The Big Balance Beta has made a rather odd change to Spear and shield, more specifically the removal of the 3rd light stab and the replacement of that attack with a light sweep.
Push attack --> Heavy 2 (Overhead attack) [Armor damage combo]
Heavy sweep 1 --> Block cancel --> Heavy sweep 1 [Hordecontrol combo]
Pre-BBB Spear and shield somewhat struggled with hordecontrol as it only had 1 attack that was really usable for it, on top of that the attack was annoying/exhausting to have to repeat, because you had to block cancel every time after doing the heavy sweep. So, because of this problem you wanted to improve its overall hordecontrol by implementing another sweep attack. However, the way in which this was implemented ruined a couple of the original combo’s and didn’t quite fix the hordecontrol issue it has, I also personally find that the weapons fluency has been ruined by the removal of that 3rd light stab.
The change I want to see made is pretty similar to Post-BBB Halberd where the newly implemented change kept the original combo('s) intact, but also fixed the hordecontrol issue that it had by changing the order in which the attacks come out i.e. making Halberd open up with the light sweep instead of a light stab, while still keeping the original push attack into light overhead intact.
The way I want Spear and shield to be changed is the following:
Push attack --> Heavy 2 (Overhead attack) [Armor damage combo]
Light sweep 1 --> Heavy sweep 1 [Hordecontrol combo]
Long story short, I’d like for the 3rd light stab to be re-added where it used to be, that restores the original combo and gives the weapon its fluency back; It should also open up with the light sweep instead of a light stab, that way you can chain the light sweep into the heavy sweep which fixes the hordecontrol issue that Spear and shield has.
Lets add chainable hordeclear sweeps to 1h axes and other purely single target weapons, while we’re at it… how else players gonna win?
Imo there’s an overarching issue when ‘singletarget’ attacks suck too much for hordes, we have such problems with weapon balance - if you dont have easy access to repeatable sweeps, the weapon is considered weak in general (on its own).
The whole idea of single target attacks is outdated, its from Verm 1 era with much less enemy counts. Now the only way to make those weapons work - is to stack ridiculous amount of AS, and/or bringing good AoE ranged for compensation.
Singletarget attacks need to be redesigned to not be singletarget anymore. Its too much of an extreme drawback with enemy counts the game has.
They should hit 2 infantry enemies {up to Gor level}, some powerful stabs could hit 3 (or 2 marauders).
1st off, Spear and shield is a shielded weapon that needs hordecontrol like any other shielded weapon, the hordecontrol that Spear and shield lacks is the entire reason they added an extra light sweep, but the way in which they implemented it made the weapon feel physically painful to play.
2nd off, I understand the issue you’re getting at considering light attacks in general, but if they were to completely redesign light attacks into being able to penetrate/slice through 2 to 3 enemies up to Gor level you would end up with players entirely throwing out the idea of sweep attacks/cleave just because the lights would be the better and faster option.
And last but not least, the change that I want to be implemented is more of a QoL change than anything else. Like the post says:
All of the Spear and shield combo’s feel pretty bad/annoying to use post-BBB, which is why I recommended the change in the first place.
why? not all shields should be the same, and you still have push. The idea that shields are staggering control tools is just our interpretation, while shields historically were used mainly for protecting yourself from damage, which in game terms is block cost, block angle, and stamina.
its a viable concern, but easily balance-able. Sweeps would never be out of favor because its just plain easier to hit enemies with them, and considering enemies come in wide waves and try to flank you - the sweeps are really superior in control, even with buffed cleave on stabs/overheads. I see a potential for greater variety in combat when ‘singletarget’ attacks would be semi-viable for hordes.
To balance them out, the stabs/overheads could have damage drop-off, while sweeps could get a bit of a buff to 2nd+ target damage.
