Well that's the end of sword gameplay...why ruin a defensive weapon?

[enkeny.6937]

4 hours ago, Jonas.2079 said:

Hybrid main-hand weapons are great because they allow for a lot of build diversity.

Yes it is. And as balance perspective, it is problematic. Being good and also the best option in everywhere is not balanced, it is op. 

4 hours ago, Jonas.2079 said:

The only real problem with axe atm is that the other weapons are slightly undertuned in comparison, so it has become centralizing, but that isn't a problem of axe but rather just that the options should be brought up to compete

It is also true, but if we just 'let's make the other option better', it will only results in (unnecessary) power creep. (again as a balance perspective. If something is good, you don't need to make it better.) But it solves a problem.

4 hours ago, Jonas.2079 said:

I just feel that running stuff like sword/torch and sword/dagger just makes sense from a class fantasy and fun perspective, and it would be a shame if this was not possible due to some arbitrary "sword must be power only" rule.

You can do it. It won't be the best option, but there are many place for fun builds. They won't be terrible, as long as you don't want to be the top DPS in a very good group. 
Sword/dagger will be a good evade combo still, sword/torch will have 2 leap  for fire aura, a large fire AoE DoT. 
Role players will role play.
End gamers will copy Snowcrows builds
In competitive game play, skills matters a lot more then class fantasy.

Also this remind me the early years, when players said: 'Ranger is a dps class, because I know from other games!' and they didn't get it when I said: 'But it is a different game...' 
Class fantasy is nice, but for balance, who cares? Is the weapon usable? why not? why everyone use only this? If it is overpowered, nerf it. If it is underused, buff it. Something like that. 

I prefer a power and a condi weapon over 2 hybrid version. I get the 2 hybrid version too. (1 for bleeding 1 for poison)
What I don't like is the power (or condition) weapon and a hybrid veapon that is better for power (condition) option too. Or the idea for use hybrid weapon for condition (power), but the numbers  have to be lover, because there is the power (condition) part of the weapon. "You will be good, but never close to the best" is not fun for years.
If we have 3 options, I feel natural having 1 power, 1 condition, 1 hybrid weapon, and the hybrid should be the one for elite specialisation. 

[Matoro.9708]

On 6/12/2023 at 4:49 AM, anninke.7469 said:

But the "spin around" is exactly what I like so much. Is it practical? No idea. But it feels fun. And I don't really care about better damage, I'm exactly the kind of weirdo who chooses weapons and skills mainly for their animations.

I agree, and the flanking had a cool synergy with the flanking sigils. They often look at stuff that underperforms and say "it's not good, so they must not like it!". I do like it, by removing the entire thing it's like cutting off the arm to save the hand... just buff it! Not everything has to be easy and convenient to use in end game content. Removing diversity of playstyles is a slippery slope - they think beating endgame content is the point of playing, but the actual gameplay is what you experience the longest...

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Good points--as kinda alluded to in my original post, there really was no reason to get rid of the serpent strike animation for another generic leap. 

It just doesn't fix the problem of sword having no defenses (outside the now generic leap evades), being engage only, and pretty easy to get CC'd out of the leaps.

Also, hybrid weapons are why I brought up MH dagger, as it is exactly that.  And no one uses it because it does literally nothing well.  Hybrid is really something I feel they should stay away from, but for Ranger they seem to want to hybridize most of our MH weapons. 

MH Axe has splitblade and random bleed on winter's bite, otherwise it's pretty much power + utility (chill, weakness, might) weapon.  MH dagger also has bleed on it for whatever reason, but again is power + utility (poison, quickness, vuln, and soon to be slow).  MH sword falls into this same category of power + utility (poison, cripple).  

(I don't really consider poison a condition for this purpose even though it damages, because it really shoudn't IMO--whole different discussion there though).  

Shortbow makes sense as a condi weapon because it has bleed on its auto.  

As a tangential, this is why it makes way more sense to make Staff a condition weapon so we at least have two dedicated ones.  

Really, in the end, I'm not sure why sword just doesn't have a shadow step.  We're similar to thieves in our role and they already pass out teleports like candy--so just have serpent strike shadow step to enemy and keep the serpent animation.  Doesn't really have to have a return component, they could leave it as a flip skill and fix hornet sting so it doesn't suck.  

Edited June 16, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Downstate.4697]

While I agree losing the flavor of sword sucks, the weapon has been useless for 10 years

[kharmin.7683]

20 hours ago, Downstate.4697 said:

While I agree losing the flavor of sword sucks, the weapon has been useless for 10 years

That depends on content and context.  I find it fun in OWPvE and not useless in that format at all.

[InsaneQR.7412]

I'll be honest. Throughout its entire lifetime one sword skill was always a dud. Hornet Sting.

Hornet sting you needed to fiddle with about face for mobility, it has a long as animation, it takes you out of your radius of action, the evade frame does not line up with the animation due to huge pre and aftercast and overall it wasnt a great designed skill for a weapon. It would be perfectly fine for a utility skill though.

Serpent strike was cool and all but in the end it was just to long and hurt sword more than it did good.

