Thoughts on swords?

[KrHome.1920]

WvW roaming perspective:

I already said it after the beta and it became even more true now that ANet made these QoL changes:

Sword/Warhorn / GS / Relic of Speed / Reaper => all I ever wanted for roaming. It's fantastic.

The double leap on sword 3 is so great that I might even experiment with core necro for roaming in the future. 

[Antycypator.9874]

That 3rd AA animation made me quit immediately. It's so stupid to jump like that all the time.

[Nephalem.8921]

They are pure pvp mobility weapons. In pve it is barely worth using the skills over NOTHING. Classic power necro balancing. Meanwhile soulbeast breaks the game because the new healer weapon is also for some reason a completely busted dps weapon.

Sword 4 casttime takes way too long. Everything tickles. Damage too low and all it does is dmg. And double tapping every skill is clunky and takes quite long.

[Lonewolf Kai.3682]

4 hours ago, Antycypator.9874 said:

That 3rd AA animation made me quit immediately. It's so stupid to jump like that all the time.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. 
 

I personally love the anims. 

[Marxx.5021]

Sword/sword power reaper seems to work well in sPvP with Blood Bank. It is like when Reaper was new and tanky years ago.

[Cameirus.8407]

10 hours ago, Antycypator.9874 said:

That 3rd AA animation made me quit immediately. It's so stupid to jump like that all the time.

I love it on my asura necro. shoot, shoot, spinny jump shoot....looks awesome.

And I hated other animations so much on her I actually made a new necro over it as a sylvari!  This has saved this character from being relegated to a life opening the same chest in Bjora for all eternity.

[draxynnic.3719]

18 hours ago, Mourningstar.7309 said:

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.

If the first skill of the chain is that quick, it feels like breaking the chain after that first attack might be the correct move. Possibly even work it in between cooldown skills as well if it's that fast, although that could make for an awkward rotation.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

ok, I'm using it with Berserker's Core Necro and a classic Minion Master Build and it feels great! Dunno about the DPS (which I assume should be on the very low side), but it is definitely very fun (for max DPS I already have my Reaper Build).

[Dadnir.5038]

10 hours ago, Marxx.5021 said:

Sword/sword power reaper seems to work well in sPvP with Blood Bank. It is like when Reaper was new and tanky years ago.

That was on the feedback, they were warned. The fact that they ignored it, reduced the health sacrifice cost and even buffed some heal fact tell us how much time they spent reading the feedback.

Edited February 29 by Dadnir.5038

[Elldar.1647]

I like the swords, overall, but I feel like most of the second skill activations are not worth the health cost. All you get for chunking your health by activating them is some middling damage. It's a much better use of your time to just swap or go into Shroud. Sword 3 is an exception due to the fact that having two leaps is just very useful in general.

[felincyriac.5981]

in spvp:

 

does too little damage for the health sac, no real build can take advantage of it. On harb you will literally be cooking yourself, and reaper needs the burst from axe/focus. Maybe some bunker scourge build? 

[Flumek.9043]

The projectile changes were great.  Fantastic.

It would help with combos if flip-over effect was longer,   should go from 4s -> 6seconds. 

Atm i feel forced to spam 3322  , when optimally you want to go 3223.

Offhand is trash tho.

[GeraldBC.4927]

I like them for the most part, but their damage is still pretty low compared to greatsword or the burst from staff, even more so if you compare them to the weapons other classes have. 
Reminder for the above: No, necro being stronger than npcs and sub-elite mobs is not good enough, the class actually needs to be on par with other playable classes like guardian, engineer, revenant, mesmer etc. Unless this can be achieved, you can't really call what the game has 'balance'.

Also, I think some of the skills are way too sluggish, especially sword 4. There is no kittening way that cast time is 0.75 seconds, not even with quickness. This is a full 2 second cast and nothing will convince me otherwise. And yes, you CAN make the skills more responsive, I know you can because you succeeded in doing so with Sword 3. I'd like the sword skills to be as fluid as that. 

 

I'm looking forward to trying quickness power harbinger after the balance patch and hope the  sword issues are ironed out a little better by then.

Edited February 29 by GeraldBC.4927

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

ok, I finally went to the Golem. Stick to GS if you want to do damage. S/S is purely for fun.

HOWEVER, the health sacrifice is WAY too punishing. Even with a full Blood Minion Master, I can’t keep my health up, and if I get attacked, it’s game over. This wouldn’t be a problem if the damage were good, but as of now, swords are incredibly weak.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

6 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

ok, I finally went to the Golem. Stick to GS if you want to do damage. S/S is purely for fun.

HOWEVER, the health sacrifice is WAY too punishing. Even with a full Blood Minion Master, I can’t keep my health up, and if I get attacked, it’s game over. This wouldn’t be a problem if the damage were good, but as of now, swords are incredibly weak.

Soul Eater plus the swords' own healing is more than enough to make the health costs irrelevant in my experience.

