Thoughts on swords?

[felincyriac.5981]

will be very sad if sword just ends up being a "oh but its fun in open world pve" weapon, when swords were announced I was so excited, dual wielding sword necro? Oh yes please. Even got some nice sword skins. But they just feel so meh to use...

[draxynnic.3719]

52 minutes ago, Vennyhedgie.5369 said:

The problem with this is that the healing comes before the sacrifice and, very often, is completely wasted because you are at full health already. In PvE at least, GW2 is not the kind of game where you hover around the mid-ranges for health percents. It's very bursty, both in damage intake and healing output, meaning your health often just ping-pongs from almost-dead to full health very frequently. 

I'll be honest, while I conceptually like the idea of the health sacrifice mechanic, it makes no sense for it to exist in GW2. I think the only successful attempt they've made with something similar is with Vindicator's Blue elite skill, because it also prevents you from gaining health while you maintain it.

Sure, the healing from the very first skill you use is often wasted. Then you sacrifice. Then the next skill heals you. And if you've fully healed before that happens, you're obviously getting enough healing and have no reason to hold back.

But if you are low on health, and your heal skill is on cooldown, you can refrain from sacrificing and benefit from the healing.

Don't get me wrong, in instanced content where you have a pocket healer, it probably doesn't matter. But in my experience, most necromancer heals have long recharges, a situational effect, or both, while also having fewer active defences than most professions, so when playing solo you absolutely can end up spending a fair amount of time at mid-to-low health hoping to just hold out long enough for the heal skill to come up again. This gives a means for getting through that sort of situation. I can also see potential uses in competitive.

Of course, this all requires that the numbers be balanced appropriately.

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Sure, the healing from the very first skill you use is often wasted. Then you sacrifice. Then the next skill heals you. And if you've fully healed before that happens, you're obviously getting enough healing and have no reason to hold back.

But if you are low on health, and your heal skill is on cooldown, you can refrain from sacrificing and benefit from the healing.

Don't get me wrong, in instanced content where you have a pocket healer, it probably doesn't matter. But in my experience, most necromancer heals have long recharges, a situational effect, or both, while also having fewer active defences than most professions, so when playing solo you absolutely can end up spending a fair amount of time at mid-to-low health hoping to just hold out long enough for the heal skill to come up again. This gives a means for getting through that sort of situation. I can also see potential uses in competitive.

Of course, this all requires that the numbers be balanced appropriately.

Fair point. I suppose I haven't noticed it as much either because of harbinger's self heal through blight recovering it quickly. I've only really tried swords on harbinger since I like how conceptually they tie up that elite spec into something interesting.

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Vennyhedgie.5369 said:

Fair point. I suppose I haven't noticed it as much either because of harbinger's self heal through blight recovering it quickly. I've only really tried swords on harbinger since I like how conceptually they tie up that elite spec into something interesting.

Ahh. I've mostly used it on reaper, where it is noticeable: reaper's heal skills are either core (which typically have long recharges) or the shout heal (which scales based on the number of enemies around you, so it's inefficient when fighting a single target). So you can sometimes end up spending a lot of time with depleted health, even though you can use reaper shroud to shield it somewhat. Now, there are other ways to address this on reaper, but having swords be a sustain set or a ranged DPS set in one depending on how you use it is one option.

[mirage.8046]

10 hours ago, Vennyhedgie.5369 said:

The health sacrifice reduction on the patch made the entire mechanic kinda pointless. You often just barely even notice it now. In the beta, playing swords and harbinger together FELT like you were risking your life. I liked that, that felt like it had a purpose. Harbinger as it was designed is probably the worst elite spec in the game. It had no identity. The swords fix that because they actually sinergize very well with the blight life reduction mechanic, making every move and actual, carefully thought out decision.  

The sacrifice skills need to do almost literaly twice the damage they're doing now, bringing back the previous health sacrifice numbers to actually feel like a risk (in PvE).

