Why the drastic change to 1H-Sword?

[Fueki.4753]

3 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

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

Noone said it needs to be a one-hander. It would be fine with me, if Arenanet gave us a two-hander with similar movement to the old sword, so that play style isn't completely gone from the game.

That aside, Serpent's Strike lost evade time. And with Hornet's Sting being removed, it lost another half a second of evade time. With less evade time this new version looks less defensive to me.

And with going from three to two movement abilities, it feels like it lost mobility to me.

3 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

The buffs have opend up a variety of builds that are now viable (again).

It was perfectly viable to use before. The damage could have been increased without removing Hornet Sting and the former Serpent's Strike.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Maekrix Waere.2087]

5 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

It was perfectly viable to use before. The damage could have been increased without removing Hornet Sting and the former Serpent's Strike.

I mean, in PvE, at least, it was only viable in the same respect as Soldier's stats are viable in PvE.  Yeah, you could clear content with it, but let's not pretend that it was a serious option.*  Even if we set aside the damage numbers (because they could have been changed), the manner of mobility on sword was inherently at odds with the nature of PvE in this game.  Like it or not; wish it was different or not; stacking for boons and heals is the way GW2 PvE has worked since before HoT and is the style of play that the game is currently being designed around.  In this design space, Ranger Sword was inherently flawed as a PvE weapon because both the 3 and the first part of the 2 inherently pulled you out of the stack; quite a big sticking point.

I'd even go so far as to argue that the fact no other weapon in the game is designed in a similar way just goes to show exactly how flawed it was.  Stuff that works well gets reused and iterated upon.

* = And there's nothing wrong with that.  IMO, one of the most beautiful parts of GW2's design is how free the player is to experiment with attribute and trait combos to find a build that they jive with.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Maekrix Waere.2087

[Sansar.1302]

34 minutes ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

I mean, in PvE, at least, it was only viable in the same respect as Soldier's stats are viable in PvE.  Yeah, you could clear content with it, but let's not pretend that it was a serious option.*  Even if we set aside the damage numbers (because they could have been changed), the manner of mobility on sword was inherently at odds with the nature of PvE in this game.  Like it or not; wish it was different or not; stacking for boons and heals is the way GW2 PvE has worked since before HoT and is the style of play that the game is currently being designed around.  In this design space, Ranger Sword was inherently flawed as a PvE weapon because both the 3 and the first part of the 2 inherently pulled you out of the stack; quite a big sticking point.

I'd even go so far as to argue that the fact no other weapon in the game is designed in a similar way just goes to show exactly how flawed it was.  Stuff that works well gets reused and iterated upon.

* = And there's nothing wrong with that.  IMO, one of the most beautiful parts of GW2's design is how free the player is to experiment with attribute and trait combos to find a build that they jive with.

Why do sword need to be a pve weapon?

It where a wvw/spvp weapon and now it is ruined as most of the defence is removed. 

 

One of the few defensive weapons ranger had is gone without any competition. 

 

[Maekrix Waere.2087]

8 minutes ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Why do sword need to be a pve weapon?

It where a wvw/spvp weapon and now it is ruined as most of the defence is removed. 

 

One of the few defensive weapons ranger had is gone without any competition. 

 

It doesn't.  I'm only speaking of it in that context.  Someone else in this thread, though, did say that it is much better now in WvW/sPvP as well and I admit to being much more inclined to believe them than I am you.

Also, Ranger has plenty of defensive weapons.  We have Greatsword with it's evade and several seconds of blocking.  Staff with it's healing, evade, and projectile destruction.  Off-hand dagger has an evade.  Off-hand mace is coming out with barrier and condi cleanse.  Sword even still has evade frames on it's 3 and has two leaps to make distance so it's not like it's defensive utility is entirely gone, either.

[Sansar.1302]

3 hours ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

It doesn't.  I'm only speaking of it in that context.  Someone else in this thread, though, did say that it is much better now in WvW/sPvP as well and I admit to being much more inclined to believe them than I am you.

Also, Ranger has plenty of defensive weapons.  We have Greatsword with it's evade and several seconds of blocking.  Staff with it's healing, evade, and projectile destruction.  Off-hand dagger has an evade.  Off-hand mace is coming out with barrier and condi cleanse.  Sword even still has evade frames on it's 3 and has two leaps to make distance so it's not like it's defensive utility is entirely gone, either.

Evade on gs auto where removed a few years ago 😞 , no evade at all on staff any more too.

[Maekrix Waere.2087]

59 minutes ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Evade on gs auto where removed a few years ago 😞 , no evade at all on staff any more too.

