Ash of War: Swift Slash | Elden Ring Wiki

Great pvp weapon, not so much for pve. Feels similar to waterfowl dance but more fowl less dance

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why is this trash ability still spammable in pvp, why didn't they nerf the recovery time to the ground

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Tbh I would never get this because I'd never side with Hornsent vs Leda

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This ash of war is too powerful, yes they nerfed it, but i have seen several invaders use it with blood loss to decimate my heath bar...
THROUGH THE FINGERPRINT STONE GREATSHIELD.
Its not fun, because of how cheap and fast you recover to start another one.
Invaders who use this...
You deserve to be maidenless

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I swear PVErs are worse complainers than PVPrs. I mean at least PVPrs want balance, PVErs just want to have their cake and eat it too. They should be able to have extremely overpowered weapons but they shouldn't have to deal with INVADERS using the INVASION mechanic to use that overpowered stuff against them! It's no fair!!!!!!!

Anyways about the actual ash of war, it shouldn't be so quick to recover from. Same argument with quickstep of bloodhound's step, it's like trying to swat a fly except now you're trying to swat a swarm of locusts.

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I still bash Fromsoft nerfs and will not forget Rivers of Blood. Well I don't use it anymore since the nerf but ruined pve. Now I see they did it again...PvP in this game accounts for very little on its merits. PvP has no rewards and little point to play other than fun. Yet they continue to ruin the game based off a useless game mode...we all bought the game for pve not pvp. So stop already, you made your money now let me enjoy the money I spent on the game. Why not fix fps and npc Quests and such instead of making the game less enjoyable.

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Still shreds on an INT build (where you have spells for any range past melee, as sometimes piercer/havel are too easy to dodge), damage is uncanny.

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This thing is not so good in pve. Whiffs too often.

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Should've been usable on katana...so I can use it for my Vergil cosplay

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gotta love From ruining cool stuff in PvE for the sake of PvP. I've already got AC6 for free and will do the same to their next game if they keep this stupid **** of removing cool stuff from PvE.

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Still good at finishing low health player.

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Nerf the hell out of it, I dont care if its balanced now. I will still point down and throw shitpots on those who using this aow.

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Still good at chasing low health player as finisher.

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can i use this now in arena ? is it balanced ?

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Think of it as en enhance R2 since it now has quite the same distance(which is still far )

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how to counter this ash: dunno i just used wrath of gold when they got close. half their hp bar and them pannicking is funny

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nerf was deserved
anyone crying get a life and learn how to play the game instead of relying on crutches

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A shame they nerfed it because of the PVP crybabies.

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i think this would be cool if it did 0 damage and just had the mobility + still had a hitbox that stuns enemies. it would be cool for a bunch of combos.

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The adjustment was definitely appropriate for PVP, but I kind of wish it was exclusive to PVP and not a general adjustment. I think the original form was that way for a reason, namely that it was a great counter to many of the most difficult enemies/bosses in the DLC.

That being said, normal players don't come anywhere near the level of difficulty of the DLC enemies/bosses. I'm not sure this adjustment is really good for PVE purposes, but it is still not a bad skill to use.

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Look how they massacred my boy..

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I feel pity for my friend now.
he is one of tryhard invader (he might be in your blocklist due to he very toxic lol)
he abuse all exploited. chainsaw , shotgun sleep crossbow , and of course Swift Slash.
playstyle with run to mob , use bubble perfume , spam op thing , runaway when bubble break to re use it.
when patch 1.13 release , he never invade again.

still waiting him to return all my debt , so I will able to unfriend him.

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With the 1.13 nerf, is swift slash generally inferior to blind spot now, unless you want a small aoe?

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Ow. I expected the nerf. Nearly was done with the game too.
Welp back to blood build. Bye amazing overpowered ash.

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Still viable, maybe still a bit overtuned, but a little less awful to fight against now with the new patch.

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This is now balanced. Less damage , slower recovery, not a spam skill.

Now it's actually in line with the rest of the game and you can't feel bad for using it jt

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did they reduce the range by 66% now? fully charged feels like a baby jump now

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lmao good riddance

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why not neft only on PVP but also PVE

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When you fix swift slash, now in PVP the name that appears is still backhand blade with Blind spot AOW, I think it will be reduced in power and range in the new patch :))

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**** 1.13 this patch has made swift slash no longer have any effect officially become the weakest AOW now and i think why don't they just remove this AOW because this change will make it no longer exist in PVE

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Every day I'm thankful for seamless coop.

