Why the drastic change to 1H-Sword?

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

Has anyone really considered the combo you can do with sword? Am I missing a bigger picture here or are people really just not into trying to theory craft some new stuff. New sword has 1 but 2 leap finishers. That's very big especially if you want to do some real crazy shenanigans.

[Fueki.4753]

8 minutes ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Has anyone really considered the combo you can do with sword? Am I missing a bigger picture here or are people really just not into trying to theory craft some new stuff. New sword has 1 but 2 leap finishers. That's very big especially if you want to do some real crazy shenanigans.

It may just be me, but it's almost like the ones lamenting the loss of a fun toy, could different people than ones using sword now.

That aside, people can still try to make the new sword work, while lamenting the loss of the sword they had more fun with at the same time.

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

Well soon we be able to get some ethereal fields through Ibolga pet. Which if you like Chaos Aura, chaos Aura is kinda funny.

Aside from that, Consider trying these stuff.

Hydromancy Sigil is great to set up fro 2 and 3

Daze glyph set up 2 and 3 which can be activated during mid flight

Off - hand dagger 5 can activate 2 and 3 easily with cripple, best of all you can get an evade on dagger 4th

Wyvern lighting field - Daze utopia with your leaps.

Ice trap chills enemies and has an ice field gives you an ice aura - great for easily setting up 2 n 3 if they get hit by your trap or hit you with any attack while ice aura is active+ 10% reduced damage from the aura 😄 

Fire aura is kinda meh tbh,

you have tons of poison field that can inflict weakness and the duration is pretty high.

 

THeres alot of fun combinations & setup you can do.

 

 

[Mell.4873]

On 11/1/2023 at 4:01 PM, Kilgar.7435 said:

So I'm a returning player. I have multiple 80th level characters - all that I really like to play. One of my favorites is the Ranger. I have two of them; both equipped with a 1H-sword for their main hand melee weapon. I login to play one of them and notice that 1H-sword has been changed dramatically.

Why are the 2nd and 3rd skills now both leap in skills? If I've already used one and I'm now toe to toe with my opponent why would I need to leap in again? The old skills for 1h-sword synergized GREATLY with the Ranger's ranged weapon (either longbow or shortbow). You could leap into combat, poison and evade, and then leap out (I forget the skill name) and go right to your bow for ranged combat. Leap back in if you wanted or just stayed ranged...it was a very mobile (and fun) way to play the class. Now with two leap ins and no way to leap back out it just kills the weapon and the accompanying synergy with the bow. It really does kill the class for me. Very unfortunate.

Somebody make this make sense.

Thanks in advance! 

Seems like the upcoming Mace is going to replace its mechanic since it seems very similar

[AkantorCZ.8952]

Ranger sword was my favorite weapon. The way they changed the sword is a straight up game breaker for me.

I'm no longer playing GW2 but sometimes I get some kind of MMO vibes and come back here to check what has changed.

What I'm hopping for is:

1. sword changes reverted

2. pet system reworked to address its fundamental issues

What I read in patch notes... nerf, nerf, nerf

You have no idea how discouraging it is.

See you next time.

[Axelteas.7192]

On 11/5/2023 at 1:31 PM, Levetty.1279 said:

You are literally describing the trolls who think the change was bad since nobody used the sword anywhere before the buff. Sorry that Ranger is finally getting some buffs.

dude, before Hot, Pof and all this expansions sword/axe was the meta for core ranger... but hey nobody used sword

[Levetty.1279]

3 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

dude, before Hot, Pof and all this expansions sword/axe was the meta for core ranger... but hey nobody used sword

Seeing the words Meta, Ranger and before Hot used in the same post gave me a good laugh., Thanks.

[Yasai.3549]

On 11/9/2023 at 3:48 AM, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Has anyone really considered the combo you can do with sword? Am I missing a bigger picture here or are people really just not into trying to theory craft some new stuff. New sword has 1 but 2 leap finishers. That's very big especially if you want to do some real crazy shenanigans.

Used to be used heavily on old Soulbeast long long long long ago as a way for them to quick stealth/stealth stack via Smokescale Smoke finisher, then they sneak onto someone and Siccem Meld Worldly Impact + Maul to down them. Also helps as a disengage for the same stealth stacking reasons. 

