Two-handed swords

I think the topic is self explanitory, I'd like to see a nice claymore, or Zweihander or good ol' fashioned great sword.

Nuff' said

No, that isn't enough said. How would it fit into the current warrior scheme? Would it be the end-all for damage, would it be utility, and would it be worth not having a hammer or shield? What should this weapon do basically?

Well I guess some people always have to make things more complicated then they need to be. Ok, a two handed sword would be just a like a sword only with more damage. Same skills apply, to make it worth not having a shield a two handed sword would have the damage range of the hammers. Which as we all know make hammers worth it, well that and the hammer skills but really sword skills are just as good.

Ok, I don't know if you've played this game very much, but in high end PvP, the axe war will outdamage hammer and sword, but sword's skills have more utility, as well as better energy skills, and hammer gets the benefit of being able to nearly knock-lock someone. Therefore, would you want this 2h sword to be able to outdamage axe, therefore rendering axe warriors obsolete? Do you want it to have better utility than sword? Or, as you said, better damage than sword, but the same utility? Then no one uses a sword anymore. This weapon needs a niche, so it's not simply replacing a current weapon. It shouldn't be Sword war, v2.0, +5 damage, +2s bleeding duration, it should have it's own spot, something it can do, that no one else can do, but that shouldn't be something that directly replaces an existing weapon.

Maybe Strength should have been Two-Handed Mastery, then you could have 2H swords, axes, and someone wanted spears. Also, hammers would be more widely used then. Just a thought.

I agree - It needs it's own skill set.

Heres some examples of some ideas I've got for 2 handed swords:

Behead - You deal +X damage. If target enemy is below 25%, the damage is trippled. (X = 2 Handed Swordsmanship) Adrenaline cost 10.

En Guarde - For the next X seconds, or until a non-sword skill is used, you have a 75% chance of blocking melee attacks. (X = 2 Handed Swordsmanship) Adrenaline cost 5.

Impale {Elite} - You deal +X damage. Target suffers from Bleeding and Deep Wound. Adrenaline cost 8.

Legsweep - If this attack hits, the target is now crippled. 10 Mana

Overhanded Swing - You deal +X Damage (Note - X is high in this scenario). Adrenaline cost 6.

Torso Chop - If this attack hits, target suffers from Bleeding.

Flesh Wound - If this attack hits a Bleeding foe, target now suffers from Deep wound and takes X damage.

Bloodrush - If this attack hits a bleeding foe, it deals no damage, and instead interrupts any actions the target is involved in. If this action is a spell, that spell takes an additional 20 seconds to recharge.

Rupture Organ - If this attack hits a foe suffering from Deep Wound, that foe is now Poisoned, and takes X damage. (High X)

Tell me what you think.

Why must everything be so over-complicated? What's wrong with it being like two handed swords in every other RPG, just like a sword only more damaging. Would give people more options, want to be heavy on the defense go sword & shield want more damage then go two handed sword. You needn't make things more complicated then need be. You dont have to give every single thing it's "niche" thats bad game design, options are good veriety is the spice of life lets leave it at that. All I want is a claymore dammit!

Also when a game requires people to make specific so-called "best builds" to fill niches then you know something is broken and needs fixing. People shouldnt need to be forced into making specific builds to compete. Build A should be just as good as build B to Z, so you dont end up with hammer war/monk number 123457. So I can have my axe wielding W/Mes (or some other not so common build) and still be able to hold my own.

i love that so many people favor sword warriors. just mean my necro has plenty of bleeding to send flying back on at the warrior on top of my lifedraining attacks.

well maybe it could be just about the same as a hammer but dealing less damage but attacking at a faster rate but not as fast as an axe

2 handed mastery would be nice and they could get rid of hammer axe and sord mastery and just replace it with 1 and 2 handed mastery and keep strength for shields and also for the hammers they should req strength also

Well, most of those skills are basically axe skills with different names. I'm not saying I can do better, but just wanted to point that out.

Lets see here. They have hammers but they are all 2 handed. They hav axe and swords that are all one handed. There are 1h hammer, 2h swords, and 2h axes so why not just add all 3 then it would be balanced.

As much as I'd love to make myself look like Nightmare, grab a zweihander, and bash someone's head in, I don't think it would fit balance-wise into Guild Wars at the moment.

It would be cool if you could dual weild weapons at the cost of a focus/sheild...

Dual weilding shields would be funny

But for two-handed sword, they could do more damage but have armor reduction.

It could have a skill like you charge at enemy with the sword causing +X damage and deep wound or having X% of armor penetration.
I don't have lots of imagination for new skills...

You see thats kinda of the two handed sword's (and hammers for that matter) built in balance, more damage but at the cost of armor/ focus. To tell you the truth I wouldnt mind seeing some nice 2 handed axes either.

I don't think you really understand game design at all. The game as it is does not require people to make "best builds", there is no such thing at the moment and hopefully never will be. What you are proposing will limit options, and force people down one avenue in order to compete.

Why? If you had thought about it, you might have realized. As it is, if you want pure damage, you go axe. Axe skills hurt the most, but that's pretty much all they're good for, tons of hurt. The only reason people choose sword is for the neat utility skills like snares, bleeds, deep wounds etc. If you created a sword line that did more damage than axe, but had all the utility skills of sword, why would anyone ever use an axe?