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it would be good if it ever HIT ANYTHING

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My Combo
1 Weapon: Blood Blackhand Blade (Swift slash) + Fire Knight's Seal + Carian Glintblade (Boots Carian Soc)
2 Equipment: White mask + Ledas armor + Rakshasa gauntlets and greaves
3 Talisman: Retaliatory Crossed + Alexander + Lord blood + Godfrey
4 Incantion: Fire serpent + Flame streng + Golden vow + CARIAN PHALANX (Swift Slash support, if the target dodges SL they will be hit by the spell)

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Anybody who's generally interested in this skill, ignore the sore whiners. They blatantly have no skill and so little adaptability that they wouldn't survive a walk to their mailbox without having a panic attack.

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I find it funny how prior to the nerf how chock full the colosseums were with swift slash spammers, but i kid you not after the nerf i have seen a grand total of one swift slash user, and trust me I play a lot of pvp. Its not like the skill is bad anymore either, it just isn't nearly the cheese machine that it used to be. From what i can tell all of the swift slash users have migrated to blind spot spam, which is almost equally as painful to fight but at the very least is kinda counterable (and i stress the word kinda). In concept i think that backhand blades are really well designed, its just a shame that many people don't use the weapon to its fullest potential.

I don't have any problems with these ashes of war in pve though, and if you don't play pvp then these weapons are perfectly balanced, no judgement to anyone using it there. And in pvp swift slash feels mostly fine, it requires a bit of spacing to punish but all in all i don't have a problem with it. But Blind spot still annoys me, and i believe it should be given a small nerf to its i-frames, but all in all these weapons are fine appart from weapon art spam in pvp. Power to those who play it fairly.

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Shitty players crutch. You can counter this with Storm Stomp and good timing. Stormcaller also works. I'd imagine Storm Assault can do a decent job as well.

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PVP is trash, no one cares. W skill

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Came here to see if the Ash of war is good, didn't expect to see a whole salt mine

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There are so many counters for this Ash. Any aoe ability with some poise, like magma blades, can pretty well neutralize swift slash. Don’t get the hate for this post-nerf.

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I hesitated fighting for or against him out of fear of ruining a quest or missing an item, but here I am sulking about locking myself out of this ash because I walked through a fog wall. It's on me for not thinking and wanting to play blind/"organically," but I still feel cheated. I don't want to read the wiki for every little thing! Conflict of interest I suppose.

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Why does a horizontal dash attack have a long vertical hitbox? It punishes players who use spells that levitate you into the air. Doesn't seem balanced to me.

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If you use this in PVP you're an opp

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ofc the keen affinity lmfao

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Low FP usage, quick recovery, enormous hitbox, tremendous damage, covers very long ranges quickly. Makes ganking a nightmare.

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big bonk build work good, beat sword dash move to pulp

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Cancer in PvP. A crutch for either a lack of skill, or a lack of motivation to try and get good.

Too many try hards spam this and then have the audacity to teabag or point down. It's funny when they panic though whenever they get countered. Doesn't happen often enough.

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While I do expect this to be nerfed, hopefully post haste, in the meantime it has single handedly made me dislike pvp in elden ring which typically I'm all about.. yet getting ganked by 3 chuckleheads pressing l2 while leaving me little to no kind of retaliatory counter is just awful. Then they will honest to God tbag like they just outdid you with sheer talent..

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The thought of using this against 3vs1 ganks is encouraging. The thought of facing 3 guys spamming this is terrifying.

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Swift slash + sleep grease + shard of alexander + two-handed sword talisman transforms you into a death machine

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Horsent giving you a backhand blade ash makes his weapons NOT being backhand blades seem even stupider

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I want this to be nerfed so badly so I can use it and not feel bad about it. Before a pve'er replies and whines that I should "just use it," no I won't. I have standards.

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It's kinda crazy to realize how much accessible From Software made this game, compared to the older souls entries.

They even came with the idea to design the perfect aow for mentally impaired people, who lacks the capability to learn any basics of the game that isn't l2 smashing.

Good work Miyazaki, you're a true caring saint :3

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If this awful ash has to stay in the game, the rework it needs to get is a change to the aftershock hitboxes. They need to be waist high hitboxes at most. Allow people to jump over this godforsaken awful thing, at least then the ash is reliably punishable instead of hoping and praying to hit the parry.

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Heads up Pvp lads- Blinkbolt twinaxes annihilate this thing thanks to the startup Iframes and followup blender

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Oh. A cool Ash of War I completely missed because I progressed too far without reading wiki. Fantastic.

