Hey guys I was just curious about all you Saltz mains out there and what you think about his melee arsenal - maybe discuss some potential changes or fixes as well. I was on hiatus since wom so i tried messing with all of my weapons again but found that some of his tools just arent quite up to the task anymore. ill just give you a rundown about all his weapons and what i think of them in the order i use them most (not effectiveness).
A quick exclaimer - i mostly play legend and are still getting used to cata. I got a good amount of maps finished on cata but i still feel a bit uncomfortable and on edge while playing it so i wouldnt consider myself very good at it yet. That beeing said i got a lil more about 700h into it and i am with the franchise since its first installment.
Rapier: Since the WHC is my go to career this weapon is my sword of choice and i think it is quite the powerhouse with no real changes needed in my eyes, if anything its almost at the risk of beeing a bit overtuned. It has infinite dodge count, can fire the ofhand pistol while blocking, has a good amount of stamina and high headshot damage coupled with fast, easy to hit strikes. especially on the WHC its a beast with his eternal guard and the ability to crit kill most things. i Love this thing xd
Axe and Falchion: Im a bit mixed on this one - its a powerhouse no questions asked but its existance just makes the Axe and Falchion basically obsolete. I use it if i need to brute force myself through a level and it never disappoints. Its good for crit fishing, has good combos, hits hard and melts armor as well as hordes. Definitely Saltzys most OP weapon and thats fine it just hurts me a bit that this thing killed the falchion as well as the axe.
Axe: I fell in love with the Axe in V1 when i got a red one and wanted to use it because it was my only red weapon for saltz at the time. In V2 tho it cant keep up with other weapons anymore wich makes me a bit sad. Its not completely unusable but objectively there isnt a good justification taking this thing over other weapons. Its single target, hinders your movement and the armor killing is barely justified when you got stuff like the Axe and Falchion. I think if they increased the cleave on it just a bit to make it more viable during hordes or make it more mobile it could gain some traction but i could be wrong on that.
Falchion: oh boy im mad about this one. I adored the Falchion in V1 but its basically dead now. My first (very personal) Gripe is that they didnt give it the attack pattern from the first game - it was very unique and i loved it but fine what ever im probably in the minority with that sentiment. The Falchion is supposed to be a verstile weapon in V2 but it ends up having a bad identity crisis. It has not enough stamina to be used as backup for BH, not enough base damage to be used reliably against tougher enemies like maulers and its headshot modifier isnt up to task either given that it can be surprisingly tricky headshotting with this thing (at least imo the hitbox feels a bit off and i always struggle with consistency on it) especially compared to the rapier. On the upside its quite fast and can be used well against hordes and its push stab is good for headshotting.
The Falchion needs a buff for sure - its heartbreaking for me because this really could be a good weapon if it just got some attention from FS. Buff either its headshot damage or give it higher base damage. You could also give it infinite dodge count like the rapier to more emphasize its mobility and flexibility. just my thoughts.
Bill Hook: Not much to say about that one. Its really good but im not yet used to it since im uncomfortable with slower weapons but its reach and dmg is very good, also it got infinity dodge count if im correct wich is a bit bonkers.
Flail: I should use it more often and i think its in a really good spot. Its amazing for croud control on the zealot and is generally great for spamming it in wild abandon lmao. its anti armor is very nice only big gripe is that is base damage feels a bit low but thats fine since its not designed for high single target dps imo.
2H Sword: I dont know why anyone one would use this. I could see it maybe on the zealot but i really think this Saltzys most throw away weapon. Not his worst but i dont see the purpose of it. Armor penetration is horrible and base damage feels not that great. It could be good for hordes maybe but there are better choices. If you want a greatsword go with kruber and his Exe it kills way quicker and more reliably…
I know that many of this was quite subjective and i hope to see your thoughts on this also correct me if youre think im horribly off with some of my opinions and have a nice day slaying heretics!
(Ps: sry if there are grammar or spelling mistakes but im too lazy to correct them atm xd)
Personally, for me the flail is what a balanced weapon is like. It has a specific characteristic, has its strength and its weakness. It is the level I regard as the middle ground every weapon should reach.
The Rapier is also interesting. It is very fast but can’t hurt armor unless it crits or you use charged attacks. It is very powerful in the hands of experienced players but it makes you work for it.
