Sword-Wielding Necromancers Are Gluttons for Punishment

[arazoth.7290]

Just now, psizone.8437 said:

I can see it being used more with celestial builds, especially if the self healing part of the abilities scales well with healing power.

hmmm yea that for sure, will benefit nicely from celestial it seems

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

As a heads up, with the numbers in the livestream, Sword 2 flipover is never worth using unless your target is below 50% health.  It deals the same damage as the first hit of the auto attack chain and has a longer cast time.  At most, you might use it to maintain thief relic stacks.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Shade.7240]

Wanted a fast power melee weapon for reaper necro and got a discount axe.

[Calen.8945]

Just now, Shade.7240 said:

Wanted a fast power melee weapon for reaper necro and got a discount axe.

Feels bad man, but at least it's a fast weapon.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

2 minutes ago, Shade.7240 said:

Wanted a fast power melee weapon for reaper necro and got a discount axe.

A discount Axe?

An axe with actual AOE damage, self healing, mobility...

 

I always got more out of dagger as a weapon even before the buffs in the last patches. 

Axe only seemed like it would be decent in organized groups where you already have maxed Vulnerability but even then I never saw any use of it.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

I'm looking forward to these swords for my Condi Reaper.

Chill on the AOE auto attack chain. Self healing. Mobility.

Looks like it'll be great with my Relic of the Reaper build.

 

I spend plenty of time out of shroud because the most useful part of that is the 4 second Ice Field on a long cooldown.

[Raught.3294]

I hope the sword "Consume" abilities like Gormandize get more Impactful animations when used, in the video I could hardly tell he was using Gormandize. Made it look kinda floaty to use. 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

5 minutes ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

I'm looking forward to these swords for my Condi Reaper.

Chill on the AOE auto attack chain. Self healing. Mobility.

Looks like it'll be great with my Relic of the Reaper build.

 

I spend plenty of time out of shroud because the most useful part of that is the 4 second Ice Field on a long cooldown.

Ehh, I think scepter will still be the better pick for condi reaper.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

35 minutes ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Ehh, I think scepter will still be the better pick for condi reaper.

May be the meta still for instanced PVE. But for solo content I'm liking the Relic of the Reaper spamming Shouts and the seem like they'll be better for me.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

1 hour ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Ehh, I think scepter will still be the better pick for condi reaper.

The Metabattle Condi Reaper build seems to be exactly the same as a Condi Scourge with much fewer sources of condi's and less boosted. I just don't really understand why anyone would play it.

The Chill shout Reaper may not do as much single target damage but actually makes use of the Reapers strengths.

 

[Sarrs.4831]

Not sure what to make of these weapons but I hope when I actually get to play them they will feel sufficiently distinct from Scepter and Pistol.

I kind of like that there's a small matrix going on with Power and Condi non-proj weapons, and Power and Condi proj-based weapons. I think that the sword skills being piercing and AoE focused could be enough to make them feel unique.

I was thinking about Scepter/Sword and Axe/Sword mostly before the reveal. I think that'll be fun.

[Nimon.7840]

8 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

As a heads up, with the numbers in the livestream, Sword 2 flipover is never worth using unless your target is below 50% health.  It deals the same damage as the first hit of the auto attack chain and has a longer cast time.  At most, you might use it to maintain thief relic stacks.

Pretty much this. Well, we don't know what gear he was wearing in the stream, but some things I noticed: 

2's flip over skill is yet another weapon skill(PvE) that is supposed to be used below 50% enemy health, but GS gravedigger might just be better.

3's leaps are only 450 range?! And a skill that brings you in melee range when all other abilities are ranged? I could see a world in pvp modes, where you use like: 4 to chill, 3 to leap to your target, then use 5 to "guarantee" the skill to actually hit.

4's skills: pretty solid

5's flip over skill never worth it to use, at no point ever, 4.8k health cost is just way too much for a mere fear.

And the skills cost probably don't scale with max health, so harbinger will find it really tough to actually use the flip over skills. I played trailblazer harbinger, with t10 jade core, and in the convergence I did my max health would go down to 3.9k at full blight and 50 stacks from gathering that essence. Well that's just one very unique kind of scenario.

We will see this evening. I'm going to take a lot of time to properly test those swords.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

1 hour ago, Nimon.7840 said:

3's leaps are only 450 range?! And a skill that brings you in melee range when all other abilities are ranged? I could see a world in pvp modes, where you use like: 4 to chill, 3 to leap to your target, then use 5 to "guarantee" the skill to actually hit.

It might be the case that you don't actually need to connect with sword 3 to use the flip skill, in which case this could be okay.  Even without, our only real power specs would be Reaper and theoretically Harbinger, which both like being melee range for shroud, so leaping in and hitting shroud seems viable.

As for sword 5 flipover, it might see some use in a build with Fear of Death, since it is a 2 second base duration.  That would make sword 5 generate 4%/target going out and 7%/15% (PvP/PvE+WvW) on the flip skill, plus 4/3 seconds of fear (PvE/PvP+WvW).  That's a lot of life force and cc.

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

It might be the case that you don't actually need to connect with sword 3 to use the flip skill, in which case this could be okay.  Even without, our only real power specs would be Reaper and theoretically Harbinger, which both like being melee range for shroud, so leaping in and hitting shroud seems viable.

As for sword 5 flipover, it might see some use in a build with Fear of Death, since it is a 2 second base duration.  That would make sword 5 generate 4%/target going out and 7%/15% (PvP/PvE+WvW) on the flip skill, plus 4/3 seconds of fear (PvE/PvP+WvW).  That's a lot of life force and cc.

Didn't they explicitly demonstrate that you could use those skills without a target? Although the healing from the initial skill only happens if you hit a target, so using it twice without a target means that the initial skill can't heal to offset the sacrifice from the flipover.

[Obtena.7952]

17 hours ago, Shade.7240 said:

Wanted a fast power melee weapon for reaper necro and got a discount axe.

It's uncertain even what swords numbers are right now, so why you would already conclude Sword isn't the weapon you want on Reaper and it's just some discount axe? That doesn't make sense. 

I've seen some weapon skill previews on Reddit. Not sure how legit they are or where they come from but there are similarities between GS and swords. 

Similarities are: chill on AA chain, have a leap, has a fear, applies vuln, 
Differences are: Swords have many life steals, less DPS, a boon corrupt, less LF regain. 

So... looks to me like, if you want more out of shroud survival on Reaper without TOO much deviation from how GS Reaper works ... Sword is your bag. That probably means less in-shroud time though. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Gilcroix.8630]

I tried all the new weapons and these were by far the most fun. I'm not saying they are the best. Just saying while testing them, I really enjoyed using them and am hyped to get them in the game. Which is more than I can say for some of the others. ( Elementalist /Revenant )

[Lorelei.3918]

I dislike the swords for the same reason I dislike Necro Axe, Ranger Axe, Mesmer Greatsword, and others......using MELEE weapons as RANGED weapons is thematically just [Redacted]!  I've been saying that for the past decade, too. 

As much as I love the gameplay of GW2, the styling has always irked me. It's like this game is being made by artists from the Capital District. 

[draxynnic.3719]

Magic-users using melee weapons as spellcasting implements is a common trope in fantasy. It'd also be pretty boring if, once scepter and staff were done, the only options for magic ranged were to magic up a bow or firearm.

[Lorelei.3918]

We kinda did magic up a firearm, which is ok I guess. Wish they had given us off-hand pistol though for the symmetry. I'd be running Pistol/Pistol right now if they had.