2hSword push-attack. It’s purpose is to damage armor. But. Before you strike, you need to perform push, which against armor do… nothing. And, if you using push-attack agains group of enemies you hitting a very small sector. Is it only I see something wrong with it? Maybe it would be better to use push attack against infantry? And heavy attack could have higher damage to armor? At least headshots?
2hSword TimeToKill against infantry is higher compared to other weapons. Because you need 2 strikes for basic enemy infantry (clanrats and fanatics). And there is no breakpoints to reach (such as to kill with one light strike, and you should remember that you need at least 10% additional attack speed to handle this weapon).
I think 2hSword should have at least 1375 damage against infantry. In this case you can reach breakpoints to kill basic infantry with one strike for both clanrats and fanatics
(1375 * 1.1~=1500, 1375 * 1.2*1.1~=1800).
Well it doesn’t kill a single infantry in one hit, but it will kill a lot of them in 2-3, while staggering and controlling them the whole time. It’s an absolute meat grinder against hordes, so imo it’s ok that it’s not as great against single targets.
Dare I say that I tend to agree with @Flinlock here. It’s light attacks and heavy attacks are designed to handle many targets, but that doesn’t mean it’s push attach doesn’t have a place in the weapons arsenal.
I think my primary use for it has always been to push a horde with armor in it; sure, you don’t interrupt the armor with the push, but the following push-attack will do some serious damage against my primary target.
It also gives me the power to refine where my damage is going; you get a damage dropoff if you hit multiple targets, so it is ineffective to try and kill a Pack-Master while he is mixed in with his horde if you are using light attacks. Toss in a push-attack and it gives you the power to eliminate a key-target while also preventing the horde from harming you.
Maybe, in case of fanatics it is not a big problem, but clanrats is quite dangeros, because their attacks is faster, and angle with which you striking them is inconvinient for striking several enemies. And you need 2 properties to reach breakpoint to oneshot them. But there is plenty other properties you may need, attack speed, stamina, block cost reduction, crit chance. I spent a lot of time trying to come up with something efficient, and still not found good enough builds. Best of all 2hSword is in hands of WHC because of increased crit chance and headshot damage (Deathknell).
Supposedly there’s a break-point you can reach on Mercenary Kruber that, on a standard two-handed sword light attack, allows you to 1-shot-body-shot a Chaos Mauler.
That’s absolute madness considering the weapons ability to cleave.
I’ve not tried it so I can’t say let me get home and give the Two-Handed Sword a whirl tonight and I’ll get back to you soon? Needless to say that this is a good talk to have; everything has its strengths, but it’s a good to know exactly which ones are strengths and what might actually qualify as a weakness.
A bit of background for the situation: The push-attack designed to be used against armor (and headshotting in general) is a result of the Executioner’s Sword being a vastly more flexible choice than the Two-hander at one point, and people feeling the Two-hander didn’t have anything to deal with armor. There was no overhead option (and that was specifically requested), hardly any AP even on heavies… It was pure crowd-clear. So, during the Big Balance Beta, it was given the push-attack overhead and the ability to cleave through armor on heavy strikes (and some more number-tweaking, but that’s less relevant). Those brought it up as a very good weapon for mixed hordes, and capable of dealing with lone armored enemies too.
As for your assessment, I have to disagree. The push works just fine against armor, even if it isn’t quite enough to interrupt their heavy attacks. It’s also very good against shieldvermin, allowing you to headshot them immediately after opening up their shields.
As @Flinlock said, it also isn’t a huge problem that you won’t drop enemies with one hit, as you drop more on the next one. In addition, you keep controlling them while striking, which still keeps them occupied.
There’re also the heavy attacks, which do damage to armored enemies, cleave through them and stagger everything reasonably well. It’s, once again, a question of choosing the right attacks and tactics for the right situation.
The 2h sword is way too slow for what it is. It is only marginally better at dealing with hordes compared to the exec sword and the 2h hammer, but is significantly worse than either when it comes to dealing with armor. The 2h sword heavy attacks are SO slow it’s impractical.
The supposed advantage of being able to cleave through armor in a horde is a non-issue for either of the alternatives either. With the exec sword if you level the light strikes at the height of stormvermin’s heads in a horde you don’t even need to switch to the overhead attacks to kill them . And crits on the exec sword + headshots on the completely horizontal light attacks wreck mixed hordes as it is. The 2h hammer needs some practice in comparison but is superior to the 2h sword in practically every way. I mean the 2h sword’s heavy attacks are substantially slower than those of the 2h hammer…
The 2h sword is a pointless weapon that I hardly ever see used, and for a good reason.
