My main issues with swords currently

[Zietlogik.6208]

#1: Secondary activation being obstructed - the secondary activation of these skills (aside from Path of Gluttony) become available when you HIT a target with the skill, but if the target goes behind a lamp post, the skill all of a sudden becomes obstructed and fails. Logically this makes no sense, if you hit the target with your skill and sacrifice health, your payoff should be the ability to use the skill reliably. 

Mechanically, it should act like a "mark" of sorts, or a "time bomb" that is active on the target, and triggers when used again. It should ignore terrain/physics and range restrictions, but still be limited by skill/player defenses such as Block and Evade, etc.

 

#2: Ground Target unwieldiness - Skill #4 (Hungering Maelstrom) has an identity issue issue in the skill set due to how the gameplay feel is set. Ground Target abilities work great on skills and weapon sets that are meant to "bombard" and stay at a specific range, whereas Swords tend to gravitate towards pushing forward or being closer to melee range and moving around, making the skill a little awkward in melee fights combined with the player movement.

 

#3: Secondary skill cast times - The "flow" of combat still feels slightly off, although greatly improved from the Beta, mainly due to having cast times on the secondary activation of skills. A way to remedy this would be to make the skills instant cast, and increasing the duration they can be activated from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. But to balance this, have the skills not immediately usable, but after a 1 or 2 seconds "cooldown" period, in order to eave them between other skill usage.

[Dadnir.5038]

15 hours ago, Zietlogik.6208 said:

#3: Secondary skill cast times - The "flow" of combat still feels slightly off, although greatly improved from the Beta, mainly due to having cast times on the secondary activation of skills. A way to remedy this would be to make the skills instant cast, and increasing the duration they can be activated from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. But to balance this, have the skills not immediately usable, but after a 1 or 2 seconds "cooldown" period, in order to eave them between other skill usage.

Yeah, more often than not, the cast times "feel bad". This is also the main issue that I have with those weapon sets.

Beyond that I'm unsatisfied with the mediocrity of the design they chose for the "life sacrifice".

That said:

• Sword off-hand is actually a decent strike damage off-hand weapon.
• Having a movement skill with a leap finisher on a necromancer's weapon is quite nice.

If it wasn't for these 2 points, I'd just throw the swords to the trash can (but that's my personal opinion).

Edited March 3 by Dadnir.5038

[Lightsbane.9012]

i don't think the damage on the secondary skills (in wvw) warrants the trade off of an hp cost.  that being said, i find swords to be really fun.  just wish they'd get a bit of a damage buff(in wvw)

[Teknomancer.4895]

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Sword off-hand is actually a decent strike damage off-hand weapon.

Agreed, I really like it as an OH option. I'm not convinced the MH sword is my cup of tea though, even with the gap closer.

Maybe after the playerbase has had more time with it to figure out its best uses, I'll take another look.

For right now though, I'll probably only use it in the OH slot. 🤷‍♂️

[XECOR.2814]

The los restriction on the flip skill does not feel good to play.
Amongst all the projectile hate in wvw you manage to hit somebody but u cant use flip skill anymore cause most of the class are 1millions miles away or behind an obstacle while u are in the cast..
If the flip skills hit like a truck it would be fine, but they are just chip damage anyway so it just feels like a waste to even spend time casting flip skill in that critical moment.

[Adenin.5973]

The secondary skills seemingly cost health just because Anet had that concept in mind originally. They are nothing special whatsoever though and do not warrant any sort of punishment for what you are getting out of them.

As of now you are punished 4 times for (trying) to use the secondary skills:

- Losing HP

- Losing dps without gaining any actual utility or good cc

- Having to sit through animation time

- Targets that died before or spawned after activating primary skill are not hit

 

Like there is no situation where you would objectively want to use the secondary skills unless you really have no other options (weapon swap+shroud on cd)

 

The leap is really great though, animations are fine (unless you are using legendaries, then they suck), although they are a bit slow, dps is meh but still manageable.

 

Edit: Also, I think the LEAST they should do about sword is to toggle secondary skill OFF entirely the moment that there is no target you can hit with that skill.

For example hitting enemies with sword 2 and they die, atm you can now either press skill 2 (secondary) and lose health for literally not getting ANYTHING out of it or you can sit through the cd. The game should know that you have zero targets for secondary skill and should not even allow you to cast it therefore, saving you from wasting HP and sitting through an animation that results in nothing.

Edited March 4 by Adenin.5973
Plaing some more with swords-

[Tinker.6924]

I'm absolutely stoked about the new swords.  it would be cool if the skill that inflicted fear also did breaker bar dmg or another skill did a condi transfer or cleanse or boon rip but with a reaper power build I have several other sources of bar dmg and the rest is not too important.

[Brighteluden.2974]

For open world I'm using nothing but duals swords, just feels to good. You have good range, good enough damage at range with some cleave and a mobility skill, with a fear on 5 that you can proc quickness outside of shroud with the grandmaster trait. 

[mirage.8046]

at least on reaper, you can make sword 3's flipover skill deadly if you use "nothing can save you!" so your dash + boon corrupt are unblockable. on other necro specs or core, you have to hope your enemy isn't dodging or blocking. corrupting boons in an area is so good in wvw and pvp right now.

off-hand sword is great, but it kind of means giving up utility from torch, warhorn, or focus even. maybe all of sword's flipover skills could be unblockable or guaranteed a critical hit to offset the HP costs, because sacrificing your HP for a very small payoff isn't great. furthermore, you can very easily drain your HP and sometimes life-force if you're not strategic.

[mazut.4296]

Also the legendary weapons animayion for the auto attack still shows single projectile. This also need to be changed.

Edited March 4 by mazut.4296