The evade I was talking about is on GS 3.  I admit I did forget about wisp having the evade removed.  Wisp is still an incredible defensive tool, though, and my overall point about these weapons still stands.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Maekrix Waere.2087

[Fueki.4753]

7 hours ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

I mean, in PvE, at least, it was only viable in the same respect as Soldier's stats are viable in PvE.  Yeah, you could clear content with it, but let's not pretend that it was a serious option.

How do you define "serious option"?

At least to me, games are supposed to be about enjyoment, not about being serious.

Not everything needs to be optimized around numbers.

7 hours ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

Even if we set aside the damage numbers (because they could have been changed), the manner of mobility on sword was inherently at odds with the nature of PvE in this game.

It was absolutely not at odds with how the game was intended to be. If anything, the boon vomit melee pile feels like going against how the game used to be.

7 hours ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

ILike it or not; wish it was different or not; stacking for boons and heals is the way GW2 PvE has worked since before HoT and is the style of play that the game is currently being designed around.

And this is the actual issue they should work on. At least to me, GW2 was a far better designed game before the powercreep and unnecessary rise of boon vomit that came with HoT.

And even if they are hopelessly infatuated with their boon vomit melee pile, they should stop trying to scrub out anything that doesn't align with it.

7 hours ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

In this design space, Ranger Sword was inherently flawed as a PvE weapon because both the 3 and the first part of the 2 inherently pulled you out of the stack; quite a big sticking point.

And not everything needs to align with that design space. There need to be alternatives to that.

7 hours ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

I'd even go so far as to argue that the fact no other weapon in the game is designed in a similar way just goes to show exactly how flawed it was.  Stuff that works well gets reused and iterated upon.

If there's only one weapon for a specific play style, it's fine, as long as that play style can exist at all.

De-working the only weapon that play in a specific way is literally telling people "we don't like how you enjoyed the game, go and play different now".

And they had the opportunity to introduce a new weapon that plays similarly to how the superior sword played, to make up for its loss. But they didn't even try to do that. It's almost as if they are against how some people try to enjoy the game differently and are scrubbing out everything that differs from their melee pile.

7 hours ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

 IMO, one of the most beautiful parts of GW2's design is how free the player is to experiment with attribute and trait combos to find a build that they jive with.

And the unique things that made GW2 greater than it is today are slowly but constantly scrubbed out of the game with nothing to replace them.

Fall damage traits? Removed without a baseline reduction of fall damage.

Unique buffs? Removed for the sake of introducing even more generic boon vomit.

FUN rune effects, like summoning effects, that had little to no effect of the top end cookie cutter boon vomit melee pile? FUN detected and removed. Relics are all about numbers now. I haven't even bothered using my free Relic choice boxes, because there's nothing of interest to me.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Maekrix Waere.2087]

8 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

How do you serious option to begin with? Games are supposed to be about having fun.

Not everything needs to be optimized around numbers.

I agree.  I love me a weird gimmick build in open world and the like.  But let's not pretend a gimmick build being fun makes it good.  Enjoy them and love them for what they are, but meta builds are meta for a reason.  Yeah, we could have a discussion all about how and why players value speed and efficiency over everything else.  We could talk about if those are the right values to have or if they do more harm to the gaming landscape than they do good.  But that's kinda beyond the scope of this discussion about the changes to Ranger Sword.  At the end of the day, the MMO community in aggregate has chosen to value speed and efficiency of clearing content above most other things.  (I'm certain an exception exists somewhere but it would still be an exception.)  And those values can be measured in DPS.

21 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

It was absolutely not ad odds with how the game was intended to be. If anything, the boon vomit melee pile feels like going against how the game used to be.

And this is the actual issue they should work on. At least to me, GW2 was a far better designed game before the powercreep and unnecessary rise of boon vomit that came with HoT.

And even if they are hopelessly infatuated with their boon vomit melee pile, they should stop trying to scrub out anything that doesn't align with it.

And not everything needs to align with that design space. There need to be alternatives to that.

And the unique things that made GW2 greater than it is today are slowly but constantly scrubbed out of the game with nothing to replace them.

Fall damage traits? Removed without a baseline reduction of fall damage.

Unique buffs? Removed for the sake of introducing even more generic boon vomit.

