A lot of the things you suggested changing, namely Drakefire Pistols, Hagbane, Blunderbuss, Tuskgor Spear, 2H Hammers, and Falchions, really equate to buffing a decent weapon, and most are already extremely powerful, but people don’t get how to use them. If you feel they’re not great, I highly recommend watching some Twitch streamers like ChocoB, Core, or Royale with Cheese, or their YouTube videos involving them.
Drakefire Pistols’ close-range attacks can clear hordes on cata, and even stagger Stormvermin. Ironbreaker’s Under Pressure talent gives them very high damage on overcharge, able to even stagger plague monks a bit. With long-range shots too, at higher overcharge they can easily kill maulers, leeches, and blightstormers in a couple shots, and storm vermin, gunners, and flame rats in a couple of headshots. Being Ironbreaker, you can take a shield+axe with this for THP on the heavy attacks and decent damage against armor in melee, allowing you to make space to vent a little while staying at high overcharge to do immense amounts of damage with the close-range shotgun blast of fire.
Tuskgor spear has lots of headshot damage on light attacks powerful push attacks and a heavy 2nd attack that allows for easy crowd control and lots of stagger THP. It’s on the verge of being OP.
2H Hammers are almost boringly good. You get familiar with the pacing, and even without attack speed, the heavy strikes will control hordes of everything besides chaos warriors with bland one-two heavy attacks, and the light attacks will down chaos warriors on cataclysm in a few strikes. Warrior Priests Greathammer is also really good, better even, but it just feels better to use requiring a bit more effort to chain attacks by combining light and heavies, and that makes it much more satisfying to use.
Falchions are already decent against hordes while also doing decent stagger and killing elites fast making Axes pretty much obsolete on Saltzpyre. It’s too short of reach to make a good horde blender. Both the Rapier and Greatsword already fill that roll, which would make changing the falchion redundant. If you wanted it to retain it’s high damage and give it more cleave, you’d make it extremely OP. On Zealot, it pretty much already blends hordes and kills black rats in a few quick hits.
Hagbane is borderline OP as Griffonfoot. It can stagger elites and specials while doing massive AOE damage to hordes, and the low ammo is the only drawback, but on Waystalker, no problem since her ult can return ammo. Using this on Legend or Cata is easy max damage since the Battle Wizard and Coruscation nerfs.
I’ve been playing a good bit over the past few years. I’ve got a few Cataclysm solos under my belt, but the majority of my time, I’m helping quick-play teams on Legend get books or accomplish completion achievements with some occasional deeds and Cataclysm games in the mix. I’ve been experimenting with every weapon and I have a handful of Veteran Tier items of every type to play with on unique builds. Of my 3000 hours, about 80% of that has been with rados in quickplay, mostly Legend games. I want to provide some feedback and I’ll focus on what stands out to me as needing changes the most with regards to weapons.
For the careers, there’s too much for one post. I’d need separate threads for each one, and I’m not a fan of most of the other threads suggesting major overhauls or reworks to them. It is just a few boring and inferior talents. I’ll stick to a few of the weapons you mentioned that truly have issues.
Crowbill / 1h Axe
I agree here mostly, but I have a lot to say because most people don’t get how they work, and I use them a lot.
High damage, armour piercing, and decent stagger do not compensate for lacking cleave.
The problem is No THP Synergy. The best you can do for THP is usually stagger because the push attack is still fairly strong and attacks against elites do a lot of stagger on rapid strikes, but still, not ideal.
THP on Kill can work, but in a team of players with ranged weapons who one-shot the elite you’re striking, you’re not getting the kill when you need it, and you won’t get much from hordes killing one at a time having 0 cleave. and can’t even really do much about armoured elites in melee if you’re stuck in a horde of trash enemies that take your strike because you can’t cleave away the horde or knock them around.
These are powerful niche weapons to complement crowd-clearing ranged options (Drakefire Pistols, Coruscation, Fireball, Shotguns). Crowbill, I use it on Unchained quite often; it’s one of my top picks for her since it can often one-shot black rats on heavy attacks.
Most people don’t realize 1h Axes synergize with Cirts having a +10% crit chance on all light attacks! Alongside +40% crit power, 1/4 attacks are getting a crit and will cleave an extra rat. It will also take down black rats in a couple of strikes. I use this a lot with Shotgun on Ranger Vet.
I think players just don’t have much practice pushing around hordes and dealing with no cleave. With a weapon that doesn’t have much cleave, you have to be extra careful not to get surrounded and deal with enemies a few at a time, and be pushing a lot.
I will admit though, I never get quite the damage I want out of Axes that I can with other melee options that clear crowds and it lacks the utility of a stagger weapon. Saltzpyre can’t make them work most of the time, because, unlike Bardin, he doesn’t have a lot of crowd control ranged options, not only that, Rapier and Falchion both do well enough against armoured elites while offering other benefits.