In case you hadn't noticed, this game is not like every other RPG, and I thank my lucky stars for that every time I boot it up. "More options" may add variety but will utterly ruin things if they're not balanced properly (or what you would consider "over-complicated"). Everything should have it's niche, that's good game design which I think is where you're confused. If you want to have a claymore so bad, why don't you go play Everquest?

Guild Wars is at its core a PvP game. Statistics and balance tend to be overcomplicated when you're dealing with players on both ends. As for 2-handed swords, I think they would be most realistically implemented along with a new profession in an expansion who actually has an attribute for wielding such weapons. Of course, the specifics are for Arenanet to decide.

I agree with you on this one, however, I still believe that Guild Wars has no such thing as a "best build" I have seen W/* of every sort, and they all have their uses. For example, an axe-wielding W/Me would just have to be played differently than your typical front-line fighter kind of warrior. I won't deny that W/Mo's are by far the most common combinations, but I don't believe that they are the "best," only the easiest to play.

I can't believe noone came up with the obvious suggestion - make 2H swords use the sword line of skills, but make them as slow as hammers. However, make them attack all targets in a arc in front of your character. (or if that's too powerful, make it attack your target and two enemies who are adjacent to your target). The 2H sword animation can be broad sweeping horizontal swings.

After all, Phantasy Star Online has 2H swords that work this way, and Polearms in Lineage 2 work this way also.

While we're at it, give us big 2H polearm axes, that use axe skills, but are as slow as hammers - but have a longer range, so you can attack people at just outside "adjacent" radius. So you can attack outside the range of skills such as lava font, aftershock etc.

One of the things that suck about most MMORPGs is that the whole weapon choice issue usually boils down to attack speed vs. damage. And they both end up being DPS, so it's often a moot point. GW adds a little bit in that different weapon types are required for different skill sets, but I'd still like to see more tactical differences available for weapons.

I like big swords as well, but the 1H swords in GW are plenty big enough that I dont see the need for 2H swords unless they influenced how you fight in a significant way.

First off Darren EQ is total junk and you know it, suggesting anyone play that is utterly moronic. Also two-handed swords doing more damage then axes would not invalidate axes, why? Well sir I'll tell you! Even though I already did but obviously your too narrow minded to see it in the text (hey you insult me Ill insult you). As it stands with the sword skills and axe skills as they are, a two-handed sword doing say 15-35 damage will only out damage axes in basic attacks. The axe skills still have greater potential for high damage then any sword skill, now the two-handed sword using sword skills will come pretty damn close (some will probably surpase axe, like final thrust but only when an enemy is less then 50% hp). Now for another reason why you will still go axe if two-handed swords were implemented; utility items (the same reason you'd still go one handed sword). For the ability to gain extra armor and effects from a nice shield or focus item. The only real way two-handed swords would be unbalanced (or two-handed axes) is that if Anet gave them focus abilities, like say a zweihander having a +5 energy effect on it. Then sir yes they'd be broken, but as it stands two-haned variations of swords or even axes could be implemented without hurting the game's overall balance aslong as their damage rates were kept within scope. Like you said more options will utterly ruin things if not balanced, I never suggested adding anything without balancing it. Don't put words in my mouth, and don't assume I meant that. Assumption is the mother of all ****ups.

So obviously I have thought about it, currently I would go axes (and have) for pure damage. But adding another option for a pure damage is not gonna hurt the game (if done right).

Now as for everything having it's niche being good game design, what the hell are you smoking? Forcing people into a niche is never a good thing, "oh you axes then your our damage dealer. You use hammers? Then go knock-lock [more on this in a second] the monk" No, just no! A player should never be forced into playing a specific role unless he wants to, but then of course it's not forced is it?

The game hasn't reached requiring "best builds" yet but it's getting close. Tell me how many W/Mo do you see in a given day? Why do you think that is, it's because theres the impression out there that W/Mo is the best way to do a tank. The "best build" mentality is already starting friend, like it or not. It extends past W/Mo, certain builds are much more common then others (such as E/Mo). This is because people think those builds better then others or we'd see a more varied set of builds. Praise the people who don't follow the common and make the offbeat builds like N/Me or W/Me or hell even W/R.

Finally strategies like "knock lock" need to be fixed, because when you get down to it there not really strategies there exploits. Your twinking your character to be able to take unfair advantage of a game mechanic. Don't go telling me knock lock is perfectly fair, I've been knock locked it's down right stupid. Any effect you can't counter is obviously broken and needs to be disabled, now Im not against knock down. It's a good way to halt a spell or skill but complete lock down is basically breaking the mechanic. You may like it but the guy on the recieving end sure doesnt, really in a game both parties should be having fun and no being locked down is not fun.

If you read my posts you'd see my first suggestion was to make two handed swords use the sword skills. Now I thought people were smart enough to assume that a two-handed sword would be much slower then a one handed sword. After all in real life a two-haned sword is much heavier and thus harder to swing then a one handed sword, I figured you people have at least a small idea of what realism is.