And remember when greathammer and greatsword didn’t had armor cleave at the release? The designs of these weapons were a relic from Verm 1, the developers later saw that those sweeps were underwhelming in control. Its the same issue here imo - the fact that stabs/overheads mostly hit one target - is a relic from Verm 1 days.
okay, but i’m questioning this request:
if you do this, not only we’ll have the same block cancel L1 spam as on halberd, but the idea itself of spear in one hand being used like: wide sweep into wide sweep and so on - seems very unrealistic, unauthentic is the right word.
Kerillian’s spear has linesmen on its stabs for some reason. Interestingly on Handmaiden it reaches some decent cleave breakpoints, and on modded if you throw it on Merc it can cleave Marauders with the stabs. This makes the stabs much more useful not just for dealing with hordes, but also for attacking specific targets behind the frontline of enemies. The ability to hit two targets would definitely be a step in the right direction.
So buff the cleave on the stabs so they can hit two targets. Than I think the light chain should be reverted to all stabs. The heavy sweep looks kind of odd on a spear, so an attack angle more like Kerillian’s Spear’s cleave heavy would be appropriate. I also think the heavy stab is underutilised on this weapon because it takes too long to reach it.
The first heavy and the heavy sweep are swapped around in the full heavy chain like so:
Heavy stab (h1) - heavy overhead (h2) - heavy sweep (h3).
Heavy stab chain (h1 chains into l3 and l3 chains into h1:
H1 - l3 - h1 and l3 - h1 - l3.
Heavy overhead chain (h2 chains into l2 and l2 chains into h2):
H2 - l2 - h2 and l2 - h2 - l2.
Heavy sweep chain (h3 chains into l1 and l1 chains into h3):
H3 - l1 - h3 and l1 - h3 - l1.
Push attack chains into h2 as it does currently:
Push attack - h2 - l2 - h2
Push attack light chains into l1 instead of l2:
Push attack - l1 - heavy sweep
This gives it a good chain for immediate single target dps (h1 & h2), one for chaining bodyshot damage and shield breaking (l2 into overhead, retains push attack into overhead) and one for crowd control (l1 into heavy sweep). This technically nerfs it’s immediate crowd control by making the heavy sweep not the first heavy, but the buff to the cleave of the single target attacks would compensate for this.
Anyway when it came to spear and shield the main problem it had was that it lacks significantly for horde control unless you looped the H1 sweep which was not only awkward to do but quite slow and ineffective, you could also weave in pushes a lot due to the nature of how handmaiden works but not having a shield slam available limited the actual effective level of control she could put out with the weapon making it effectively a single target weapon almost entirely but it didn’t really put out enough damage for that status to be justified and the shield also causes a lot of the screen to be taken up even when pushing with it. So I attempted to circumvent these issues by adding a sweep to the light combo which would be consistent with the standalone elf spear and the tuskgor spear. Honestly, I don’t think it did enough to solve the problems the weapon had and still has. Anyway maybe the concept I outline in the linked thread could apply to Spear & Shield also. Either that or give the weapon access to a slam (though I’d say the shield is way too large for that to not look ridiculous)
It does currently chain into h1 > l3. The issue is this combo is somewhat awkward and clunky, and unfortunately compromised the weapons single target capabilities, leaving it to only having push attack > overhead spam. The heavy stab also remains rarely used for anything. These things don’t have to be fixed as it’s not a bad weapon by any means, I’d just like the spear part of the weapon to operate more like a spear.
For comparison the Sword and shield relies on its shield for cc which makes sense, while the Spear and Shield uses the spear for most of its cc which is odd.
I misread the combo. It’s l3 into h1 but you have to do heavy sweep > light stab > light sweep > heavy sweep for the cleave combo. No h3 straight into l3 unfortunately.
With the number of elites on Cata it’s unfortunately the case. I don’t want too many weapons to cleave elites but switching from something like the Greatsword on Merc to the 1h Mace really highlights how important it is.
The original Tuskgor spear carried my first Cata wins (was so strong). I wouldn’t go as far as giving the Spear and Shield that level of push strength, as it would start to outshine the other shields in cc simply because only Handmaiden can use it. I also think it’s fine for a shield to not necessarily be a cc weapon at its core.
