I will be honest, I haven’t played with Mace&Sword much, so it never crossed my mind to include it.
Same thing with the Halberd, but in it’s case it was the combo-focused attack pattern that deterred me from the very start (even when it was the “King Weapon” on Merc)
If I recall correctly, the attack speed on ExSword was actually quite ridiculous, allowing it to swing about as fast as a one-hander.
I still think Fatshark butchered it with the attack speed nerf, I just don’t think it needs that big of a buff. Also, making it a a fast swinging blender hurts 2h Sword in my opinion.
I honestly believe it’s supposed to stay “big game hunting” weapon, to separate the two. With ExSword’s ease of use being compensated by the need to aim your swings slightly more consciously than 2hSword. But that’s my pile of shillings. If other people disagree, it is good to hear them out.
Not really, even before the 7-8%(whatever it was) attack speed nerf it got it was one of the slower weapons in the game. To give a example; the current coghammer attacks faster than executioner ever did in its prime.
Merc was just absolutely busted with the thing and GK just abuses’ the weapon for its heavies.
If anything the attack speed tanked its viability on anything other than GK and merc.
So instead of nerfing GK and merc, the weapon was hit. Funnily enough both still use the weapon exactly the same way as they did in the past.
Nah I’m not suggesting much, just say 5 % on the light attacks would make it lot more reasonable. I’m actually totally fine with the heavies taking long time to go trough, so I don’t think buffing that in anyway is needed.
Comment about the finesse thing was more in line of saying that the weapon is pretty fine with slight tweaks.
This just seems silly to me. Ah yes, jumping around all the time, a renowned technique to improve accuracy and not at all silly. Don’t you think the playstyle of the weapon is getting warped just a bit to make it fit in with HS’s kit? I dunno, none of this feels particularly natural to me with the weapon.
Unnatural? That seems like a fairly melodramatic take. It’s just a small bit thing you can do to optimize the combination. Not really any different than aiming melee attacks above or to the side of the head to get more headshots.
I wasn’t suggesting it’s not a good recommendation, but my point was that going for headshots/sizeable parts of HS’s kit isn’t very intuitive with BB. I believe you that jumping allows you to headshot without missing half your pellets, but it also doesn’t really address my issue in any way.
Can somebody give a few ideas for Handmaiden?
I don’t play her that often and probably missed a few important aspects about her.
I know some people consider her well balanced (aside from Moonbow and Javelin, obviously).
Meanwhile I have seen an opinion that “being good at clutching is not a role that should be in the game”. So, really need opinions and suggestions.
Same goes for Shade - I don’t know her well enough.
Sure. But by the same token isn’t it also not very intuitive to aim executioner heavies to the side of the head since the attack is not quite perfectly centered? Where’s the rallying cry for that?
I just think it’s a tad silly to get so worked up about 1 minor passive effect and 1 talent row not perfectly synergizing with 1 weapon. Most ranged weapons are so powerful that you’ll basically be fine so long as you have ammo sustain. Shotguns fit this mold especially well and boy howdy does huntsman have ammo sustain.
There are so many bigger balance fish to fry.
I have yet to see a Handmaiden topic that is more interesting and intelligent than Velsix’s.
I sort of missed it when it came out because of how massive the changes to everything were.
His suggestions might not even be doable from technical standpoint.
I will take a look, of course. Just sharing my concerns.
I agree obviously. The conversation just came up because Warget had a change for Thrill of the Hunt that myself and others didn’t particularly like, that then sparked more general HS talk. Also HS, while not a big balance issue, does have pretty bad PR so a few things to make him feel slightly more fluid could be pretty impactful.
Again though, I agree, there are much higher priorities.
Oh… He actually adresses what I was concerned about further down the thread and combs down some of the suggested changes.
Yeah, you were right to send me to his thread, thank you!