Suggestion:
For Crowbill is to give it a little cleave on the sideways heavy attacks and +10% crit chance on light attacks like the 1H Axes.
For Axes, give them a bit more cleave against non-armor so that players aren’t getting easily overwhelmed in melee and so that you can deal with armour in a crowd. They can’t even be used to their advantage if every strike aimed at armour is landing on a trash enemy instead.
For both, for Godsakes, let them break shields easier. There’s not much most weapons can do about shields, and if these could break trash enemy shields in one shot, that would be a small but meaningful benefit. I think they should also cause Black Rats with shields to drop their guard in one hit.
War Pick
One of the worst weapons in the game. Looks and feels like it should be a powerful low cleave weapon similar to crowbill and axes, but of course, more powerful being two-handed. In the melee, the light attacks feel so feeble and boring, it knocks things around a little with a generic one-two, but worse than Greatswords having low damage and just a bit of stagger.
The double-charged heavy attack is too slow to be used against armour if there are any little trash enemies around waiting to poke you, and when you don’t commit to the double-charged attack, it’s like a weaker executioner’s sword.
Suggestion:
Lots more damage on light attacks, but a bit less cleave and throw in a vertical light attack 3 so it can deal with an elite mixed in there. Make it so the regular heavy is faster, and can be chained into the aforementioned 3rd light vertical light attack. Perhaps also give it a 3rd and 4th heavy attack that has more damage, stagger and cleave against hordes, so that you can chain light attacks into heavy attacks to handle hordes better.
Griffinfoot Pistols
Although this weapon has less spread and shot per attack than Bardin’s Grudgeraker and Kruber’s Blunderbuss, it’s too powerful and easily spammed, mainly because of how it synergizes with bounty hunter’s crits. One can just start firing into hordes without needing hardly any time at all to start firing again. BH guaranteed crits also give it easy kills against groups of armoured black rats. Since the Coruscation staff and Moonfire nerf, this stands out as the most OP weapon, and it was only ever behind those two by a small margin.
For example, watch ChocoB’s do a Cataclysm Solo with ease using the “Griffinfoot Obliterator” build.
Open Wounds for 20% increased damage on a crowd of enemies hit by a crit.
Blessed Combat makes one shot to give the next 6 melee strikes 15% more damage.
Dual Action makes it so that those +15% damage melee strikes (+35% Open Wounds) on kill reload the shotgun pistols in seconds and just one melee kill gives you a crit. Paired with the ScroungerTrait, easy unlimited ammo and no need to reload.
Ridiculously powerful. People abuse it regularly. Even without these exact talents, it’s still great on BH because of how powerful crits are on them, and how often players can use critical hits to wipe out hordes.
My Suggestions:
Make it so that Blessed Combat doesn’t automatically give you 6 stacks of +15% melee damage for one shot by having each shot with Griffin Foot only count as one hit at most.
Reduce the Griffonfoot’s damage and stagger to armoured; particularly on crits. It shouldn’t be wiping out Stormvermin groups on cataclysm alongside the horde.
Reduce the “magazine size” from 8 to 4 and make the reload restore 1 shot at a time instead of 2.
Repeater Pistol
Was nerfed a long time ago, and it pisses away ammo fast, even on BH. Its heavy attack can be used with “Blessed Shots Consume no Ammo” for one niche build on BH able to one-shot things in close range, but the crossbows already do that better.
The Swiftbow is the most comparable weapon, and on Waystalker it gets bleed with Serrated Shots talent, and the Hunter trait allows it +25% most of the time. Because it can be spammed it’s easy to keep proccing the Hunter trait without concern for ammo. This is because while her ult can be used return ammo instead of having to use scrounger. The aimed shot will do decent damage against elites and specials with headshots, and can be used to snipe a bit.
Now, the Repeater pistol’s heavy attack will just use a 8 ammo to kill one elite or special slightly faster than using 3-5 shots, which is still a lot. If you spam it into crowds, it just doesn’t sustain ammo, even off of crits with the Scrounger trait. Despite it having higher base damage than the Swiftbow, it doesn’t sustain ammo, and since can’t be used effectively with the Hunter trait, and because Waystalker uses Serrated Shots to make the Swiftbow work, it leaves the Repeater in an inferior spot, and the higher base damage doesn’t compensate.
It seems like the heavy shots were intended as a crude shotgun attack against hordes with the spread, but it’s not effective at all in that way. It’s better to spam single shots into hordes with scroungers to get a chance at getting ammo back, and because the single shots are still fast it will work against hordes when you have ammo, while the heavy blast of 8 shots is good for killing elites with the blessed shots not consuming ammo using Prize Bounty. However, neither of these work well enough to make this weapon decent.
