Dueling Sword should be nerfed and here is why – long discussion post

[Reginald]

@Nish

I’d say IoD nerf had a huge impact on Evis, since you can’t just spam FotF nearly as much. Even if it was an indirect nerf, it is a nerf.

I wouldn’t say it’s “struggling” tho.

That’s kinda true but its peak performance has always been under the Martyrdom keystone.

@alsozara

Perfect example of power creep right here. Everyone raving about Evic after its patch 13 buffs. New Evic comes out, widely considered pretty stupid overpowered.

Neither weapon is nerfed, now apparently they “struggle” because we’re given alternatives that are significantly more brain dead.

This cycle is so so goddamn tiring.

this.

@Gigs

First off, everyone is not using the weapon, and, of the people I’ve seen, they haven’t been particularly impressive in anything other than mobility.

The last time I played a few pub matches I literally walked into nothing but 4 stacks of dueling swords. But that’s hardly a representative sample. Its simply the consensus that its the most powerful melee weapon among higher tier players, not least because of its mobility.

@Gigs

I’m simply advising that Reg in a big room where he can kite isn’t representative of anything but performance at the highest skill level with a maxed weapon, flawless movement tech, and complete map awareness.

The problem I’m hoping to highlight is that most weapons cannot even do this. Try it with an eviscerator or a thunder hammer (which are really the only weapons in competition for the clear speeds of the Dueling Sword Mk4) and you will get caught and have to fight. It might be “possible” and maybe i’m just not good enough. But i’m not exactly a weak player and I can’t do it. I usually need to whip out a fast pistol like the BP to kite like that. So you have a weapon that has the mobility of a knife with the TTK of a Thammer and the use safety of a knife. Its clearly not sensible.

@Gigs

Watched your video

thank you

@Gigs

average player sandwiched between two silent hordes when they have to clutch?

It is the second best possible choice for this difficult situation because of its safety, mobility and fighting profiles. Most of surviving problems like this is in mobility and stagger. With good mobility and decent cleaving attacks and the ability to shove enemies you should be able to (and I have) dug myself out of nasty situations. The only weapon that is better is the Indignatus Crusher because its a stun-stick.

@Pirx

exactly ( i watched your video on this earlier today).

thank you

@Pirx

however, one clearly standing out so you’re hobbling yourself if you pick something else is not balanced.

Its worse than that. A lot of people were like ‘why not buff everything else’ and the reason is simple - a weapon that nears the ideal weapon doesn’t leave much room for meaningful choices. I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain for a while and I think I will use my funny graph again.

The DS4 is almost a perfect weapon. It has like one half of a downside. If you buff everything to the same degree then all weapons will be nearing the grey line. The more you squish them to the top the less meaningful diversity there will be. When the thunder hammer has 5 dodges and no-self stun and the same swing speed as the dueling sword (all objectively better traits) then they’re barely even different weapons at that point. Why care? Why pick anything over anything else? it’ll all feel the same and be the same.

Optimization is the enemy here. Thus weapons must have positives and negatives in order to be part of a fun and dynamic range of weaponry and nothing should land too close to the grey line too consistently or it’ll just be “the best.”