So, now to one of the biggest problems in Saltzpyre’s armory: Axe&Falchion, Axe and Falchion. On the one side we have the 1H-weapons which are on the lower spectrum of his armory. On the other side we have the dual weapon which is outright broken. This is very apparent if you compare their stats directly by the armory mod. Damage-wise they are identical. The damage profile of the axe compares directly with the axe, same for the falchion. However, if you look closer you will see the absurdity in the Axe&Falchion. The first swing of the A&F is identical (although mirrored) to the last hit in the axe combo. For the axe it takes 0.9 seconds for this paticularly hit, for the A&F it takes 0.43 seconds. It is faster by 50!! %. This is insane. The same for the other combo hit which is also faster than every axe combo hit. The same goes for the Falchion. The moveset A&F 2 and 3 is identical to Falchion 1&2. But for magical reasons, they hit faster. The Axe&Falchion is fast, too fast. It is bonkers. So what did it lose? The hit modifier which is Linesman for the Falchion hits but this is not needed anyway so it isn’t really a loss. Especially, since the A&F has a push attack with linesman modifier to compensate this (and yes, it also has three shields like the axe, no downside there) which also has 20 % crit chance, so also better than axe. Therefore, it lost the 10 % crit chance for the normal axe strikes in comparison to the 1H-weapon. Again, this doesn’t make much difference as the dps is overly strong if you just look objectively on the numbers.
So what to do? Increase the values of the 1H-weapons, tone down the numbers for the dual-wielding weapon. Make them balanced. I think a good start would be to adjust the speed values. Improve Axe’s final combo hit to 0.7 (from 0.9). Tone down Axe&Falchion’s first hit and increase attack time from 0.43 seconds to 0.65 seconds. Similar to its other strikes. The Axe&Falchion has to be lowered in speed while both Falchion and Axe should get a slight increase in speed. This would already help a lot. In addition, maybe give the Falchion one more hit and damaged enemy per strike so it has an edge at hordes.
Again, the F&A is a very weird and overpowered weapon. You can solve every melee problem just with the initial attack combo. I don’t even know why it has charged strikes because they do LESS damage than first hit in the combo (although developers are aware of this and made the charges strike even FASTER, still the better choice is just to spam the normal attacks).
It is also weird because if you go dual wielding you would either lose speed or power per hit. I can accept that it is magically the same speed as the singular weapons (despite Saltzpyre looking like getting a heatstroke flailing these weapons), they should come with a loss in power, so A&F could also get a slight decrease in damage by about 5 % which we then could give to the Axe. This would make the weapon trio more balanced. The 1H-weapons were better while the A&F STILL would be on the upper spectrum of his armory. Most people wouldn’t even notice the difference as it would still have the easy accessibility it has right now. But it would finally be a solid and balanced weapon and not the broken toy it is right now as it clearly and without fail does overperform in its job of dps. It would still be dull and boring to play (aka press M1 all the time). All of this comes just from looking at the numbers, there is not much room for opinion of A&F being solid or balanced unless you are into powercreep and buffzerking.
For the Billhook we had a recent thread where you can read about. The summary: Billhook has no weakness and performs above average in every category. It has large reach, good single target damage, can stagger everything (minus bosses) infinetely and has good horde management with a two-hit combo. The only weakness they could find was “Can’t solo Cataclysm patrols with it” … so yea, Billhook too would need some kind of adjusment.
The Axe and Falchion is the antithesis of balanced imo. And i cant speak for you but when i play with it i have no issues against hordes with it what so ever. It outperforms almost all of saltzys weapons in every way… with the rest i agree. I also think its fine that some weapons are more geared towards certain careers but some of his weapons are just overall lackluster atm. I think FS should just work on a big balance patch for all the unwanted weapons in the game in general that would help mix things up
they could change the Falchion’s push to cost only one stamina/half a shield and increase its dodge count and maybe its range slightly. Or if you go the other direction make it more hard hitting to justify its low defense.
I think saltz is among the careers that has overall very good weapon choices. It’s never perfect, but compared with some other careers he has alot of viable choices, this is ofcourse also because of whc passive and zealot boost but even on bh they are fine
Do not worry, nobody has issues against hordes with Axe&Falchion except a very few chosen ones. At least they claim they do. I don’t even know how they would do it as A&F second and third strike in the combo damage up to four! enemies. And yes, it is the antithesis of balance.