Intentions change.  A video game is a living document that shifts and alters over time alongside and in reaction to it's player base.  And let's not harken back to ye olde GW2 as this hallowed time that we have fallen from.  As many problems as I may have with current GW2, it's a far cry from when you had kitten like the entire necromancer class being an insta-kick from dungeon groups.  I agree in spirit with a lot of your complaints.  I do think that the boon system is holding the game back in a lot of ways.  I wish they'd take a step back and ask if they truly want Quickness, Alacrity, 25 Might, Fury, Prot, and Regen to be these 100% uptime things.  I do wish they'd take a look back at implementing more unique buffs instead of everything just being a boon.  I miss Spotter, Assassin's Presence, Banners, Grace of the Land, and so many more being those unique buffs.  But I also acknowledge the problems they created.

Playerbases follow what optimizers theorize.   I don't want the one ranger in the squad to be forced to run Spotter or else be kicked from groups.  Because you *know* that that would be a common occurrence.  I don't want the one warrior to be forced to run 2 or 3 banners plus EA or else be kicked.  The rev to be forced to run AP.  Engineers forced to run Pinpoint.  And in that context, I get it.  I get why they've sanded down all the unique buffs into just giving boons.  Nowadays, if you get a Boonheal and a BoonDPS in each subgroup and they both keep up their expected boons noone really cares what classes they are.  It's a really complicated situation and I feel for the designers even as I do hope they walk some of it back.

As for the Runes/Relics and such I do kind of agree.  I certainly agreed on release, but admit that the newest release has a couple actually interesting relics in it.  Midnight King and Karakosa relics are honestly kind of exciting to me and I really hope we get more relics in that vein.  Relics that make me take a step back and look back through every single build option to see if I can make a build that utilizes them to the maximum.  Even Nourys as a Relic is more interesting than most of the old rune sets ever were.  On the other hand, yeah.  I miss being able to cheese Belcher's Bluff with Dolyak Runes.  I missed the idea of forming a silly gimmick team in WvW using Snowfall runes and fall damage traits to do dive bombs off the ramparts of SMC.  A lot has been lost over the years, and a lot of it was a lot of fun... but being fun didn't make them all good.

[Fueki.4753]

58 minutes ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

I agree.  I love me a weird gimmick build in open world and the like.  But let's not pretend a gimmick build being fun makes it good.  Enjoy them and love them for what they are, but meta builds are meta for a reason.

Meta builds can be meta builds for all I care. But that doesn't mean other toys in the game should be bend and broken apart to fit into that.

If sword mechanically didn't fit into that mentally, Arenanet should have just buffed a weapon that already fits better for the melee pile, instead of de-working sword.

58 minutes ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

At the end of the day, the MMO community in aggregate has chosen to value speed and efficiency of clearing content above most other things.

What do you think this "MMO community" constitutes of? To me, it sounds like you only include the top 10% (a generous estimate) of players that do high end content like high level mythic+ or heroic/mythic raiding in WoW or savage raids in FF14.

The vast, VAST majority of players I met in MMORPGs run what they think is fun. For example, about half of the Fury Warriors I met in WoW were playing with one-handers (not counting the Legion expansion, due to the forced weapon types), despite Blizzard under-tuning Fury Warrior with one-handers on purpose to shoehorn people into using two two-handers.

Hardly anyone I met in low Mythic+, heroic or normal dungeons or in LFR cared about being efficient or quick, as long as the content was eventually completed. Similarly, almost noone minded people dying left and right during raids and alliance raid roulettes in FF14.

All these people, who don't fit your apparent definition, belong to what I would consider a "MMORPG community"

58 minutes ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

Midnight King and Karakosa relics are honestly kind of exciting to me and I really hope we get more relics in that vein.

To me, those two don't sound fun or engaging at all, even if I had access to them.

Midnight King is just boons on disable, so it basically gives things I don't care about using a type of mechanic I rarely engage with.

Similarly, Karakosa is just healing numbers when blasting a combo field. It's not even any finisher, it's just blast.

Nourys is just growing larger and healing a bit after removing boons, which is a mechanic Arenanet has slowly been reducing over time.

These impact my experience far less than having a Rock Dog by my side or summoning crows to peck at my enemy's eyes.

58 minutes ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

Relics that make me take a step back and look back through every single build option to see if I can make a build that utilizes them to the maximum.

This again is just more optimization, which is not what everyone wants.

And other ways of having fun, like summoning effects on runes, have purposefully being removed with nothing comparable being given back in return. That's just like the old  Ranger's sword has been effectively eradicated with them not giving back anything comparable with the upcoming new weapons.

It's less than half a step short of them literally saying "We don't want you having fun that way, so we removed that way of playing the game."