I do agree with some of the sentiment because swords feel like they would've complemented harbinger's life sacrifice theme way better than pistol. As much as I love harbinger, it has its own thematic problems. Even now I think sword's flipover skills need their damages buffed, especially sword 3 as a whole.

[Nimon.7840]

After playing with the swords a lot more, I definitely have a differing opinion than I had with my first impression:

Open world: I still use them on a power reaper build and it's good to have a decent but not great range option.

Instanced pve: they are just too weak compared to greatsword. Also if I saw it right both 3 skills and 4 skills are not affected by quickness, which I could understand for the 3 skills since they are leaps, but not for the 4 skills. 

Wvw: only useable for roaming and even there, there's better options. Projectiles in Zerg are just bad.

The only nice thing about swords is the mobility which is unclear, if the tooltip or the ability is bugged. Having much more leap distance than the tooltip states.

Overall the theme of sustain weapon that also damages yourself doesn't really work in my opinion. Especially when the flip over skills that cost health are much weaker than the original abilities. It's just not worth pressing flip over skills 2 and 4 at all. 

Wvw roaming meta is either one shot people with very high power dmg (for example willbender)  or playing some kind of cele abuse. Now you might think, hey cele, those are longer fights right? Swords should be good in a sustain fight. 

No they aren't. The sustain they provide is ok ish, but the dmg they do at the same time is not good, especially on a cele build, because they don't inflict any conditions.

Also by not playing axe on a power necro you are missing out on that very important burst that a power build needs.

The only ok ish combination I found was axe/sword for a power build. Hitting people with the 5 and then do a higher burst with 5+2. but to be honest, just play focus. More damage, a boon rip, and isn't a projectile on it's important skill.

Imo the swords still need a lot of work. They are much better than they were in the beta, but that's about it.

[XECOR.2814]

2 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

After playing with the swords a lot more, I definitely have a differing opinion than I had with my first impression:

Open world: I still use them on a power reaper build and it's good to have a decent but not great range option.

Instanced pve: they are just too weak compared to greatsword. Also if I saw it right both 3 skills and 4 skills are not affected by quickness, which I could understand for the 3 skills since they are leaps, but not for the 4 skills. 

Wvw: only useable for roaming and even there, there's better options. Projectiles in Zerg are just bad.

The only nice thing about swords is the mobility which is unclear, if the tooltip or the ability is bugged. Having much more leap distance than the tooltip states.

Overall the theme of sustain weapon that also damages yourself doesn't really work in my opinion. Especially when the flip over skills that cost health are much weaker than the original abilities. It's just not worth pressing flip over skills 2 and 4 at all. 

Wvw roaming meta is either one shot people with very high power dmg (for example willbender)  or playing some kind of cele abuse. Now you might think, hey cele, those are longer fights right? Swords should be good in a sustain fight. 

No they aren't. The sustain they provide is ok ish, but the dmg they do at the same time is not good, especially on a cele build, because they don't inflict any conditions.

Also by not playing axe on a power necro you are missing out on that very important burst that a power build needs.

The only ok ish combination I found was axe/sword for a power build. Hitting people with the 5 and then do a higher burst with 5+2. but to be honest, just play focus. More damage, a boon rip, and isn't a projectile on it's important skill.

Imo the swords still need a lot of work. They are much better than they were in the beta, but that's about it.

Someone in the forums who actually plays the game before posting comments. You are on point with every thing in this.

Too bad, comments like this that know what they are talking about get drowned amongst comments who have no idea whats happening but they form an opinion anyways.

[darkdragon.8590]

One thing I'm noticing is that there's a delay after using an ability before you can use the flipover, so it's more efficient in terms of damage to go for example 2>4>2!>4! 

I think this should be treated as a feature rather than an issue though. For it to work however, we need the ability to start ticking its cooldown once the main is used and not after the flipover is used so that this holding doesn't slow the rotation (unsure if this is how this currently works I didn't check.

Also need to improve the cast time on the 4 it just feels really awkward to use in the kit with the cast at its current speed.

Noting that power reaper sword 5 does nice damage to defiance bars at 346 which is more than the flesh golem charge

[Shuzuru.3651]

I realise I never gave my thought on necro swords.

