What was the problem with the old sword 2

[Doctor.1384]

This is a question, I dont know what the issue ever was and why it needed to be reworked. It being ranged worked well with power revs hit and run play style. Now its just clunky, especially with the second part of the skill being dropped wherever the character was at the time of cast and not traveling with the character. Skill feels terrible. They said it didnt make sense to have a semi ranged attack on a melee weapon, but its even dumber to put an aoe attack on a weapon intended for single target damage and just adjusting the numbers so that it benefits from hitting one target. Further proves that no devs working on balance actually play rev, especially with having to hear the protection boon application over and over again on facet of chaos. Before this class was just neglected but now they just break things

[Virdo.1540]

@Doctor.1384 said:This is a question, I dont know what the issue ever was and why it needed to be reworked. It being ranged worked well with power revs hit and run play style. Now its just clunky, especially with the second part of the skill being dropped wherever the character was at the time of cast and not traveling with the character. Skill feels terrible. They said it didnt make sense to have a semi ranged attack on a melee weapon, but its even dumber to put an aoe attack on a weapon intended for single target damage and just adjusting the numbers so that it benefits from hitting one target. Further proves that no devs working on balance actually play rev, especially with having to hear the protection boon application over and over again on facet of chaos. Before this class was just neglected but now they just break things

sword 2 was a buggy mess. either not all projectiles appear, they hit wrong targets (like medipacks in wvw) ,they dont aim at the enemy that stands still in front of the rev... tbh i miss shooting out projectiles, but the new sword 2 is much better. Quicker, better AoE function, stronger. Can only trigger Impossible odds twice instead of 3x now, but nvm

[Shao.7236]

Past skill was awful and dealt no amount of consistent damage like the new one can now.

There is so many problems with having 3 projectiles with short range. It's not like it benefited the player in anyway when everything on the swords has the same if not bigger range.

[otto.5684]

The new skill is more consistent in terms of damage. The projectiles tended to wounded off. Personally, I prefer the older skill, cuz it allows you to put pressure without being in melee range. The new skill works much better in PvE though.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

Sword 2 was one of the more understandable changes. Both have their positives and their negatives for sure, but I wouldn't really say the previous iteration was better per se. Yes it had its advantages (kiting, fighting vs blind and aegis, better synergy with Abyssal Chill, to name a few), but the previous iteration was very prone to bugs and inconsistencies and it sucked to have the bread and butter damage skill of the weapon be subject to projectile hate. Although I did actually like the skill quite a bit, it did have a very odd design. Truth be told I had more fun with the previous version but I was very pleasantly surprised when the change happened. The consistency and reliability of the new skill is very nice, although it does feel more faceroll now.

As for the AoE damage interaction of the skill...I find it to be great for the game and I wish more skills throughout all classes had this implemented. AoE is too overabundant in the game for its current general effectiveness. I don't mind that it is unique to Rev right now; the skill is still good in multi-target scenarios.

Edit: Didn't read the previous responses before posting, kinda just repeated what was already said lol.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Also, the skill was a balancing problem. If you balanced around splitting projectiles, then it was overpowered against a single target. If you balanced around a single target, then it was underpowered against a single target. When the output of a skill varies by 200%, there's no soft spot to balance it on.

[Buran.3796]

@Doctor.1384 said:This is a question, I dont know what the issue ever was and why it needed to be reworked.

I suspect that ANet team wasn't happy with Rev skills being able to target enemies under stealth, because sword # was able to catch them and they also nerfed the blinding in the staff (both weapons did cast pojectiles which informed about the location of cloacked enemies if they were inside the range). Because bursting from stealth seems to be fine but revealing stealth players seems to not (they released the Deadyeye with the capability to cancel reveals, just think about it...).

But probably I'm wrong and doesn't exist an evil masterplan behind those changes, and they were just random. Utimately stealth users ended getting what they deserved: this meta of condi bunkers and bruisers in which they can't burst a thing.

[Shao.7236]

@Buran.3796 said:

@Doctor.1384 said:This is a question, I dont know what the issue ever was and why it needed to be reworked.

I suspect that ANet team wasn't happy with Rev skills being able to target enemies under stealth, because sword # was able to catch them and they also nerfed the blinding in the staff (both weapons did cast pojectiles which informed about the location of cloacked enemies if they were inside the range). Because bursting from stealth seems to be fine but revealing stealth players seems to not (they released the Deadyeye with the capability to cancel reveals, just think about it...).

But probably I'm wrong and doesn't exist an evil masterplan behind those changes, and they were just random. Utimately stealth users ended getting what they deserved: this meta of condi bunkers and bruisers in which they can't burst a thing.

You can pre-cast Forced Engagement before stealth and actually cast it if anyone is located by the nearby target you used it on.

Jade Wind is also good at that. Staff projectiles were pretty edgy and annoying, without even having to look at the target either.

[Lonewolf Kai.3682]

To add to this, there’s several other aoe skills you can use to fight stealthers.

[CutesySylveon.8290]

S2 was one of the most buggy and inconsistent skills we had. It regularly targeted things like poles or even the ground, absolutely destroyed your potential damage against minions and clones because they target anything, and while it did track stealth a long time ago, that was nerfed. It was either barely doing any damage because only one projectile hit, or doing way too much because they all did.

The new version is much more consistent and reliable to use, and doesn't get reflected back at you.