That’s it, that’s all I want the nerf to be. Hit and kill two enemies max in a single attack. Will drastically reduce its CC potential while leaving its light attacks serviceable and not just one of them heavy-attack only weapons. Then do the same thing for the knives.
Its single-target damage is fine and that’s what it’s designed to do. The problem is it’s versatile where it shouldn’t be - other options like the 1H chainswords or shovels are meant to be versatile all-rounders that don’t excel in any front, but the Dueling Sword excels in all fronts. It should stay winning in the single-target and mobility departments, but its CC shouldn’t be that good.
I think that’s a kneejerk reaction from folk who don’t know what they’re talking about. Carapace is a hard thing to deal with, and weapons like the dueling sword are designed to deal with it. Nerfing its Carapace damage is a nerf for the sake of being a nerf while ignoring the actual problem.
Wouldn’t really matter that much, people already solve horde clear in other ways when using it. The distinct issue with the weapon is that it chews through single target HP bars too quickly with the stabs, I mean you can literally get it to oneshot crushers and you can also get it to kill a boss on damnation in like 5 seconds. It’s absurdly overtuned. It can’t stay that way. It’s not fine. The only other weapons that come even close to achieving breakpoints like the dueling sword are 5x slower, need elaborate setup and/or talents+blessings for it and heavily limit your mobility.
The other issue is the stagger special is unreasonably strong for a high mobility weapon and for how fast and free it is.
Direct nerfs should include a carapace armor damage nerf, an unyielding damage nerf. Also, make it so the special attack has a stagger cooldown like most other staggers so it can’t just stunlock something, and maybe don’t let it stagger crushers and maulers, it’s pretty silly that it can do that. Maybe even rework the stagger stab into something more sensical. What even is it supposed to be? A quicker stab that just makes crushers stagger? How does it make sense? What does it depict? Is it a flick of the wrist eye gouge? Why can it go through a mauler faceshield then?
After that fix how uncanny strikes work to prevent it from giving 100% rending for grenades and dots, just on the same note.
Also, tune down its non weakspot damage a bit. It gets a gigantic finesse bonus, why does it still hit hard as hell on a bodyshot? It should be the distinct tradeoff.
With such nerfs applied the weapon would be pretty in line with the knife, meaning still incredibly strong due to the mobility and strong single target on elites. It just doesn’t literally oneshot them on quick stabs anymore and it stops having more stagger than an Ogryn punch.
It’d probably still be the best weapon in game, but more in line. If you look at the overhead only dueling sword it’s a lot like what I described damage wise, and it still does great on H40, let alone regular damnation. I know nerfs at surface level feel bad but it’s healthy for the game and the overhead version of the dueling sword is still fantastic so it’s proof the weapon could be balanced and more in line and still be fun and viable.
Weeel, weapons like the dueling sword are designed to deal with lace-ruffed dandies and others of that ilk. People known, in fact, for a distinct lack of Carapace armor.
I don’t know how Hadron got the hardware for an always-activated power sword (AAPS) into a frikin’ saber, but that’s why she’s the Techthingamajeggy. But it is indeed damn good against Carapace.*
It’s GREAT for me as a psyker, because I’ve got lots of area-effect damage tools, and the AAPS gives me both the mobility (so fast!) and the quick, high-damage anti-armor capability I’d lack otherwise. Without it I might be forced to rely on teamwork.
If the DS lost its anti-armor capability almost entirely I’d still use it. It’d still offer mobility, good damage against inopportune specials, and have better reach than a knife. (This is an alternate dimension where combat knives have noticeably worse reach than a sword)
*Sometimes my beloved sends me dreams of another war, on a lost world where ratlings aren’t our keen-eyed pals.
In that war there are both Eldar and Zealots who wield knives or swords that do great damage against armor, but that fits the dream’s paradigm. The warriors are exceptional Heroes who apply their light weapons against any chink in their foe’s armor. But back in the real world of the Mourningstar we have no Heroes. We have something different, something better: The Gifts of the Omnimessiah. (And the Emperor, too, of course.) Plasma guns, power weapons, and everything that goes BOOM or BRRR! They fit the Mourningstar’s paradaigm.