Other than that, you should experiment with the Billhook. It is very close to the A&F overpower level. However, it needs a bit more thinking. Not much though. Against hordes you have two sweep strikes which you can chain more or less endlessy. Billhook also performs super well against hordes. It literally has no weaknesses.
From the seven weapons you listed two are halfway balanced, two are overpowered and two are a bit lackluster. So the ideal solution is toning down the top while bringing up the low. Can’t comment on Greatsword as it has been to long since I played it.
Wait, don’t get me wrong: I didn’t say you can’t kill/deal with hordes… I said you can’t stagger/control them. They are two different things.
I mean you can’t make hordes harmless for your mates (like Flail can do)… moreover a staggered horde takes more damage and it’s much easier/safer to fight even for yourself.
Ok fair point i twisted your comment a bit there. Still id argue that it has control not by staggering the horde but by stunlocking enemies through fast hits and just killing stuff really quickly. Conventional control then isnt really needed for it anyway and thus i wouldnt consider it a downside or trade of on the weapon.
Quick edit, i admit for teamplay it wouldnt be as valuable as the mentioned flail so it falls flat on that front…
It doesn’t have that much stagger and control as a shield or something, but for a dps weapon it has very good control. But it doesn’t have the best stagger and cc and weapons like flame sword bash or shield bash, or spear heavy has more cc, but the amount of control it has in combinayion with everything else is good.
Yep, in general fast weapons can stunlock enemies they hit, but it’s much different from control and stop the entire horde, like weant designed for that job can do… or at least this is my idea.
Honestly I don’t agree… I find that it has less stagger than a big part of Vermintide’s armory, and not only than “most staggering” weapons (like shields, Fire Sword, etc etc).
But yeah, I’m not saying “omg A&F needs more stagger, it’s bad”… simply I prefer to start buffing the other Saltz’s weapons and only then see if A&F is still one of the strongest ones (anyway together Rapier, Billhook, probably Flail too… it’s not the only one on the top).
Well i wasn’t rlly talking about it being op or what needs or a nerf or not, i’m just trying to show it doesn’t have bad control or stagger, it’s not the best and it’s not the worst.
Do you have issues controlling a horde with a&f? If you know the weapon combo’s and the optimal combo’s for elites/armor/horde etc then it’s not hard to control.
If you are talking about control are you only talking about pushing? Or does it include attacks? Just wondering.
I mean that you can deal with an horde, you can kill an horde… but you can’t “stop” an entire horde (and make it harmless for you mates) like you can do with a staggering weapon.
It doesn’t depend from player’s skill, just from weapon’s numbers.
About the Axe (since it hasn’t been said in this thread yet): It used to be a perfectly fine and balanced weapon back in 1.6 Legend, because it could one hit Fanatics and 2 hit Marauders. If it got a good buff on its light attacks vs. unarmored to get those breakpoints on all difficulties, it’d be a good-but-not-overpowered weapon again.
The A&F needs to be toned down. Preferably by decreasing some of the swings’ speed, it’s ridiculous. With WHC, I usually take of Flense when playing with A&F and put on Deathknell instead because headshots are pretty easy to pull of with this weapon therefore no need to cleave the horde if I just one hit all, if not most of infantry units.
yeah the axe isnt too bad. The problem is that theres no point in taking it since the A&F gives all the same benefits without the drawbacks. It needs a nerf and the axe a slight buff for sure but i like playing with the axe still just because its very satisfiying.
I agree, the axe is very stylish, but it lacks in effectiveness as long as it’s drawback (single target effect) isn’t compensated by dealing with that single target effectively. The Axe suffers from tougher enemies disproportionally vs. weapons that hit & stagger multiple enemies. It’s the exact opposite from the 2H sword, basically: The more enemies, the more the 2H shines and the axe suffers, the less enemies and the 2H sword becomes less effective. It’s just that when you need 3 hits to kill a single enemy without affecting other enemies anyway, there is no point whatsoever in bringing that weapon vs. a weapon that needs 4 hits but hits everything and makes space at the same time as well. And the tougher the enemies are (higher difficulty level), the more the single target weapon becomes obsolete. If the single target weapon only needs 1 or 2 hits however, it can still be a viable alternative.
Therefore the only options to buff the axe back into relevance are making it hit multiple enemies (which makes it redundant), or actually letting it be effective as a single target killer.