These days, or rather straight after the Power nerf patch, Sword fell out of favour for people to just run LB/GS during the Boonbeast era.  GS had a block and much better on demand mobility. LB being just a good platform for ranging down enemies and having a Stealth on LB 3 made it a simpler tool to access Stealth anyway which made Sword look even worse because Sword is just garbo for damage. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[Mell.4873]

On 11/20/2023 at 3:16 AM, AkantorCZ.8952 said:

Ranger sword was my favorite weapon. The way they changed the sword is a straight up game breaker for me.

I'm no longer playing GW2 but sometimes I get some kind of MMO vibes and come back here to check what has changed.

What I'm hopping for is:

1. sword changes reverted

2. pet system reworked to address its fundamental issues

What I read in patch notes... nerf, nerf, nerf

You have no idea how discouraging it is.

See you next time.

As I already pointed out, the new Mace has very similar mechanics to the old Sword. Most of the nostalgia for the Sword comes from it's defencive applications in PvP. Which the Mace has even more of. 

They are reworking most of the pets but in terms of the pet system you would have to elaborate. I mean AI is dumb but atleast you can manipulate that fact. 

[frazazel.7501]

Sword had a problem of making your character move around in chaotic ways that you couldn't control or predict. The tumbling skill wouldn't always go the same distance around the enemy (I think it depended on how close to them you were). So you would jump in, do the tumble-around-the-enemy thing, then dodge back, and you could be anywhere. This would frequently have you jumping off of ledges, into AoE attacks, or aggroing other monsters. It was fun, but it was too chaotic.

[kharmin.7683]

2 hours ago, frazazel.7501 said:

Sword had a problem of making your character move around in chaotic ways that you couldn't control or predict. The tumbling skill wouldn't always go the same distance around the enemy (I think it depended on how close to them you were). So you would jump in, do the tumble-around-the-enemy thing, then dodge back, and you could be anywhere. This would frequently have you jumping off of ledges, into AoE attacks, or aggroing other monsters. It was fun, but it was too chaotic.

I disagree.  If you played it enough, then it was quite predictable.  I guess your mileage varies.

[Fueki.4753]

3 hours ago, frazazel.7501 said:

Sword had a problem of making your character move around in chaotic ways that you couldn't control or predict. The tumbling skill wouldn't always go the same distance around the enemy (I think it depended on how close to them you were). So you would jump in, do the tumble-around-the-enemy thing, then dodge back, and you could be anywhere. This would frequently have you jumping off of ledges, into AoE attacks, or aggroing other monsters. It was fun, but it was too chaotic.

If people didn't like the perceived lesser predictability, they could have just not used Ranger's sword. Ranger has other melee power weapons, that don't involve that kind of movement.

But with the changes, the people who liked Ranger's old sword have effectively lost their toy.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Maekrix Waere.2087]

I admit it's bizarre reading this thread.  I've been an active player since before HoT and in all that time I don't think I ever met a single person in-game who thought that Ranger sword was even a decent PvE weapon.  Before this thread I have only ever heard people talk about it having been garbage in PvE, with even main-hand axe always being the better power weapon.  It's damage was weak and the nature of it's mobility was an active detriment in dungeons and fractals; no matter if we were stacking in a corner to LoS some dungeon mobs or staying on top of our Phalanx Strength Warrior so we all had might.  Since then, things have become even more about stacking than they were back then, and PvE sword only became worse and worse.  New sword fixes both of these problems and, as someone who has been waiting since LS3 for an even decent power main-hand to pair with off-hand axe, I am very appreciative of it.

