Thoughts on swords?

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

While I can't say for certain that the numbers are where they should be for balance, I can confirm the weapons feel a lot better to use. The autos being true projectiles helps a massive amount with reliability and the speed feels more satisfying.  The change to skill Terrifying Visage/Consume also made it massively more usable.

However, I did learn that they did not fix a bug I found with them in that having a legendary sword in your mainhand (even if reskinned) causes the auto attack to cycle through even without hitting anything.

Anyone else have thoughts?

[LadyKitty.6120]

Also, something to note for people testing now: Relic of the Thief is bugged with necro swords (Kitty reported it and they're looking into it) so the numbers are likely 2-3% lower than they will be when fixed.

But yeah, Kitty likes the feel better now and damage-wise they seem to almost compete with GS according to Kitty's quick test so that's a good sign. (and will prolly be equal post-fix)

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

The projectile change helped the sword massively, no more hovering ground projectiles but real ones free aimable projectiles. Auto attacks on discountinuous terrain work properly, heck you can even shoot projectile at the sky if you want. Sword's 3 leaps feels now very fluid to use, sword 5 projectile type is good and you can now shoot it on uneven/discontinuos ground. The instant fear on the 5 is also very usefull, to keep enemies at bay.

I tested in wvw, where you can attack enemies on walls with staff you can generally do same with sword, unless you are in an unlucky spot where you would get "obstructed" (or out of range) with staff too. Same goes for attacking people from below Khylo tower ledges in pvp, and other clearly ranged attacks for example on jp spots or various spot at different height work well like attacking with real projectile. 

I can't comment on the coefficients yet, it needs more testing.

I'm impressed, the fixes on sword functionality are actually good

Edited February 27 by NecroSummonsMors.7816
typos and clarity

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

no idea what I'm doing. Just spamming every skill off cd.

1 hour ago, LadyKitty.6120 said:

Relic of the Thief is bugged with necro swords

ah, that explains it.

[Shaogin.2679]

From what I have tested, it is the best power weapon set to pair with a great sword, just not by a significant margin. Sword 3 is the only DPS loss skill, so use that one only for mobility or boon corruption. Still working on further testing to find the best rotation. Right now I am doing 2-5-4-2, 3 auto chains, 2, 3 auto chains, repeat. 

[Averax.8617]

i'm not an experienced player by any means but i find them fun as reaper. I've been yearning for a good ranged power weapon set that cleaves since i picked up the spec. Love dipping in and out of melee now. The staff exists in a weird place, and the axe was single target only, but the swords feel great on reaper

The dash may be a dps loss but it's great for coming in and using your shouts.

Edited February 28 by Averax.8617

[XenesisII.1540]

1 hour ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

no idea what I'm doing. Just spamming every skill off cd.

You'll be happy to know, you're playing as intended. 🤭

[borisslav.9026]

A lot more fun to play after the changes, I'm enjoying the fantasy, just not sure DPS numbers are there yet. It could well just be down to my (nonexistent) rotation but the numbers on golem were a little underwhelming.

[ReshiKyo.9038]

They feel very good to play and after a quick test I think they work pretty good dps wise and will probably be new BiS for Power Reaper.
There are some skills in the kit I dont quite understand or dont quite understand the design behind but overall, the weapon(s) are fun to play

[Shaogin.2679]

8 minutes ago, borisslav.9026 said:

A lot more fun to play after the changes, I'm enjoying the fantasy, just not sure DPS numbers are there yet. It could well just be down to my (nonexistent) rotation but the numbers on golem were a little underwhelming.

Yeah, I feel like it needs some after-cast reductions and a bump in power coefficients. It just doesn't feel like that big of a DPS increase at the moment.

[Radina.6057]

45 minutes ago, Shaogin.2679 said:

From what I have tested, it is the best power weapon set to pair with a great sword, just not by a significant margin.

Swords are not even close to the "old" Staff, or Dagger rotations dps wise. People pull roughly 38k on the Golem. The current mark is 41+k. If they do not bump the damage another notch, they wont see much play in PvE instance content. 

The animations and Icons look pretty. The jump feels good and will be nice in open world, but that all achieves nothing if you just wanna do your job. Kill bosses fast. Or if you check the new Strike CM, Kill bosses at all. 