I have been using them quite a bit in open world and instanced pve.

Globally, they are doing the work, much better than in beta, the ratio sustain/health cost/ damage is quite better. The auto feel less clunky despite that weird rythm between 2->3 and 3->1 (the first gap feel too long, the second too short)

The cleaving and the fact all it's damage part is range is quite nice.

The damage seems mostly fine, I saw a lot of comparaison with greatsword, but it's quite unfair, greatsword is obviously better and that's how it should be. The thing you should be comparing it to is staff, axe/focus and dagger (dagger mh vs sword mh, for instanced content), and while i didn't look too in depth the numbers, they seems ok as a range option to maintain dps uptime.

The flipover delay is a bit clunky at first, but I understand why it's probably there (attack travel time for 2 and 5) but you can somehow play around by casting skills in between.

On the negative side, I wouldn't mind a larger window for the consume skills, which seems short, as well as a way to see flipover skill timeout in general (thief repeater, mirage ambush, etc...).

Also, not sure about the lf generation. Seem fine against multiple target, but quite low on simple target.

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Shuzuru.3651 said:

The damage seems mostly fine, I saw a lot of comparaison with greatsword, but it's quite unfair, greatsword is obviously better and that's how it should be. The thing you should be comparing it to is staff, axe/focus and dagger (dagger mh vs sword mh, for instanced content), and while i didn't look too in depth the numbers, they seems ok as a range option to maintain dps uptime.

This mirrors something I'd been thinking but never quite got to commenting on myself. Greatsword is a melee weapon that's purely offensive apart from a couple of CC effects (and those skills are still more offensive than defensive) - it really SHOULD have higher capability to deal damage. The times when you see a ranged weapon outDPSing the melee weapons on the same profession, there's usually either some weird trait interaction going on, or the melee weapons in question have a significant part of their power budget in having defensive skills to help survive being in melee.

[Dadnir.5038]

5 hours ago, Shuzuru.3651 said:

The damage seems mostly fine, I saw a lot of comparaison with greatsword, but it's quite unfair, greatsword is obviously better and that's how it should be.

The issue isn't the damage. The issue is that the health sacrifice lack purpose.

[Shuzuru.3651]

12 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The issue isn't the damage. The issue is that the health sacrifice lack purpose.

Well, it's to increase damage? I mean, it allow you to double if not more the damage of a skill for the same cooldown.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Shuzuru.3651 said:

Well, it's to increase damage? I mean, it allow you to double if not more the damage of a skill for the same cooldown.

So does that mean that without the health sacrifice the Sword/Sword set is supposed to be half a Greatsword? Because that's effectively what it is right now.

If damage is the purpose then it should give a substancial advantage in damage output over weapons that do not sacrifice anything. So, no, damage isn't the purpose.

The truth is that the health sacrifice do have a purpose but this purpose is difficult to accept. The health sacrifice solely exist to mitigate the inate sustain brought by the Sword/Sword skillset.

[darkdragon.8590]

9 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

So does that mean that without the health sacrifice the Sword/Sword set is supposed to be half a Greatsword? Because that's effectively what it is right now.

If damage is the purpose then it should give a substancial advantage in damage output over weapons that do not sacrifice anything. So, no, damage isn't the purpose.

The truth is that the health sacrifice do have a purpose but this purpose is difficult to accept. The health sacrifice solely exist to mitigate the inate sustain brought by the Sword/Sword skillset.

Mmm, fair point, while sword/sword offers enough utility that I don't think it should do more sustained damage than GS, it *should* have higher burst than GS when you commit to using the health sacrificing recasts, with the reason you don't being that you can't sustain through your own self damage. Theoretically, that should make it a better weapon when playing with a skilled healer in instanced content and you can trust them to help you mitigate the risk, using two skilled players to make this a rewarding kit to use in high tier play. And in open world farming where DPS checks aren't as important and you don't really get healers, it'd instead put the onus on the necro player to balance DPS output with their own survivability. A good necro should be able to leverage both their hp and shroud as a resource to make the sword outperform GS, while GS can remain the standard for players seeking a less intense experience.

