First, let’s adress the combination of things that make dueling sword the powerhouse it currently is: Finesse Modifiers, Anti Armor Blessings, Talents and High Movement Modifiers
In this post I will make suggestions on what should be done to balance Dueling Sword regarding those 4 areas, in order:
1. High Finesse Modifiers:
Using Games Lantern, individual copies may differ:
Finesse:
Critical and Weakspot power: caps out at ×2.16.
Attack speed caps out at ×1.14.
It’s not that complicated, Dueling Sword has exceptionally fast heavy attacks and over ×2 Crit/Weakspot power. This means it hits like a freight train packed full of explosives in the hands of a skilled player who knows how to optimize Blessings and Talents.
2. Anti Armor Blessings:
Armor effectiveness is mainly reduced by two modifiers:
Brittleness and Rending.
Rending is a buff available only to the player with the stacks but applies to any armor the player attacks.
Brittleness is a debuff available to all players, but only against the enemies with the stacks.
Why is this important?
With Uncanny Strike, a player has up to 120% Rending. This means while at max stacks not only will armor be ignored completely, but the player with Uncanny will get an additional 20% extra damage against Flak and Carapace.
Remember those Finesse Modifiers that affect Attack Speed?
Well, with Thrust the player gets up to a 60% buff to Impact, Damage, and Cleave.
These are the two main Blessings that affect breakpoints, but it’s also worth mentioning Shred and Riposte provide a readily available 20% extra critical chance, however, Critical Damage is limited by Critical Chance unlike the readily accessible damage from Thrust and Uncanny Strike.
3. Talents:
What are the main talents that affect breakpoints and synergize with Dueling Sword? I will discuss each of the talents that provide significant synergy with Critical and Weakspot attacks.
Psyker:
Mettle: Critical Hits replenish 5% Toughness.
Also grants +5% increased Movement Speed for 4s. Stacks 3 times.
Empathic Evasion: A Critical Hit makes you count as Dodging against Ranged Attacks for 1s.
Scrier’s Gaze: When entering Scrier’s Gaze you Quell 50% Peril as well as gain +10% Damage, +20% Critical Chance, and Suppression Immunity. For every second in Scrier’s Gaze you gain +1% Damage up to a maximum of +30%. This effect lingers for 10s after leaving Scrier’s Gaze.
Precognition: Weakspot Kills count as 1s spent in Scrier’s Gaze. For each second spent in Scrier’s Gaze, you now also gain +1% Finesse Damage (+30% max) which lingers for 10s after leaving Scrier’s Gaze.
Disrupt Destiny: Each Precision Bonus grants +1% Damage, +2% Critical Damage and +2.5% Weakspot Damage. Precision Bonus Stacks 15 times and when the duration ends, one stack is removed and the duration is refreshed.
What do all these Talents have in common?
They are all critical attack damage modifiers. Unlike the next class, Zealot, these talents that synergize with Psyker’s 2.5% crit chance bonus over the other human classes do NOT affect Combat Ability reduction.
Zealot:
Scourge: Melee Critical Hits apply Bleed, causing Damage over time. Melee Hits on Bleeding Enemies grant +10% Critical Chance for 3s. Stacks 3 times.
*Note: Bleed is one of two DoT (Damage over time) types. Bleed can be affected by modifiers that apply Rending. This means with a Dueling Sword that has Uncanny Strike, all DoT stacks applied by Scourge are buffed.
Remember the Finesse modifier that increases attack speed ×1.14? Well that also means faster DoT stack application with Scourge. This turns Dueling Sword from a “ok” horde clear into a great horde clear. Normally weapons that are considered “great” horde clear have high horizantal cleave, but are balanced by subpar or average mobility. More on mobility later.
Fury of the Faithful: Dash forward, Replenishing 50% Toughness & gaining +20% Attack Speed for 10s. Your next Melee Hit gains +25% Damage and is a guaranteed Critical Hit.
It’s self explanatory. FoTF is a guaranteed ×2.16 critical damage increase with Dueling Sword Finesse modifier.