Edited March 1 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Methuselah.4376]

After playing with swords, I can say I truly enjoy them in open world, but yeah I do switch back to dagger/torch when in instanced PvE or when against meta bosses. So created an equipment template just for swords for open world 🤪 

[Marxx.5021]

On 2/29/2024 at 8:53 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

That was on the feedback, they were warned. The fact that they ignored it, reduced the health sacrifice cost and even buffed some heal fact tell us how much time they spent reading the feedback.

Swords do not have enough damage though. Not sure if its worth taking at all in sPvP.

[Dadnir.5038]

50 minutes ago, Marxx.5021 said:

Swords do not have enough damage though. Not sure if its worth taking at all in sPvP.

The necromancer's damages are packed on the shroud (it's been like this since forever for strike damage), it's never a bad choice to take a sustain weaponset out of shroud in sPvP.

[Junkpile.7439]

Too spammy. Get's really annoying and boring really fast.

Edited March 1 by Junkpile.7439

[Brighteluden.2974]

I'll stick to dual swords over staff. axe or any combo with greatsword. I'm enjoying them quite a lot.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

11 ap is all it is good for. 

[Asum.4960]

While they are pretty decent fun to use now, I do have some complaints about them. Individually they aren't very grave, but collectively they form a pretty bad picture. 

The most minor complaints are little things like still not being a fan of the odd and disjointed AA pacing/rhythm, 2 lacking impact, and 4 feeling too slow. 

E: Also Gorge, the Sword 3 flipover mobility skill sacrificing a little bit of health and therefor putting the user in combat, slowing you down as well as preventing mount follow up will never feel good for general ooc traversal. It's so unnecessary. 

 

The next bigger complaints are about how the Life gain and Cost gimmick are just a pointless distraction from the lack of mechanical depth of the kit. As well as the Flip over gimmick, which doesn't lead to any situational Utility or interesting decision making, but really just means double the buttons to spam for damage.

Both are just shiny confetti thrown on a bland cake, meant to distract from it's mediocre taste - which ends up making things worse, because now you are also eating even blander confetti on your already bland cake. 

 

Lastly, my biggest complaint: The few good ideas that are in Sword/Sword would have been better put into the other, since over a decade underperforming and boring, weapons of Necromancer as slight reworks, instead of further pushing those into obscurity while only creating something mediocre new. 

The Sword Mainhand AA, giving Necro some ranged DPS with cleave, would have served better on either both Staff or Axe as AA replacement (Axe is too single target focused, Staff too slow, and both way too low damage - this has been a problem since literally over a decade). 

Sword 3's mobility/gap closer is pretty much exactly what I've been asking for as a Dagger 3 rework since over half a decade, actually making sense on that melee kit, and giving that weapon a proper identity as fast mobile melee which comes to you and resustains vs. GS's slow heavy hitting melee which pulls you to it and area controls. 

Sword OH ideas as a whole could have been a Focus rework - actually making intelligent use of the flipover design, rather than making it just a spammy gimmick, by using it to give the weapon relevancy in both PvE and PvP (plus better telegraphing).

Making Hungering Maelstrom an AoE Damage Nuke (with a very high power coefficient in PvE, and low in PvP), and then the Gormandize Flipover be essentially Spinal Shiver's, removing boons for a bigger nuke per boon removed, being especially effective in PvP instead - with being hit by Maelstrom acting as Telegraph for the skill there.

Devouring Visage could instead be a Binding Blade like ticking Strike Damage effect put on targets hit by the Orb, useful as Shroud pre-cast for PvE power builds and especially Reaper (for Death's Perception and Reaper's Onslaught synergy), while Consume could be the Fear still - acting as an interesting strategic tool and mind game for PvP especially, about when to Consume the Visage for the Fear. 

No Life Siphon/health cost gimmick needed on either. 

 

I'd would have preferred that over another largely gimmicky skill kit, while all the old skill kits still rot away. 

As is, beyond the excitement of finally getting anything at all new to play with, I appreciate Sword 3's mobility (but as mentioned would prefer it on Dagger 3), and that's kind of about it.

Edited March 2 by Asum.4960

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

It's not an amazing DPS weapon, but it's fun to zoom around with and fun is good. Plus it's dual Swords - the best fashion wars.

But it's what dual Daggers and the Vampirism theme should have been.

[dceptaconroy.7928]

Budget AA & DPS/Solid Mobility +1.

[Tren.5120]

They are a spammy, thoughtless weapon unless you go Condi Reaper, which basically forces some thought into it since you want to optimize your chill usage to apply as many bleeds as possible, etc.

The thing that is nice about them is that it's a faster pace weapon than Greatsword, and since its ranged you have some options for situations where you may want to back off - sometimes preemptively - and still do damage.  General Ignaxious is a good example.  I know he's going to do his AoE soon, so I tend to like being able to sort of pre-position and pre-range myself so I don't have to run across the map to get to where I need to be.

But the power damage is kind of weak, and it feels pointless to have a gap closer on the back end of a gap closer.

It just doesn't make any sense to run it if GS does more damage and you're basically forced to melee because of the gap closers in the rotation, anyways.  For a power build you spend over half your time in Shroud, anyways 😛

I find it really, really underwhelming.  If I wanna go ranged, I'm better off going Condi Scorge instead.  It's less annoying to play, IMHO since the weapon skills don't force-reposition me.