[Shuzuru.3651]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

So does that mean that without the health sacrifice the Sword/Sword set is supposed to be half a Greatsword? Because that's effectively what it is right now.

If damage is the purpose then it should give a substancial advantage in damage output over weapons that do not sacrifice anything. So, no, damage isn't the purpose.

The truth is that the health sacrifice do have a purpose but this purpose is difficult to accept. The health sacrifice solely exist to mitigate the inate sustain brought by the Sword/Sword skillset.

It mean that sword is both a sustain weapon and a damage weapon, depending on how you use it, so it's versatile, so it's actually nice.

Usually, damage weapon are mostly damage only, with survival utility being more a way to be even more agressive (like with stun or immo to pin down your foe).

This one got a health neutral hight damage (heal yourself, damage yourself) which mimic a "classic" damage weapon, and a low damage sustain option, which mimic more defensive weapon set.

[draxynnic.3719]

17 hours ago, darkdragon.8590 said:

Mmm, fair point, while sword/sword offers enough utility that I don't think it should do more sustained damage than GS, it *should* have higher burst than GS when you commit to using the health sacrificing recasts, with the reason you don't being that you can't sustain through your own self damage. Theoretically, that should make it a better weapon when playing with a skilled healer in instanced content and you can trust them to help you mitigate the risk, using two skilled players to make this a rewarding kit to use in high tier play. And in open world farming where DPS checks aren't as important and you don't really get healers, it'd instead put the onus on the necro player to balance DPS output with their own survivability. A good necro should be able to leverage both their hp and shroud as a resource to make the sword outperform GS, while GS can remain the standard for players seeking a less intense experience.

The issue is that this would result in swords being THE weaponset to use in group content where you have that pocket healer to negate the sacrifice.

As has been said a few times before, the sacrifice seems to be intended more to offset the healing. You can choose not to sacrifice and have lower damage in exchange for sustain, or you can sacrifice, offsetting the sustain in exchange for damage.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

I was kind of shocked at how good 2 swords felt, replacing my staff on my power reaper.  Getting the 100 kills was a breeze and I am keeping them.  No idea if they are a good choice over staff, but they glitch less and are much easier to target sky objects with.

I just wish my Condi necro had some better choices.  I am sick of harb condi.

[Aenesthesia.1697]

On 3/10/2024 at 6:17 AM, mirage.8046 said:

I do agree with some of the sentiment because swords feel like they would've complemented harbinger's life sacrifice theme way better than pistol. As much as I love harbinger, it has its own thematic problems. Even now I think sword's flipover skills need their damages buffed, especially sword 3 as a whole.

Why sword 3? it's a great mobility skill, why does it need to be part of the rotation? 

[Aenesthesia.1697]

15 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The issue is that this would result in swords being THE weaponset to use in group content where you have that pocket healer to negate the sacrifice.

As has been said a few times before, the sacrifice seems to be intended more to offset the healing. You can choose not to sacrifice and have lower damage in exchange for sustain, or you can sacrifice, offsetting the sustain in exchange for damage.

I think there are several possible niches for the swords in PVE:

- Higher sustained damage than GS above enemy's 50% (which would make GS a burst option to pop before going into shroud and then the go to option below 50%)

- higher burst damage than dagger/staff, in which case it would replace both as the burst weapon to use before going into shroud

- Neither of the above, but a decent weapon for ranged damage. In this case, it would have its use in fights where you cannot always melee, or need mobility, but it would be a subpar option for fights where mele is not a problem, allowing for some dagger/staff use depending on the encounter.  I think this is where the kit is at right now. I haven't tested yet whether the damage uptime from ranged attacks offsets the loss in burst from not using dagger, and it's actually difficult to test it in a controlled environment.  

Edited March 13 by Aenesthesia.1697

[Tren.5120]

Nevermind.

Edited March 15 by Tren.5120
Nevermind.