weapon away is indeed very professional.

 

/s

Edited February 16, 2023 by Greyrat.2378
just more angry rant

[dragon.1596]

On 2/16/2023 at 11:05 AM, Greyrat.2378 said:

Can't wait for that cool rifle rework where you get to bash your enemies with the stock!
Oh and you also get to throw the rifle at enemy (since throwing your sword is indeed pretty neat idea as well, just to keep it consistent, because apparently warrior likes to throw his weapons at enemy). 
We are the masters of weaponry afterall, and throwing our weapon away is indeed very professional.

 

/s

Thank you for understanding my post!

 

People seem to not care if their class looks absurd.

Edited February 17, 2023 by dragon.1596

[Khlori.6209]

I hate these changes, hearing "boom" after every 1 attack is torture to ears, Bladesworn has so much mobility that it doesn't need extra range anyway.

And Artillery Slash(3). Maybe before dmg of it wasn't too great too but I loved 3 tapping it for quick burst, and now? Slow, completely useless ability that everyone in wvw/pvp will have enough time to make dinner, get married, raise kids and dodge it. Yeah let's take underpowered ability and make it even worse, 10/10 logic.

2 is w/e I guess, still clunky as heck.

 

It's not even that weak in pvp, before the patch when I was doing Decade of Dragons achievement across 12 matches I won 7, while also having Top stats 17 times. I'm a pve player, never toched pvp before, but somehow got 58% win rate with random build.

 

Anyway I loved Bladesworn, but now it's dead spec to me, Anet for the love of god hotfix revert it.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Khlori.6209

[captrowdy.9561]

I like it. It needs some tuning. If they do this right it’ll solve the problem with warrior not having a range option. I’ve been playing it in pvp and have had decent results with it. Roaming in wvw is still iffy. If we could aim the dragon trigger skills like GS 3 that would go a long way. 

[Zekent.3652]

On 2/15/2023 at 7:08 AM, zaswer.5246 said:

Mmm bladesworn changes dont seem that bad thoug? i mean maybe its because i dont main it, but all they did was add a ranged part to skills 1 and 2, and making 3 consume all amo at once, the auto having a ranged part isnt bad, i mean they sait they did it so you could upkeep dmg in pve bosses, in wvw and pvp it might be a bit worse against reflects though, but reflects are pretty strong in wvw right now so i wouldnt be surprised if they got some kind of nerf.

If warrior got huge nerfs overall id understand the pesimism, but if you only count BS it doest look that bad.

Stop coping, Bladesworn is now objectivley clunkier.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Zizekent.2398