I have always thought of Ranger sword as "Ah, a tool for the competitive players."  And if you're a WvW or sPvP player who used sword a ton, then I do truly feel for you.  I don't sPvP and I never used sword in WvW, so I can't feel what you feel but I know losing tools always sucks.  And, as bad as it used to be, if you enjoyed it in PvE before the changes, then I'm sorry for your loss, too.  I hope you find a new weapon that can bring you that joy.  Regardless, however, I sincerely hope that ANet never changes sword back to what it was.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Maekrix Waere.2087

[Sansar.1302]

40 minutes ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

I admit it's bizarre reading this thread.  I've been an active player since before HoT and in all that time I don't think I ever met a single person in-game who thought that Ranger sword was even a decent PvE weapon.  Before this thread I have only ever heard people talk about it having been garbage in PvE, with even main-hand axe always being the better power weapon.  It's damage was weak and the nature of it's mobility was an active detriment in dungeons and fractals; no matter if we were stacking in a corner to LoS some dungeon mobs or staying on top of our Phalanx Strength Warrior so we all had might.  Since then, things have become even more about stacking than they were back then, and PvE sword only became worse and worse.  New sword fixes both of these problems and, as someone who has been waiting since LS3 for an even decent power main-hand to pair with off-hand axe, I am very appreciative of it.

I have always thought of Ranger sword as "Ah, a tool for the competitive players."  And if you're a WvW or sPvP player who used sword a ton, then I do truly feel for you.  I don't sPvP and I never used sword in WvW, so I can't feel what you feel but I know losing tools always sucks.  And, as bad as it used to be, if you enjoyed it in PvE before the changes, then I'm sorry for your loss, too.  I hope you find a new weapon that can bring you that joy.  Regardless, however, I sincerely hope that ANet never changes sword back to what it was.

I realy realy hope they change it back as it is now it is usless.

[Maekrix Waere.2087]

41 minutes ago, Sansar.1302 said:

I realy realy hope they change it back as it is now it is usless.

It is objectively not useless.  Hell, it's meta now in many builds.  And, yeah, there's a conversation that could be had there; about what we should value and if making something into a meta weapon is a good thing or not.  But you can't just deny reality and expect to be taken seriously.

[Fueki.4753]

4 hours ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

I admit it's bizarre reading this thread.  I've been an active player since before HoT and in all that time I don't think I ever met a single person in-game who thought that Ranger sword was even a decent PvE weapon.  Before this thread I have only ever heard people talk about it having been garbage in PvE, with even main-hand axe always being the better power weapon.  It's damage was weak and the nature of it's mobility was an active detriment in dungeons and fractals; no matter if we were stacking in a corner to LoS some dungeon mobs or staying on top of our Phalanx Strength Warrior so we all had might.  Since then, things have become even more about stacking than they were back then, and PvE sword only became worse and worse.  New sword fixes both of these problems and, as someone who has been waiting since LS3 for an even decent power main-hand to pair with off-hand axe, I am very appreciative of it.

I have always thought of Ranger sword as "Ah, a tool for the competitive players."  And if you're a WvW or sPvP player who used sword a ton, then I do truly feel for you.  I don't sPvP and I never used sword in WvW, so I can't feel what you feel but I know losing tools always sucks.  And, as bad as it used to be, if you enjoyed it in PvE before the changes, then I'm sorry for your loss, too.  I hope you find a new weapon that can bring you that joy.  Regardless, however, I sincerely hope that ANet never changes sword back to what it was.

It's not always a matter of the numbers hitting certain heights. People just had fun using it, which they may no longer do.

If people felt the need to hit the best possible numbers, there were other weapons to choose from. Numbers are not a good reason to eradicate the fun that people had with Ranger's old sword.

And you likely hardly read about people enjoying sword, because they were enjoying playing with it, instead of writing about it on the forums. Humans have an innate bias towards negativity, so complains are the majority of what gets written online.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Zyreva.1078]

5 hours ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

And if you're a WvW or sPvP player who used sword a ton, then I do truly feel for you.

As WvW/PvP player who used sword a ton across pretty much all of it's versions i can assure you - it's now much stronger than before in WvW and sPvP too.

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

People just had fun using it, which they may no longer do.

Pretty sure there are now more players that are having fun with sword than before. In all game modes. Play rates alone speak volumes.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Fueki.4753]

25 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Pretty sure there are now more players that are having fun with sword than before. In all game modes. Play rates alone speak volumes.

We have no way of know that, since Arenanet release no numbers. And even if they did, we'd have no way of knowing how much of those numbers represent players who have fun with the new sword and how many are just using it as part of some top end build they found online.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[DanAlcedo.3281]

As others said, the previous version was a gimmick weapon. 

Now it's one of the best power dps weapons in the game. 