I am kind of annoyed how Necro got the short stick of the deal. Again. Necro needs better Power weapons desperately. Now we finally get two new ones, and pressing any button on the offhand sword is an automatic dps loss. Might as well continue bringing a Torch for the CC.

Still. Stuff has to get touched again anyway. Some of the new weapons allow some classes to pull ridiculous numbers. Maybe the swords at least get touched enough so that they at least pull the same numbers as the dagger rotation.

Edited February 28 by Radina.6057

[Shaogin.2679]

51 minutes ago, Radina.6057 said:

Swords are not even close to the "old" Staff, or Dagger rotations dps wise. People pull roughly 38k on the Golem. The current mark is 41+k. If they do not bump the damage another notch, they wont see much play in PvE instance content. 

The animations and Icons look pretty. The jump feels good and will be nice in open world, but that all achieves nothing if you just wanna do your job. Kill bosses fast. Or if you check the new Strike CM, Kill bosses at all. 

I am kind of annoyed how Necro got the short stick of the deal. Again. Necro needs better Power weapons desperately. Now we finally get two new ones, and pressing any button on the offhand sword is an automatic dps loss. Might as well continue bringing a Torch for the CC.

Still. Stuff has to get touched again anyway. Some of the new weapons allow some classes to pull ridiculous numbers. Maybe the swords at least get touched enough so the offhand isnt dead, and the mainhand sword at least pulls the same numbers as the dagger.

Yeah, looking at the DPS rotation for the current build, I guess you would replace dagger 3-2 with sword 2-2, which will be a dps loss unless you are hitting multiple targets. Sword only has higher DPS if you stay on the weapon set, which we currently don't do because great sword is so much stronger. 

So yeah, the only benefit to sword right now is if you are fighting multiple enemies or if you are forced to attack from range for prolonged periods of time. It does feel pretty crappy when compared to what others got.

Edit: After further testing dagger and sword comes out to be roughly the same DPS because the cast time of sword 2-2 is shorter than the cast time of dagger 3-2, which makes up for the DPS loss. So overall I'd say replace dagger with sword so that if you need to range you can and you'll have higher DPS when fighting multiple enemies.

Edited February 28 by Shaogin.2679

[Jobber.6348]

I find it absolutely hilarious that a weapon with 900 range auto chain has not one but two AYE AYE AYE AYE AYE gapclosers. 

This is a great competitive weapon set and for open worlds too when you get mobbed alot, which is kind of nice because often times a pure Power DPS Reaper build has struggles to sustain properly. This set will help it greatly.  The key feature of this weapon set is being a Sustain/Power set. The one key problem with this weapon is Lifeforce generation on single targets. Absolutely stinks.

You still will rely on GS for <50% HP targets though because Gravedigger is still very very strong, and people may still use Dagger for Dagger 2 > Shroud. OH Sword could be used if you don't need Torch CC I guess. 

Edited February 28 by Yasai.3549

[mirage.8046]

both hands feel supremely good to use. the major problem is the lack of life force. even the off-hand sword doesn't feel bad to use if you want to do damage (no I'm tired of using torch or warhorn for that 😭). condi reaper will also love using them because the chill and fear synergize with deathly chill. mobility is a plus anyway because necro isn't known for that.

[Cameirus.8407]

not tested numbers, but I chucked a pair on my reaper and easily solo'd all the hard HP in HoT, and I really like having actual mobility!, so they are staying as my 2nd weapon set at least.

[Shaogin.2679]

42 minutes ago, mirage.8046 said:

both hands feel supremely good to use. the major problem is the lack of life force. even the off-hand sword doesn't feel bad to use if you want to do damage (no I'm tired of using torch or warhorn for that 😭). condi reaper will also love using them because the chill and fear synergize with deathly chill. mobility is a plus anyway because necro isn't known for that.

Sword/Sword is good for condi Reaper only if you are replacing great sword. It is still a DPS loss, but you get a full ranged damage kit. The downside of offhand sword is the long cast times. After playing them in raids tonight, I like having sword/sword on Power Reaper since the DPS is the same and I get some mobility and ranged DPS.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

1 hour ago, mirage.8046 said:

both hands feel supremely good to use. the major problem is the lack of life force. even the off-hand sword doesn't feel bad to use if you want to do damage (no I'm tired of using torch or warhorn for that 😭). condi reaper will also love using them because the chill and fear synergize with deathly chill. mobility is a plus anyway because necro isn't known for that.