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Maekrix Waere.2087]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

What do you think this "MMO community" constitutes of? To me, it sounds like you only include the top 10% (a generous estimate) of players that do high end content like high level mythic+ or heroic/mythic raiding in WoW or savage raids in FF14.

The vast, VAST majority of players I met in MMORPGs run what they think is fun. For example, about half of the Fury Warriors I met in WoW were playing with one-handers (not counting the Legion expansion, due to the forced weapon types), despite Blizzard under-tuning Fury Warrior with one-handers on purpose to shoehorn people into using two two-handers.

Hardly anyone I met in low Mythic+, heroic or normal dungeons or in LFR cared about being efficient or quick, as long as the content was eventually completed. Similarly, almost noone minded people dying left and right during raids and alliance raid roulettes in FF14.

All these people, who don't fit your apparent definition, belong to what I would consider a "MMORPG community"

Perhaps this is a self-selection thing.  To me, the idea that discourse in MMO communities is not dominated by efficiency and optimization is simply ridiculous.  It feels like you're just lying to my face to win an online arguement.  But I guess everyone surrounds themselves with what they consider normal.  As much as it is entirely against every experience I have had in these MMO spaces, I'm willing to accept that, for you, this is the case.  I don't believe it's representative, but I'm not gonna waste more time on this particular he-said-he-said.

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

To me, those two don't sound fun or engaging at all, even if I had access to them.

Midnight King is just boons on disable, so it basically gives things I don't care about using a type of mechanic I rarely engage with.

Similarly, Karakosa is just healing numbers when blasting a combo field. It's not even any finisher, it's just blast.

Nourys is just growing larger and healing a bit after removing boons, which is a mechanic Arenanet has slowly been reducing over time.

These impact my experience far less than having a Rock Dog by my side or summoning crows to peck at my enemy's eyes.

Are you joking?  Karakosa and Midnight King are relics you can plan an entire build around.  Also, summoning crows on an elite skill is the exact kind of design of many of the new relics.

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

If sword mechanically didn't fit into that mentally, Arenanet should have just buffed a weapon that already fits better for the melee pile, instead of de-working sword.

Which one?  Honest question.  Axe and Dagger are condi.  Mace is going to be support.  That leaves Sword as the only option for a main-hand Power weapon.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Maekrix Waere.2087
Mis-clicked Submit. Finished the post.

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

Karakosa and Midnight King are relics you can plan an entire build around.

And as you can see in my opinions about these, that's not what everyone enjoys doing.

1 hour ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

Also, summoning crows on an elite skill is the exact kind of design of many of the new relics.

I enjoyed having them summoned and see my enemy being pecked at. To me, that was more enjoyable than getting a few boons or higher numbers.

1 hour ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

Which one?  Honest question.  Axe and Dagger are condi.  Mace is going to be support.

I never used Ranger's axes as condition weapons. Arenanet could have bumped up the power scaling just fine.

Similarly, the maces don't need to have a low power scaling, simply because they are support-oriented.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[DarkFlopy.8197]

1 hour ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

Mace is going to be support.

Huh? Have you even tested the mace?

#2 can hit like a maul (if both hits crit) and even more

#4 can hit for around ~5k (per target)

#5 can hit for ~15k (per target)

I was testing both full glass (also uses MM) and none glass (not using MM) builds/stats, the numbers I wrote here are the none glass, if going full glass they are way higher...

Show me another "support weapon" that hits like that and don't start throwing "but if you combine it with OWP and sick em" kitten, I want pure weapons no buffs might or stacks included.

Edited December 10, 2023 by DarkFlopy.8197

[Maekrix Waere.2087]

1 hour ago, DarkFlopy.8197 said:

Huh? Have you even tested the mace?

#2 can hit like a maul (if both hits crit) and even more

#4 can hit for around ~5k (per target)

#5 can hit for ~15k (per target)

I was testing both full glass (also uses MM) and none glass (not using MM) builds/stats, the numbers I wrote here are the none glass, if going full glass they are way higher...

Show me another "support weapon" that hits like that and don't start throwing "but if you combine it with OWP and sick em" kitten, I want pure weapons no buffs might or stacks included.

I was talking main-hands.  And main-hand mace is Vigor, Protection, Healing and Regen for a subgroup.  It's a 1-stop shop for a bunch of defensive boons and is gonna be heal druid's new best friend.  Also, as a fun side-bonus, if ANet fixes the Nature's Strength reset to work with a 20-second rotation, Quick Draw M/WH is gonna be 4 blast finishers within a 10 second weapon swap for pumping boons/water fields/Karakosa heals. 

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I never used Ranger's axes as condition weapons. Arenanet could have bumped up the power scaling just fine.