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An easy reliable counter is to storm stomp into a 2h R1 (assuming you have the range)

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This aow is exactly why Messmer purged the Hornsent, he wanted both the realm of shadows and lands between to be balanced, but to no avail.

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Nifty little build idea:
1. Make a mage build
2. Equip star shower
3. Slap this on a weapon with cold infusion
4. Spam star shower from afar
5. When the poor scmuck tries to advance spam L2
6. Repeat steps 4 & 5 as long as needed

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Bruh, i got locked out of quest before fighting Mesmer by just going to sunflower. This is bs.

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This thing wouldn't be hard to deal with if the hotbox you make had actual travel time. Instead it's instant travel like moonveil. (Ie if you are in the area it reaches when it goes off, you take damage. Regardless of whether or not the projectile hits you)

Basically? It would be fine if netcode wasn't such a problem, same reason the spread shotgun is busted

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This is still good in low level invasions. New players in Limgrave can never dodge this properly and die in 2-3 hits.

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This nonsense needs a PvP, AOE, or status buildup specific nerf yesterday man. I genuinely can't believe they released it in this state and think other rebalances are higher priority.

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I call this Taylor swift slash becuase people that spam it in pve has about the uniqueness of your average Taylor swift concertgoer

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For all the PvP enthusiasts remember this is a primarily PVE game. PvP (Invasions/Colosseum) is a gimmick so stop whining.

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(This comment is pure salt rage) Triple teams using this with bleed and frost have made 1v3 invasions less of a fight and more like jumping into a cartoonishly large blender. I'm not saying the ash does a great deal of damage, or that it's unbeatably fast, or that it is a no brainer easy way to build up status. All I'm saying it does all these things decently enough that the cheesiest guy you know has this on his build as we speak, guaranteed.

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Yet another item locked because i didn't read a wiki page.

You know FromSoftware, some people don't like getting the whole lore spoiled by reading wiki before taking every step in the DLC and also don't like getting half of the items locked out without warning and for no reason at all.

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Waterfowl Dance 2.0
Although I would be interested to see how well they went against each other in PvP
Can Swift Slash be parried? As I believe Waterfowl Dance can be.

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You know, seeing that kind of AoW and the shenanigans they bring to the PvP scene makes me wonder : how did they come up with this and how did they test it, and what was their thoughts on it when they considered it "done" and usable. I know that they care about PvE more than PvP but even then, did they assume that this AoW was ok, that teleporting left and right while doing huge damages and getting out of danger's reach was a cool / fair "gameplay" ? Idk, i'm just randomly ranting but it feels like they haven't learn anything from the base game and just threw random anime moves without testing them. Imo the easy fix for this would be to increase the delay before the dash and reducing the air slices' hitbox, keep its "intended" use but correct the bs that came with it.

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every single comment section on this site makes me want to jump off a bridge. these people are so sad...

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the fact that the nooob weapon art has keen affinity really says something…

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All the things i tested.
1. How much of a difference it make between physical and elemental infusion, specificaly in pve ? For the tests i used the Misbegotten Crusader (Cave of the Forlorn) because he's 0% resistant to fire and slashing damage, wiche are the type of damage we will be dealing with the WA (weapon art).
I didn't use any talismans nor buffs except :
-Fire crystal tear, Fire scorpion charm, NOT OIL crystal tear because it's inconsistent
-Godfrey Icon
The reason as why i am doing only charged/fire buff is because buffing the overall damage won't let us know anything in perticuliar and because the stat investement might be different depending if you plan on using those buffs/talismans or not.

Flame art 70 fth, without fire buff. AR = 645
-Uncharged : 1012
-Charged : 1339
-Charged with godfrey icon : 1413

Flame art 70 fth, with fire buff. AR = 792
-Uncharged : 1257
-Charged : 1661
-Charged with godfrey icon : 1753

Keen 70 dex. AR = 550
-Uncharged : 974
-Charged : 1264
-Charged with godfrey icon : 1335

2. Does the WA has a dex scaling on it's own ?
-Keen 31 str & 65 dex = 550 AR (more str)
Damage : 975
-Keen 14 str & 70 dex = 550 AR (more dex)
Damage : 974
Lmao the one with more strengh got more damage, probably a decimal thing, but anyways there is no dex scaling.