 

[Zyreva.1078]

21 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

We have no way of know that, since Arenanet release no numbers. And even if they did, we'd have no way of knowing how much of those numbers represent players who have fun with the new sword and how many are just using it as part of some top end build they found online.

We don't need numbers from anet when looking ingame shows such a clear picture. And it's not like sword ranger outperforms everything else and with no competition left and nothing to gain from playing "top end" builds other than fun, it should be pretty safe to assume that the amount of players that are playing it despite not having fun is minuscule.

[aymnad.9023]

2 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

It's not always a matter of the numbers hitting certain heights. People just had fun using it, which they may no longer do.

If people felt the need to hit the best possible numbers, there were other weapons to choose from. Numbers are not a good reason to eradicate the fun that people had with Ranger's old sword.

And you likely hardly read about people enjoying sword, because they were enjoying playing with it, instead of writing about it on the forums. Humans have an innate bias towards negativity, so complains are the majority of what gets written online.

And I did not have fun with the previous design while I enjoy the current one, it has good numbers and makes sense. The dash in forcing you to use a slow evade with a massive backward movement was not working for evade and was forcing you out of fight when you wanted to stay in to do damage so it did not accomplish much.

Edited December 9, 2023 by aymnad.9023

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, aymnad.9023 said:

And I did not have fun with the previous design while I enjoy the current one

You (most likely) already had a favourite play style that wasn't effected by sword being the way it was before. But the people whose preferred sword before lost their preferred play style and nothing else in the game comes even close to it.

You already had something you enjoyed, and gained a bit more, while other people completely lost what they enjoyed most.

1 hour ago, aymnad.9023 said:

it has good numbers and makes sense.

Numbers are mostly irrelevant when it comes to fun and sense always depends on the player.

To me, it made more sense to have a backwards evade, a Leap to re-engage and a fun ability to move around the enemy, rather than having a weapon that consist nothing but auto-attacks and leaps. I really don't need need two leaps on one weapon.

If they felt they needed to touch sword, no matter what, they could simply have shuffled the abilities around, so that Serpent Strike was stand-alone as ability 3, while Hornet Sting flips over to Monarch's Leap on ability 2. Basically, reverting the Octobre 2019 changes is the most they should have done mechanically.

But them eradicating Hornet's Sting and the former Serpent's Strike to give the weapon a second leap just feels bad to me.

1 hour ago, aymnad.9023 said:

The dash in forcing you to use a slow evade with a massive backward movement was not working for evade and was forcing you out of fight when you wanted to stay in to do damage so it did not accomplish much.

Horned Sting worked well enough to evade attacks and AoEs. And you could use Monarch's Leap to re-engage, so one wasn't out of melee range for long. It may have had a few seconds of down time, but that was fine. Not everything needs to be optimized for golem benchmarks.

The only weird part with Serpent's Strike was that it was the flip over ability of Monarch's Leap, instead of being stand-alone. But it worked fine as an Evade.

2 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

We don't need numbers from anet when looking ingame shows such a clear picture. And it's not like sword ranger outperforms everything else and with no competition left and nothing to gain from playing "top end" builds other than fun, it should be pretty safe to assume that the amount of players that are playing it despite not having fun is minuscule.

And they could simply have buffed Greatsword, Hammer or even Axes to 'outperform everything else' without changing how these weapons work.

Number chasers would have been equally happy that way, while the sword enjoyers would not have taken a hit to their fun.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[aymnad.9023]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

You (most likely) already had a favourite play style that wasn't effected by sword being the way it was before. But the people whose preferred sword before lost their preferred play style and nothing else in the game comes even close to it.

You already had something you enjoyed, and gained a bit more, while other people completely lost what they enjoyed most.

Your argument “it was fine because you were not playing it”(even if you have 0 clue if I did play it) is ridiculous. After all…. it is fine now even if you do not play it. Right? Also I was playing sword axe instead of gs when sword did not get its first rework and when axe 4 still had damage. 

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Numbers are mostly irrelevant when it comes to fun and sense always depends on the player.

That's nice and all but does it make it work? The answer was a no. In PvE you would just use the auto and in PvP you would not have access to the good skills without going through a lot of animations. Also as I said now it is more fun to me (and obviously too other people) so if you do not care about numbers but about the enjoyment of "other people" it should also matter right?