Well halberd have better single armor damage (overheads) is good against mixed hordes (mostly because its light attack have armor penetration and dont stop animation ) similar cleave, and its faster. Why wouldnt I think its better
Their patterns and reaches are completely different, and so are (at least in my use) their attack speeds. I also find the Two-hander a lot simpler and safer to use.
Strongly agreed, @Yzneftamz. Optimally using the halberd functionally means using only two attacks out of its entire movset, the first light and the push-attack. This requires a lot more stamina usage, and for Light 1 means more block-cancelling than any other weapon.
2H Sword isn’t the best weapon out there, but it has enough niches now that it’s entirely usable. It’s obviously best on Merc, because of his innate attack speed buff against grouped enemies, and his better cleave. For Saltzpyre, Zealot is the obvious best user, but I imagine WHC has a decent synergy with it due to his higher headshot damage.
I think there are too many “all purpose” weapons. Either they need to get nerfed down a bit so you are forced to make tradeoffs, or the weak ones should be reworked to offer a mixture of attacks. Otherwise, certain weapons will always be optimal simply because the niche a weapon is designed for is not what’s required by the gameplay.
Example is the 2h Sword, which is magnificent for horde clearing, but just isn’t needed because so many other weapons do it adequately. Another is 1h Axe, which is great for anti-armor but that isn’t needed because there are hybrid weapons (Bardin: Dual hammers, 2h Axe, Pick, Salty: A+F, Falc, Rapier, Kerillian: Everything) that do anti-armor and horde at the same time. Why pick the specialized weapon, ever?
So either all-purpose weapons all need to die in a fire (or come with major drawbacks), or every weapon needs to become all-purpose. If Sienna’s Sword had an anti-armor stab, like Kruber’s Sword+Shield does, crowbill would instantly fall from top spot, and without needing to nerf it.
I kind of agree with this, and then again, the game’s history again shows that hard specialization doesn’t work. It’s actually kind of interesting how many comments and threads there have been lately that link directly to changes made during the game’s life.
In this case, the weapons were more specialized in the beginning. Unfortunately, as people progressed to Legend play, they started noticing that the amount of armor walking around is so high that (melee) weapons without decent capabilities against armor just don’t work. Besides, from pretty much the start skilled players were able to take on hordes even with non-horde weapons, so a lot of the horde-specialized weapons (Two-handed Swords, Arming Sword, Sword and Shield, Mace/Hammer and Shield…) were considered near-useless on high-level play. During the Big Balance run, all of them were given more capabilities against armor. That of course meant weapon specialization being reduced, but if it didn’t happen, a lot of the weapons would’ve been left to collect dust in the Keep. They weren’t the only weapons to change, of course, as weapon balance needed a lot of correction at that time.
So yeah, while I’d like to see more weapon specialization too, and some generalist weapons need toning down in one aspect or another, full specialization just doesn’t work in this game unless something fundamental about enemy composition changes. We’ll see how the Beastmen shift things in WoM, but it’s unlikely to change that.
IMO I’d use Bardin’s weapons as the gold standard and adjust to match them. Every one of his weapons has a significant trade off, even the generalist ones.
1h Hammer is a great generalist, but has low damage on lights and can’t hit any significant breakpoints with them.
2h Axe is another great generalist, but requires using a push-attack combo or charge attacks to clear hordes effectively.
Dual Hammers is a monster horde clearer, but bounces off armor and can’t get dual charged headshots (except targets with very large heads) because the two hammers are offset to each side.
1h Axe is one of the highest DPS weapons in the game (not including the completely broken A+F), but relies on attack speed for hordes because it has almost no cleave.
Not mentioning shields, because they aren’t worth mentioning.
In all cases the weapons can do multiple things, but have strong trade offs in just how good they are at those things. Compare that to Kerillian’s weapons, pretty much every single one of which simply blends everything in it’s path.
let me get home and give the Two-Handed Sword a whirl tonight and I’ll get back to you soon? Needless to say that this is a good talk to have; everything has its strengths, but it’s a good to know exactly which ones are strengths and what might actually qualify as a weakness.