I think just upping the cleave on the stabs a little would put it in a good spot. Only other change I can think of would be making it so that the shield isn’t visible during light attacks (like the other shields) for visibility or making it just stay on the left instead of constantly moving off-screen and then returning.
I would agree with a change like this if it only affects certain weapons and if said weapons have no other cleave, namely sweeps or heavy sweeps because you would have your cleave in the stabs/overheads.
So from what I’m understanding here is that they should make shielded weapons more realistic, as in more defensive than offensive or should they just completely throw out the idea of having offense on shielded weapons? Instead of being able to kill things with said shielded weapon you should just be able to block/push your way through missions, because that would be realistic right?
How would there be greater variety in combat if the stabs/overheads on weapons that can cleave through atleast 2 enemies? It would make having light or heavy sweeps on weapons redundant, because of the fact that stabs/overheads would be able to be thrown out faster and possibly do more damage.
How would giving Spear and shield the ability to chain from a light sweep into a heavy sweep end us up with people using block cancel L1 spam like they used to on Pre-BBB Halberd? Many of the people that play Halberd swapped over from that annoying block cancel to chaining the light sweep into the heavy sweep for more fluent if not more efficiënt play. Here again you mention realism although this time I can somewhat agree, a slap-like motion with a Spear isn’t particulary realistic or authentic.
If you give stabs/overheads cleave, any other cleave then becomes redundant. At that point you might aswell just spam stabs/overheads because you can throw them out faster and more efficiëntly, especially with weapons like Spear and shield where most of the attack are stabs/overheads.
Why would it have to cleave through elites to be worth? Spear and shield has enough other means of attack to be able to pick off elites in the horde, but because of the lack of hordecontrol it has, you can’t do that efficiëntly while still keeping enough pressure going on the rest of the horde.
It depends on how much they cleave by and on how much they rely on headshots to deal good damage. If the traditional cleave attacks are better for hitting spread out enemies and deal better bodyshot damage while also still dealing with dense clumps more effectively then they still have a strong place.
It also really wouldn’t be odd for a spear to be better at stabbing than it is at slashing.
You said before that stabs/overheads would be worth it if they cleaved through atleast 2 enemies. A spear being better at stabbing than slashing is a fair point, however if you make it better at stabbing in the first place and then add extra cleave to the stabs + the fact that stabs are easier to headshot with and deal more damage anyways would end up rendering sweeps basically worthless.
For the Spear and Shield the light sweep has higher infantry damage on both bodyshot and headshot (Edit: I was half-wrong. The lights stabs have higher infantry bodyshot damage than the light sweep, but less headshot damage which is odd) than its light stabs. The heavy sweep has low damage for its speed but has the same stagger cleave limit as the 2h Hammer’s heavy attacks.
Personally I’d be fine with a reasonable buff to their cleave or the ability to always hit two targets. Both would be too much.
Hmm, is your opinion that shields historically were mostly used for slamming the opponents with the edge of the shield?
What about wooden shields w/o metal rim, or just bigger, taller shields? Do you see them being used effectively as a striking weapon?
That was my point - a shield is a personal protection tool, first and foremost. If shield weapons on Kruber&Bardin are capable of great crowd control - it doesn’t mean that Spear and Shield should also be capable of the same cc, just because it has a word shield in it.
Imo sweeping attacks with a spear are totally authentic, when done with two hands. But not with one hand with other on the shield. A single sweep is maybe fine, a sweep after sweep - neh.
i see a potential for greater variety, because you’d have a choice when fighting hordes - basically cleave in narrow lines or cleave in wide sweeps, both ways having their advantage and disadvantage, and both suited for different enemy presence, level geometry… its variety to alternate between narrow and wide attacks, its like using halberd the way it was designed - using full light combo vs a horde (and not furously spamming L1 sweep block cancel)