If you bump up the power scaling then you make the condi build better, since most condi DPS run Viper's, so would also gain the bonus from higher power numbers.  So even if you didn't personally use main-hand axe for it's intended purpose, buffing it's power scaling could have made the condi build too good.

 

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

And as you can see in my opinions about these, that's not what everyone enjoys doing.

I enjoyed having them summoned and see my enemy being pecked at. To me, that was more enjoyable than getting a few boons or higher numbers.

Yes, I have definitely gotten the impression from posts in this thread that not everyone likes new build opportunities.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Maekrix Waere.2087

[DarkFlopy.8197]

21 minutes ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

I was talking main-hands.  And main-hand mace is Vigor, Protection, Healing and Regen for a subgroup.  It's a 1-stop shop for defensive boons and is gonna be heal druid's new best friend.  Also, as a fun side-bonus, if ANet fixes the Nature's Strength reset to work with a 20-second rotation, Quick Draw M/WH is gonna be 4 blast finishers within a 10 second weapon swap for pumping boons/water fields/Karakosa heals.

Well, still with AA I reached 2.5k-4k crits and that is on a none glass build (also no MM trait line included), like I said #2 hits like maul and #3 is a stun so no damage from it.

It is very on par with Sword (damage wise) except that sword has a damaging skill instead of a CC skill as #3.

I was doing the entire beta on Untamed.

21 minutes ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

Yes, I have definitely gotten the impression from posts in this thread that not everyone likes new build opportunities.

That is true, people are very anti about those stuff, when ppl ask me what I use on my untamed they lose all their motivation when I tell them I use hammer, it's like ppl are locked on GS/LB like if you don't use it you die irl or something.

Edited December 10, 2023 by DarkFlopy.8197

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

Yes, I have definitely gotten the impression from posts in this thread that not everyone likes new build opportunities.

Maybe you should think of it more as "not wanting to lose stuff they already know they enjoy, just for a chance of maybe liking the thing that their enjoyment is going to be deleted for."

Unlike with the old Ranger's sword, giving us the summoning effects on core Relics doesn't even take anything away from anyone. Anyone who wants to use the expansion Relics could still do so, if summoning Relics existed.

But the people, who do not like any of the Relics they released, literally got nothing in return for losing their prior enjoyment.

1 hour ago, Maekrix Waere.2087 said:

If you bump up the power scaling then you make the condi build better, since most condi DPS run Viper's, so would also gain the bonus from higher power numbers.  So even if you didn't personally use main-hand axe for it's intended purpose, buffing it's power scaling could have made the condi build too good.

Wouldn't the number pushers actually be happy, if something performed exceedingly well? So it'd have been a boon for the top end people, while the old sword people could have retained their enjoyment.

But aside from pushing the numbers of another weapon, as I already mentioned, Arenanet should simply have treated sword the similar to hammer and letting use choose whether to use the new version or the older version.

The people who want the old version could use the old version without it being affecting anyone who doesn't like it, while the people who don't like it can simply use the new version. It would have been a positive situation for people who like the new sword, while it would not have been a negative change who prefer the old sword.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Gilcroix.8630]

Recently returned to find this change. Ruined my favorite weapon, now looks like a lame pvp chase weapon. This is why pve players hate pvp players. They are why we can't have nice things. 😒

[Mell.4873]

On 12/10/2023 at 8:21 AM, Fueki.4753 said:

.t was perfectly viable to use before. The damage could have been increased without removing Hornet Sting and the former Serpent's Strike.

It was not viable in PvE which is the primary game mode. Having a skill repositioning you during combat is a horrible idea and will probably get you killed. 

Edited December 13, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Fueki.4753]

10 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

It was not viable in PvE which is the primary game mode. Having a skill repositioning you during combat is a horrible idea and will probably get you killed. 

You could equip it and its abilities worked, so it was perfectly viable to be used.

Just because a weapon does not align with the melee boon pile mentality, does not mean it's not viable to be used.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

You could equip it and its abilities worked, so it was perfectly viable to be used.

Just because a weapon does not align with the melee boon pile mentality, does not mean it's not viable to be used.

Tell that to the many bosses who stand on the edge of a platform. 

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

Tell that to the many bosses who stand on the edge of a platform. 

Edge case scenarios will always exist and there will always be solutions that do not involve removing a specific type of functionality.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Mell.4873]

7 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Edge case scenarios will always exist and there will always be solutions that do not involve removing a specific type of functionality.

Well they did likely for the very reason it was not that good in PvE due to clunky repositioning and damage.