3. In 10 seconds, you can do 6 (almost 7) uncharged WA and exactly 5 charged WA. (Blasted the WA till the infinite mana crystal tear ran out of time, not looking at the visual effect but at the icon on ATH)

4. Stance damage :
-Uncharged does around 10 stance damage
-Charged does around 20 stance damage, but i am probably wrong, it's very inconsistent, you must connect the entire move multiple times in a row to get those result and even so stance damage is usually quite difficult to calculate. Those values are just for you to have a general idea of how much it does.

5. Status infliction rate :
(tested with slimes in caelid, wiche have 246 bleed resistance)
-The dash and the slash bomb will each do the same amount of build up as your weapon, so basically by using the WA, you'll do twice the amount of bleed of your weapon.
-There is no difference of bleed build up when you charge the WA.
-I through bloodflame blade did less bleed build up when used with the WA, but no, it does exactly the amount it's supposed to do, just saying in case someone assumed the same thing.

Sometimes the slash bomb WON'T connect, very annoying right ? But stangly, even so, the bleed of the slash bomb WILL apply. I know it's hard to believe, but trust me, i was confused too. In my opinion, it might be because of how the hitbox work, to make it simple : the slash bomb is an extension of a specific part of the dash, if this part touch the ennemy BEFORE it explode, the status build up will apply correctly, but not the damage of the explosion.
To make it even simplier, if your weapon has 100 bleed :
-the dash & the slash bomb connect = you do 200 bleed on the target
-the dash connect but NOT the slash bomb = you do 200 bleed on the target.

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I have the Finger severer on quickdraw whenever I see some bums standing ontop of a hill with the backhand blades because of this aow

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Bro is caked up

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The problem is you have to keep this AoW in mind when making a build instead of just having fun playing your desired build.Yes there are counters but you might as well throw out your enjoyment. There's no reason pvp or dealing with spam lord invaders should solely revolve around 1 skill. Forget nerfing it, remove it all together.

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1v1, cool tanky mage gear, flask with 15% dmg reduction, black flame protection, blue flame branch sword.

Endure on right hand, when they stary, endure and spam catch flame.

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PVP is unplayable because of this garbage, thanks to the idiot that created this unfair garbage.

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The person that created this abomination should never be allowed to develop anything again.

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If facing this in an invasion scenario, pray to Miyazaki there is a ledge nearby, and position yourself near it. While you may still get hit, the swift slash spammer will face their greatest enemy, gravity.

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Every up vote on this comment will be a memorial for all those who died to trash cans that can only push L2, I'll include blink bolt Twin axes too because I hate you in particular.

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how do you parry bad latency

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This will be getting the corpse piler treatment within the next 2 patches calling it now

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Can be easily parried, however skilled players will be able to utilize deadangles to catch you with the unavoidable instant bleed proc aoe slashes.

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Black flame tornado shits on swift slash spam, so does storm caller, so does endure, so does a bunch of other things. Yes its crappy to deal with, yes its op, yes it will get nerfed again, just wait a week or two. Dost thou even hoist?

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the person that gave the idea for this skill should be fired.

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anybody know if getting this through the quest line will lock you out of ansbachs bow? i want both but would rather have the bow if it’s one or the other

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So what's the counter? If you roll to doge the initial dash attack, you will be hit by the flurry of slashes. If you tank the initial dash, you will also be hit by the flurry. Its also so spammable that non-stop rolling isnt quick enough to avoid being stun-locked. What are you supposed to do?

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We have reached early days of Rivers of blood levels of CRINGE once this AOW dropped. Coloseums are now full of maidenless edgelords spamming this.
Just invade for PvP.

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Okay, but how is it in PVE?

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Article is wrong. I began the Mesmer fight and died. I didn’t summon Hornsent! Then went back and I could still do the questline to get this ash of war before killing Mesmer.

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I sure do love playing pvp where half the people I fight are meta idiots wearing white mask and bullgoats and spamming this

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It is btw not true that you cannot do the invasion anymore once you start the Messmer fight, I did the entire quest after starting the Messmer fight because I didn't manage to beat him and wanted to get Hornsents help.

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Like this if you spam this in duels and BM when you win

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No one gonna mention the DOUBLE CHEEKED UP man on the icon?

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Double cheeked up

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I absolutely hate pvp thanks to the annoying *** spammers of this. So I've became one. This game is for two people, fellas. I spam against the spammers till death.

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Whenever swift slash is bullying you, dueling shields will be there for you.

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What a pathetic attempt at a nerf. It's still very OP.

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Still good to use against inv*ders. When someone decides to disrupt your game, just switch to a bleed weapon with this bad boy and send em back home.

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Needed a nerf, but damn if it wasn't fun to mess up gank squads.

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