OTOH, perhaps the Vet’s upcoming weapon will be a lever-action, black powder rifle with high-mobility, as much cleave and damage as the plasma gun, but a better rate of fire.
Nerf Uncanny Strike. 120% rending with virtually 100% uptime should not be a thing. If anything, it should stack up to a max of 50% and stack like Executor or Relentless Strikes.
Drastically lower it’s finesse damage. The weapon’s finesse multipler is so high that it doesn’t actually need Uncanny Strike to quickly deal with packs of carapace (or anything really), unlike the knife. It also allows the weapon to basically one shot everything else.
Delete Agile. This was nuked in VT2 because infinite dodges is terrible for balance. Why the hell was it brought back here?
I think it’d be cool to significantly nerf the DS but turn its special into a devastating but risky, due to animation-lock, Stamina-consuming lunge.
Wandering off the topic a bit, but the above makes me wonder:
What are the differences between the DS and the combat knife? To me it seems like the DS is more or less the combat knife, but even better. Which is realistic - in the same way that any swords is “like a knife, but better in many ways.” In DT, though, is there any way the knife is better? I mean, concealment and cost, for example, aren’t issues. Nor is handiness in close quarters, unfortunately. I guess there’s a different blessing pool, and different blessings are better for some builds.
Horde clear?
As someone who is trying to get used to using the Relic blade and has completely avoided the dueling sword because of how utterly OP it is - it’s absolutely insane that a dueling sword can out-damage a GIANT TWO HANDED POWER SWORD.
Seriously, even with a relic blade powered up it STILL can’t perform on par with a dueling sword, baffling. At this point I don’t even think they have anything dedicated to balancing the game. They just toss out ideas, put them all inside of a hat, jumble it up and whatever they pick out of the hat is the next addition to the game.
I think, for the mark 4 specifically, reducing cleave and damage on light attacks makes sense to me on the duelling sword. It’s main purpose is weak point damage and pin point accuracy with a lot of defensive capabilities. It’s purpose, to “duel” opponents one on one.
It should suck at hordes, dealing very little damage with light attacks in a slashing format. And especially have low cleave.
That said I feel like this entire game needs a massive balance pass.
I have this very biased and tinfoil theory that much of it stems from Psyker playtesters. I mean they’ve had that dueling sword for ages and everyone playing knew it’s by and far the best Psyker weapon and OP and makes every other weapon pointless, yet it never got adjusted. Then it’s on other classes and instantly everyone agrees “yep this is OP and bad for the game”. I feel like Psyker playtesters are just not interested in getting broken things nerfed. See also: Smite, Psykinetics Aura and more.
Probably because Psykers have the highest skill cap so having an OP weapon isn’t considered that bad unless you get someone that’s actually good playing the class lol. I still can’t believe someone thought “let’s give a Zealot the dueling sword, that’ll work out great” like come on now lol. I would of been fine with Veteran getting access but Zealot is just way too much
DS4 is pretty much “knife, but better.” Knife does have backstab (they have an unlisted backstab mod, can’t remember if it’s rending, extra damage, or both) and bleed. But why go for bleed or position for backstabs when you can just poke them in the face and kill faster?
Mk6 knife can one shot 2-3 chaff with H1, and not loose any movement speed/momentum doing so, so I guess that’s the only thing knife has over DS.
So, the bonus has never be formally identified… but it should be damages as, in same patch, they had divided by 2 the damage bonus from backstab hits with perfectionist talent.
Precision: when this patch has been live, the Combat blade MK IV was not available.
I would like to prevent the crazy easy 1 - 2 shot headshot kills on crushers/maulers and bring its sprint speed down to average. Never played with all mks, but I’m sure there’s one that is probably good at horde clearing and don’t want to tank those mks unfairly with accidental drive-by nerfs.
Combat Blade is due for a lookin at, too. But I don’t mind that it’s fast and I don’t want to completely remove high crit assassin gameplay, either.
