9 replies to this topic

[KrayZ33]

I wondered how people use Fast Hands with greatsword if you Trait into it, which you should imho but thats another story.

do you use it on cooldown? because I rarely see people doing so. and I wondered why

you get the advantages of 2 weapons without its weakness.
even for melee fanatics its probably a huge dps increase (at least it feels like it, I didn't test it... which is why I made this thread to hear opinions)


1st thought:

GS -> Axe/Mace switch .... 20/25/0/0/20  + 5 wherever you want, most likely you want them in the last tree (20/25/0/0/25)


HB > WWA > Mace 5/4 -> axe 2 -> Axe 1 -> Swap when you think HB is off CD and repeat

its just a suggestion, you might want to add a few GS auto attacks because you want to dodge with WWA etc.


you get axe/mace's Vuln stacks, GS HB damage + Might stacks and WWA mobility, Mace knockdown and Axe's autoattack dps

I use it in CoF for example and Axe's 1 actually end up doing 3,2k+ crits (without traiting into it) which I believe to be actually pretty high, considering the level penalty and that I'm using a ~80%/20% Berserker/Knight mix.
HB damage is going to be one of the highest possible, so no problem there either.

You get 3 sigils total, "on swap" sigil might be the way to go - depending on the runes you got in your armor. if you use ruby orb's I'd go for Sup Sigil of Battle for the offhand.


2nd thought:

GS > Rifle swap...... 20/30/0/0/20  (x/30/x/x/x) because of both GS and Rifle CD reduction, will lead to a near perfect rotation. but 20/25/0/0/25 is probably cool too

HB > WWA > Swap > Volley > Rifle 4 > Swap   ----- repeat

I've never really compared Rifle's volley DPS to other skills but It seems to deal some huge numbers and its a range skill, so you can use it right after WWA.
People use this weapon setup alot but they'll stick to GS unless they really have to go range,

you get a nice melee weapon, a nice ranged weapon, why not use rifle's best DPS skill and switch back right after and gain "on swap" procs/traits

is Volley that bad? because I get "HB'ish" numbers from it.

Edited by KrayZ33, 29 January 2013 - 09:00 PM.

[Nikephoros]

KrayZ33, on 29 January 2013 - 08:57 PM, said:

is Volley that bad? because I get "HB'ish" numbers from it.

You get 100b numbers... against one target.  100b has cleave damage so it usually does many times what Volley can do.  Axe auto-attack is almost always better than Volley even under suboptimal conditions.

[SkearKr0w]

I've been playing a glass cannon wep swap warrior (GS+Axe/Axe) for the longest time now and I've been having a lot of fun with it. Probably because I love bursting mobs down so fast, it's not even funny. I always like to play the burst game with my friends in dungeons (1v4, I'm on one mob and the rest of the group is on another mob). Still able to take mines down before they kill theirs lol. I'm no theory crafter at all but I like this playstyle.

[Lucav]

yup, been running axe / warhorn , greatsword with fast hands for a long time now and its amazing. eviscerate on cd, 100b on cd battle sigil procs every 10 seconds etc. There really is no downside.

[KrayZ33]

Nikephoros, on 29 January 2013 - 10:20 PM, said:

You get 100b numbers... against one target.  100b has cleave damage so it usually does many times what Volley can do.  Axe auto-attack is almost always better than Volley even under suboptimal conditions.

so, what about bosses  / single target then?

and it depends on how the mobs are lined up, because we traited rifle to pierce
and from what I can remember it does get a (very small) AoE effect from it, because they don't have  to stand in a straight line to get hit, at least thats my experience

Edited by KrayZ33, 30 January 2013 - 04:58 AM.

[Ninja Battle Lion]

KrayZ33, on 30 January 2013 - 04:50 AM, said:

so, what about bosses  / single target then

When arriving at boss: open inventory, equip rifle (I mean why would you even want to play GS facing a single target?) if you have 20 Arms, so much the better, just change tack and X to VII.

Why are people acting like builds are set in stone?

[KrayZ33]

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(I mean why would you even want to play GS facing a single target?)

why not, its not like GS is used because it deals more AoE damage than other weapons

and it didn't really answer my question

Edited by KrayZ33, 30 January 2013 - 03:42 PM.

[dawdler]

KrayZ33, on 29 January 2013 - 08:57 PM, said:

you get the advantages of 2 weapons without its weakness.

What "weakness" is there to begin with?

And the answer is no, its not effective to weapon swap depending on your weapon, traits and situation. It wont necessarily give you more dps - its probably gonna reduce it instead. But it can be used for specific skills.

A combo I use for example is longbow F1+3 (about 1s left on the swap cooldown, pop whatever), the swap to axe/whatever and eviscerate  (you'll have full adrenaline if you hit good with the longbow) to get fire sheild. On top of this it add a burning combo field. This has enormous damage potential against groups (not so much against single targets since the axe has much higher dps).

But do it with longbow+greatsword on 9s swap and you could have just popped a another 100b instead, probably having much higher dps against both single and multiple targets. Rifle is even worse if you are against groups as it will probably get you killed instead.

So IMO, fast hands isnt really that usefull for the greatsword. Use it as a primary weapon and trait for it, it will treat you well. Fast hands is however usefull for more "exotic" weapon combos that find use for cooldowns on a variety of weapons.

In WvW we have yet another situation, where you want to pop as many skills as possible, ie fast hands FTW.

[KrayZ33]

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What "weakness" is there to begin with?

cooldowns

you even gave the perfect example yourself.

axe / bow

additional AoE damage, without having to keep the bow for another 5 seconds, you can swap to axe again after f1+3+2 and deal axe dps in addition to bows aoe burst and aoe combo field and very long burning debuff (which deals quite alot over time too, especially with all the might stacks you gain from swap+fire combo field + finisher)
I used that combo myself for a long time and its not a dps loss for sure with fast hands

Quote

But do it with longbow+greatsword on 9s swap and you could have just popped a another 100b instead, probably having much higher dps against both single and multiple targets. Rifle is even worse if you are against groups as it will probably get you killed instead.

but its not 9s its 5s

HB+WWA+swap+F1+3+2+swap


I chose GS/Rifle as an example because both HB+Volley are on a short cooldown and both deal significant numbers of damage and a large number of attacks (procs)
whenever I've used my HB and WWA im pretty much out of options and the slow attack animations (which arn't even much greater than axe's) bore me to death, so why not switch to the "second" greatsword in your backpack

inb4  rush+bladetrail

Edited by KrayZ33, 30 January 2013 - 09:29 PM.

[Fenice_86]

mmh this is kind of interesting discussion,
anyway shall u share a link to a build? (just to check traits/utilities optimization)
Atm i run around with axe/mace + rifle (i'm trying bow atm but i feel it so slow) maybe this "fast hand" thing will revamp my gaming experience