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

To me, it made more sense to have a backwards evade, a Leap to re-engage and a fun ability to move around the enemy, rather than having a weapon that consist nothing but auto-attacks and leaps. I really don't need need two leaps on one weapon.

 

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

If they felt they needed to touch sword, no matter what, they could simply have shuffled the abilities around, so that Serpent Strike was stand-alone as ability 3, while Hornet Sting flips over to Monarch's Leap on ability 2. Basically, reverting the Octobre 2019 changes is the most they should have done mechanically.

But them eradicating Hornet's Sting and the former Serpent's Strike to give the weapon a second leap just feels bad to me.

Horned Sting worked well enough to evade attacks and AoEs. And you could use Monarch's Leap to re-engage, so one wasn't out of melee range for long. It may have had a few seconds of down time, but that was fine. Not everything needs to be optimized for golem benchmarks.

The only weird part with Serpent's Strike was that it was the flip over ability of Monarch's Leap, instead of being stand-alone. But it worked fine as an Evade.

The backward animation always had a more important delay meaning you could not avoid quick skills. During core and Hot days you would count on serpent strike (which was not hidden back then) to react. This is why at the time I did not mind the backward animation.  Then they released the 2nd iteration where you had to go through multiple long animation lock to get it and “maybe” have a good use. It made it unfun to play and was it unfun to fight because people would instead spam everything.

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

And they could simply have buffed Greatsword, Hammer or even Axes to 'outperform everything else' without changing how these weapons work.

I have no idea what you are trying to say. Outside of hammer and axe offhand in PvP / WvW all those weapons were outperforming sword by a large margin.

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Number chasers would have been equally happy that way, while the sword enjoyers would not have taken a hit to their fun.

 😄 

Edited December 9, 2023 by aymnad.9023

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, aymnad.9023 said:

After all…. it is fine now even if you do not play it. Right?

If there was another weapon that played similarly, it may have been one thing, but there isn't. Ranger's old sword was the only one that played in that manner. I can't think of another weapon that comes even close to that kind of movement.

But now, it's just two generic leaps. There are numerous other weapons that feature leaps. They didn't have eradicated uniqueness for the sake of adding even more of the same that's already is widely accessible.

The people who enjoyed it before no longer have an option for a similar play style.

1 hour ago, aymnad.9023 said:

That's nice and all but does it make it work? The answer was a no. In PvE you would just use the auto and in PvP you would not have access to the good skills without going through a lot of animations.

At least for me, the old sword worked fine in sPvP. The ever-growing AoE swamp and CC spam were/are more of an issue to me.

1 hour ago, aymnad.9023 said:

Also as I said now it is more fun to me (and obviously too other people) so if you do not care about numbers but about the enjoyment of "other people" it should also matter right?

If you enjoy it now with nothing but leaps, you should equally be able enjoy the other weapon options with leaps.

But the people who enjoyed the old sword are left with no option for a similar play style.

1 hour ago, aymnad.9023 said:

The backward animation always had a more important delay meaning you could not avoid quick skills. During core and Hot days you would count on serpent strike (which was not hidden back then) to react. This is why at the time I did not mind the backward animation.

When people now about the delay, they can play around it. If an ability seemed too quick for it, one could always opt for a normal dodge.

I addressed the ability switch-around already from Octobre 2019 and mentioned that they should just have reverted it. But even after that change, to me the weapon was more unique and fun than just having two leaps like it does now.

It'd likely be the best, if Arenanet just took their approach to Ranger's hammer and added being able to choose weapon abilities to more weapons. That way, the two leaps enjoyers can have their new sword, while the old sword advocates can have back the weapon they enjoyed for years.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

.If you enjoy it now with nothing but leaps, you should equally be able enjoy the other weapon options with leaps.

How many one-handed mobility options with build in defense does ranger have again?

There are no alternatives and sword has been integral for many ranger builds over the years for that reason. And all of those builds suffered from sword being as bad as it was. The buffs have opend up a variety of builds that are now viable (again). A few players having fun being useless is hardly a reason to keep the weapon in it's garbage state and therefore limiting options for everyone else.