Duellist: +50% Weakspot & Critical Hit damage for 3s on successful Dodge.
Punishment: Attacks that Hit at least 3 Enemies grant +5% Impact Strength for 5s. Stacks 5 times. At max Stacks gain Uninterruptible.
Heavy attack, skewer 3 trash enemies and presto that’s a stack of 5% Impact, up to 25%. Not as egregious as the following talents in contributing to “make the dueling sword OP” but it’s definitely mentionable.
Invocation of Death: +200% Ability Cooldown Regeneration for 4s on Melee Critical Hits.
So, DS Finesse modifier: ×1.14 attack speed + Scourge: 30% Crit Chance on Bleeding targets = a LOT of CDR.
But it gets better.
Blazing Piety: +15% Critical Hit Chance for 8s when in Fury. Fury is triggered when 25 Enemies have died within 25m.
Fury Rising: Critical Hits also count up towards triggering Fury.
Righteous Warrior: +10% Critical Hit Chance from Blazing Piety.
What does this mean?
Scourge: 30% Critical Chance on Bleeding enemies + Righteous Warrior: 10% additional Critical Chance + Blazing Piety: 15% Critical Chance when in Fury + Fury Rising: Perpetual +25% Critical Chance thanks to Crits counting towards Fury = 55% Critical Chance
So now we’re at +55% Critical Chance on a weapon with a ×1.14 attack speed modifier and ×2.16 Critical Damage. Now every single one of those Critical hits counts towards Combat Ability Reduction using Invocation of Death and upon using Shroudfield or Fury of the Faithful our player also gets 100% Critical Chance on the next attack.
Now if that wasn’t overkill enough, we could throw on Riposte for +75% Crit Chance, but most Zealots are probably going to opt for Uncanny to buff DoT bleed stacks from Scourge, with Thrust to hit instant kill breakpoints.
4. Movement Modifiers:
Now that we’ve covered the Dueling Sword’s Finesse Modifier, Blessings and Talents that affect Dueling Sword let’s move onto DS movement modifiers.
Sprint Speed: [0.53 - 0.98]
Movement speed alone is not the issue, movement speed combined with the on demand ×2.16 Critical Damage, 120% Rending and heavy attack reach is the issue.
So what is it that actually makes Dueling Sword OP?
The combination of the highest sprint speed, ×2.16 Finesse Modifiers, up to 120% Rending and synergy with the strongest melee talents in the game through Zealot.
So how do we balance Dueling Sword without making it unusable?
First, Uncanny on Dueling Sword gets capped at 40% Rending. 120% Rending is absurd by itself, certainly more so on a weapon that has heavies as fast as the Dueling Sword. This one is a no brainer. Rending affects DoT damage, and the reach of DS just makes it too easy to poke armor from a safe distance.
Second, Dueling Sword Gets Removed From Zealot. Finesse modifiers are not nearly as much as an issue without perpetual access to them, which as I explained above the Zealot will have through the unique Talents on the tree.
That means while Zealot can hit thresholds of up to 75% Crit Chance that contributes to those Finesse modifiers being active, that Crit Chance is capped at 57.5% for Psyker and that’s IF the Psyker sacrifices Seer’s Presence for Prescience.
So even if we slash the Finesse stat, the Zealot is still maintaining that absurdly high Critical Chance unless we nerf Zealot’s Talent tree which obviously complicates things more than we need to for DS. It’s best just to remove the Dueling Sword from Zealot entirely.
Third, max Sprint Speed gets reduced to +.80. That puts it on par with Zarona. Dueling Sword should still be one of the more mobile melee options as it lacks the strong horizantal cleave or stagger necessary for strong horde clear, but not as mobile as a weapon that requires the wielder to place themselves in a much riskier position like the knife does.
Now, it’s worth noting Veteran also has some balance issues with Dueling Sword/Talent synergy, so I can make a part II addressing those if it’s desired:
- No, Vet is fine with Duelling Sword
- Yes, Make a Post Addressing Vet Dueling Sword Balancing