Mainhand sword generates the same life force regardless of 1 target or 5, but Devouring Visage (sword 5) gives 10% per target (meaning 5 targets refills half your life force bar).

Once we get the next balance patch with Power Harb changes, I'm curious to know how that build works out.

[Methuselah.4376]

I like the novelty they bring, I like the animations and the movement, but they could use some more damage and consistent LF generation. At present, it seems they're not good enough to replace dagger in instanced content. 

[Nimon.7840]

I played the new story with them. Didn't bother to test them on golem without arc and was in wvw for a bit:

Open world: totally fine weapon. The 5 skill is great to trigger the dread trait. And gives might for every target feared.

But the dmg felt a bit weak sometimes. Extra mobility is great.

Wvw: solid weapons but nothing special (only tested one power reaper build yet, but I got a couple more ideas). I feel like axe/focus is still stronger.

Bug: to me it seems sword 3 is bugged in some way. Either they increased the leap distance and forgot to change the tooltip, or the leap distance is bugged.

I used the distance rings from blishhud and reaper shroud 2 as a reference.

Sword 3 almost travels as far as RS2 and that says 600 range in its tooltip.

That being said: the swords feel a lot more fluid to play than they did in the beta. Especially the increased leap distance is very nice. Will they make it into reapers instanced pve kit? - probably not, since the numbers aren't quite there -yet (from what I read in SC discord).

Edited February 28 by Nimon.7840

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

7 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

You'll be happy to know, you're playing as intended. 

maybe I should read the skills description and actually learn what they do... 🤔

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

10 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

However, I did learn that they did not fix a bug I found with them in that having a legendary sword in your mainhand (even if reskinned) causes the auto attack to cycle through even without hitting anything.

For me this happens even with an exotic sword.

It is also maybe worth noting that using the double leap puts you in combat due to the health sacrifice. This may open up certain strategies involving weapon swaps or other in-combat only effects without actually being in combat with anyone.

[Wolf.1972]

11 hours ago, LadyKitty.6120 said:

Also, something to note for people testing now: Relic of the Thief is bugged with necro swords (Kitty reported it and they're looking into it) so the numbers are likely 2-3% lower than they will be when fixed.

But yeah, Kitty likes the feel better now and damage-wise they seem to almost compete with GS according to Kitty's quick test so that's a good sign. (and will prolly be equal post-fix)

Are you referring to yourself in third person? That's really weird man...

[Uete.3805]

I've got no idea regarding numbers (especially with the bugged Thief Relic thingy), but they are lovely for mobility and range damage. Not a fan of reaper so I'm using them with Harbinger and they feel great as a mostly ranged kit. Might try them out on T4s and easy strikes as quick harb once arcdps is back to see how they perform.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

the final skill in the autoattack chain has a disproportionately long cast time and i find myself constantly cancelling it midway (therefore wasting time), particularly with the annoying slightly delayed followup skills with their own mini-cast times (im guessing theres a reason why they cant just have no cast time?)

sure, the aftercast is gone (i find it weird how the final attack frequently shoots out 2 projectiles now because no aftercast + non-existent cast time on 1st skill) but it doesnt really matter anyway when my character struggles to finish casting it in the first place

[Mourningstar.7309]

So I can't speak to the damage because I'm still learning the skills.  It feels a bit weaker than GS.   I will say from a flow perspective, there feels like a super small delay in the flipover skills so even if you're trying to immediately use a follow up skill the auto chain seems to start up again, forcing you to either complete an auto or interrupt it.  Doesn't feel great either way.

The built-in sustain, at least in PvE, is quite strong.  The health sacrifice also feels on the low side, I wasn't really thinking about it when using them.

My suggestions - up the health sac costs and damage across the board on the flipover skills.  If you really want to synergize this with harbinger which it feels like they might be trying to do, add some bonus damage for using health sac skills when your hp is below a certain % threshold, and make the penalty from blight count toward this.  

Edited February 28 by Mourningstar.7309