I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion, but would there actually be any issue with Skill Splitter and Thousand Cuts if the third option for hybrid builds was, y’know vaguely competitive? Yes you would have a set choice on that row based on your weapon loadout, but I don’t see talents as things that need to be competitive across all weapons (if that’s even possible without making them rather convoluted or just bland and passive), but as something that facilitates different builds, and that ideally each have a use case depending on your loadout.
TL;DR Simplest thing would be to leave those 2 talents alone and make Hack and Slash something actually worthwhile for hybrid light + heavy weapon builds. Making it a guaranteed crit every 4 hits as originally suggested for that talent might be enough, or you could play around with some other properties like what you’ve suggested to replace skull splitter. It could grant a large bonus to cleave and stagger for a duration after weapon swap (thus encouraging you to actively swap between weapons more), it could be something like armour piecing slugs but for melee, there’s probably a lot of interesting options you could work with there, but redesigning one talent seems a lot more straightforward to me than modifying all 3 on that row.
Am I alone in thinking current skull splitter and thousand cuts are fine as long as there’s a good option for hybrid/throwing axe builds on that row? Sorry for not giving more specific suggestions, I haven’t got any ideas yet that I’m super happy with yet.
The problem is not just with having no “hybrid” alternative.
Problem is with the fact that Skull-Splitter and A Thousand Cuts are essentially 1 talent that was split in 2 because the description was too big.
Now it causes a lot of problems due to making lvl 10 row actively shoehorn people into 3 playstyles.
And on top of that it hampers the experience in Chaos Wastes, because you are forced to take one of only 2 playstyles or suffer having 2 completely dead talents in your playthrough. They don’t provide any benefit if you don’t bring the proper weapon combo, but still appear in the shrines and chests. (I know, Chaos Wastes are not the core of the game like Campaign is, but improving people’s experience in them is a good upside)
Making Skull-Splitter and A Thousand Cuts whole again wouldn’t remove anything that already exists in the game, it will just add actual options, which is what everyone has been asking for. These talents can be merged and they would still work exactly the same. You pick 2 one-handers, the talent provides attack speed. You pick 2 two-handers, the buff changes to power. You don’t pick any of the two options, both buffs are disabled.
Well, I guess I got another option to write down xD
I’m not a fan of twisting campaign balance to suit side game modes. If there’s an issue with how it functions in CW then that should be something that is addressed within CWs itself.
Literally what other playstyle is there other than 2 light weapons, 2 heavy weapons, or hybrid (I include running throwing axes in this category). Last I checked there literally isn’t another possibility so there’s no shoehorning whatsoever. You pick what weapons you like then you pick the talent that compliments them… you know like every other class. So yeah unless I’m forgetting something major that problem isn’t real.
Again please see my argument regarding talent choice. Making all talents on a row an equal choice for all weapon options is a pipe dream that has never existed in this game. As long as every possible weapon combination has a good choice on each row what is the issue?
Again I disagree this was ever the issue. The issue has been that running a hybrid build/throwing axes is objectively gimping yourself, give a third option that is actually good for those builds and that issue evaporates.
I reiterate, why have FS do triple the work when fixing a single talent could allow every weapon combination to be a legitimate option?
Any other suggestions for a talent that should center around combining 2 different weapon types?
(Aside from weapon swapping and +1 guaranteed cleave I mean)
Sorry, I’m not trying to pressgang you into incorporating anything I say specifically, that was really just meant to be dialogue, if nobody agrees with me then no reason to include it really. I’m just extremely pessimistic about how much real balance change we’ll see so am trying to keep it to the minimum work possible.
If I have any other ideas for Hack and Slash I’ll post later.
My intention is to potentially approach @Incandescent with these ideas and (if possible) collaborate to cobble up a mod to prove the concepts. If everything works and idea picks up, then Fatshark would be really unable to ignore it.
Like… Immagine if on one of their Community/Dev streams, the most common message in the chat would be “When will you implement Name Mod Here balance changes?”
That’s basically the cause I am rooting for.
Make it work and make it clear what needs to be added.