I think bringing back the overall sticky weapon from the past with more control and more focus on mobility is fine and refines the weapon as a whole. 

[kharmin.7683]

Well, that was more disappointing than I had expected.  The new sword skill changes have removed pretty much all of the evasiveness of the sword-wielding ranger.  Loved the play and the jumping in and out of combat with the target.  Now, it's just face-tanking. 

Very disappointing.

[Arheundel.6451]

Well....guess nobody will complain about my initial assessment .....sword changes are indeed trash as I predicted, a trash weapon with no defense...all done for a mere 2k power dmg

Well done Anet:

 

[Khenzy.9348]

They completely butchered the sword playstyle, my favourite weapon in the game, just to turn it into an incredibly bland PvE weapon with two lame charges, it's like the dagger now, but crappier. I'm extremely dissapointed.

[Sirius.4510]

+: Apart from the DPS increase, it appears to be pretty useful for chasing around annoying bosses that like to jump everywhere (Dragonstorm and Mai Trin, looking at you in particular)

-: Feels kinda janky. Sw3 can put you on the other side of the boss pretty easily (might have something to do with an aftercast). Going to take some getting used to.

[Lazze.9870]

On 6/10/2023 at 11:36 AM, Arheundel.6451 said:

Both evades would keep you on the target while avoiding dmg, what is unintuitive about that? Now you will just jump straight into aoe spam without any chance to avoid damage! Right now you can choose to keep pressure and still save the leap to disengage, but now you will be forced to use both leaps to stay on target and you have zero kittening disengage! You won't have the ability to use the about face to misdirect the enemy who then aoe fire in another direction and you could run in the opposite direction......now you leap directly into their face...and you mention dagger off hand...it's a terrible weapon and this butchering of sword won't make people pick it

The weapon is objectively 1000% worst for no kittening reason other than "thinking" less to use a leap skill...great news for pvers I guess, and all of this for some paltry 3k dmg with 25 might if lucky.....kittening brilliant balance change.

P.S I wish would stop being so fixated on their DPS rotation. The main point of using sword over usual GS, it's to replace the block with 2x evades for sustain....we had 2x evades on the sword since ever...and this guy now removes one of those evades for some 2k dmg to make happy golem benchmark artists ...

I literally spelled out what was unintutive about the old sword. The cast time on Hornet's Sting. You can go years back find comments of me suggesting lowering the cast time to match that the evade on the daredevil staff which has the same kickback evade and feels much more responsive to use because of the lower cast time.

I've never asked for a full sword rework, but anyone suggesting that the current sword with an off-hand dagger is no longer able to kite and evade opponents needs to get a serious reality check. It very much is. And, having some actual counter pressure on the weapon is nice for change. You win some you lose some.

For the first time in a while I did some duels in WvW on a full melee sword/gs build yesterday. Worked just fine for me.

I'm tired of the doomsday comments on this forum.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Lazze.9870

[Roadkizzle.2157]

There are so many ways that CMC destroyed classes that you are justified in complaining about.

 

What they did to Druid and Unplayed is a travesty as well as Mirage.

 

At least the new sword is more powerful than the last one.

[Lazze.9870]

54 minutes ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

There are so many ways that CMC destroyed classes that you are justified in complaining about.

 

What they did to Druid and Unplayed is a travesty as well as Mirage.

Druid has been lifted up from bottom tier WvW support to an actual meta contender. And this latest patch improved that even further. So no, it's not "destroyed".

Screwing up their alac changes is just par for the course. They will fix it eventually because its PvE.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Lazze.9870

[Roadkizzle.2157]

1 hour ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Druid has been lifted up from bottom tier WvW support to an actual meta contender. And this latest patch improved that even further. So no, it's not "destroyed".

Screwing up their alac changes is just par for the course. They will fix it eventually because its PvE.

The numbers are just emphasizing the underlying pisspoor design of the change though.

CA is where the bulk of the healing emergency support came from.

But now the ability for the Druid to provide the Alac boon gets WORSE as the group it's trying to support gets better. It's harder to accrue the Astral Force to get back into CA when your group is not needing healing constantly. But this means that it's going to be even harder to be able to be in CA when the group actually does need healing to get through mechanics.

The Condi DPS Druid isn't as bad as the healing support druid... But it's a pisspoor design to only use CA as a trigger for a 10% damage buff when you can get back to using your axe or bow. CA with Eclipse does a miniscule amount of conditions and you lose out on the additional strike damage.

What would have been much more interesting is if Eclipse removed healing from CA and actually gave it good access to Conditions to where it could do 42k DPS in CA... So you're always trying to spend as much time in CA to do damage as possible and working to get back into it when you run out of Astral Force.

 

But the design CMC made just turns CA into a limiting burden instead of a way to make the class better.

[Sansar.1302]

On 6/10/2023 at 4:51 AM, kiwituatara.6053 said:

It’s fine. Don’t knock it till you try it. It just means sword won’t be used like it was before. It’ll be interesting to see new playstyles and synergies.

I’m hoping it’ll be a more offensive weapon. We’ll see how easy it is to land the immob and burst dmg.

it is now 100% usless it is no way near a offencive weeapon ( damage is still way to low )