My suggestions:
Give it 50 ammo, 100 on BH, and make the single shots pierce more enemies in hordes.. This will make the Scrounger trait more viable too since it will be getting ammo and then it can be spammed into hordes to make it a viable weapon to deal with large numbers of trash enemies to complement low cleave weapons that are rarely used like the axes.
Make the heavy blast of all 8 shots have a slower ADS, but tighter spread with some armor piercing and more damage so it can be used to blast elites or specials from a distance allowing players to quickly deal elites or specials at the expense of the entire magazine and having to reload.
I think these changes would make it a popular weapon on BH, and perhaps a decent option for WHC or Zealot should players want to trade more ammo for less damage than they get with the brace of pistols which are better at sniping specials and have a short spam attack good for dumping into elites. This way, the repeater can be used more for extra crowd control, with a fun powerful blast attack.
Two-Handed Sword
I know these weapons are decent on Both Kruber and Saltzpyre, but I think the reason we’re not seeing it in use much is because it is boring to use. No weapon in the game has quite so bland a moveset. The light attacks just look like a sped-up version of the heavy attacks, and all the heavy attacks do is allow for some extra cleave so you can stagger and handle armor.
Sure, they’re powerful, not OP either, but they’re bland to use. I love the aesthetic, so I pick em up once in awhile, but even during a single mission, I get to a point where it feels exhausting and lifeless just swinging with simple one-two attacks. Then push attack is the most interesting thing the weapon can do, and even that feels a bit anemic.
Suggestions:
Give it a cool moveset that requires a mix of Heavy Attacks and Light Attacks to rival weapons like Warrior Priest’s Greathammer or Necromancer’s Sythe.
These weapons require a bit of a combo to get the most out of them and allow you to chain attacks for a single target or horde.
The Greatsword has a pointed end and is an elegant weapon. Landskenets fit the imperial aesthetic of a mercenary with a large sword and they have so many wide varied sweeping attacks.
You could throw a vertical strike into the light attack combo like 1H sword, or have a thrust on one of the heavy attacks which works well against armor and elites.
The push attack could be a pommel strike to stagger elites and push them back since the wide sweeps work so well against hordes already.
You could have a half-sword weapon special attack for doing damage and stagger to armor at the expense of 1 stamina.
Man, it’s such a cool weapon, but you guys made it the most boring thing. This is why everyone is using the Bretonian Longsword, not necessarily because it’s “better”, but because it’s dynamic and satisfying, with combos and a unique feat where heavy attacks can be used to defend and riposte.
Fatshark, I love this game and people have mentioned the Greatsword countless times, just make it interesting. I bet even the few Greatsword fanatics out there who worry about changes causing power creep and love the bland one-two combo would find some moveset combos fun and it would breathe new life into this beautiful iconic weapon. Please…
Conflagration Staff
In effect, this weapon doesn’t do much of anything unless you fully charge it, and it looks fun to do that, but it takes long enough to get interrupted. Fireball can be spammed to do decent AOE without charging it. The Coruscation staff deals passive damage after using one right click and even nerfed will deal more damage to hordes. C’mon, this thing is cumbersome, you don’t fully charge it, and most you can do is stagger one or two elites and a tiny group of trash enemies.
Suggestion:
Have the charged attack start at the 25% radius so that even quick charged attacks can hit a decent number of enemies, and that will make it faster at getting to max charge. Also, make the AOE even bigger at max charge.
This would make it more fun and useful. As is, it’s easy to get interrupted while charging the spell, and it doesn’t do all that much for the effort. You can easily get more damage out of Fireball and the nerfed Coruscation staff, and they also clear hordes. I would like Conflagration to be even better than both of those at controlling hordes since it’s less useful than either against elites.
Also, make the flames last longer. This thing has weak flames that fizzle out in an instant. The DOT flames on this one should last a good bit when it’s charged.
Flamestorm Staff
Bardin’s Under Pressure talent makes the flamethrower better. So not only is this too similar to the Drakfire, it’s also weaker.
Suggestion:
I would make a big change here. It think it could be a great weapon if it felt more like a flamestorm and less like a magic flamethrower.
Give it an attack that doesn’t obscure vision, instead of shooting fire from the end, have it rain down fire in projectiles from above like a “storm” and give it range allowing it to be used effectively within a team without blocking your teammates vision or lighting them on fire. This way a player can use it to pick areas of dense crowds to rain projectiles down on at intervals, and control which spots are getting some fire rain, like small flame comets.
Make the light attack one quick projectile that fires a large flame bolt which can stagger specials or elites and kill specials in a few shots.
A close-range flamethrower doesn’t work great on Sienna since she’s not tanky like ironbreaker and most of her melee weapons are massively good at stagging and clearing space like a shield is on Ironbreaker.
