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

[Molonious]

@gpkgpk

How is the ultimate game difficulty in any way good if all it takes is 1 or 2 good (not great) players and 2 anything to win? Where’s the challenge? Where’s the fun? You have nothing to strive for.

In my experience, if you’re able to carry half a team of players who don’t belong there in Auric Maelstrom, I’d argue you’re exceptional, not merely good or even great.

[JBA]

Dance of death is seriously good on the brauto, makes long range kills very doable.

[Ralendil]

@jackjackson

Agile is straight up cheating. It gives you infinite dodges. On Zealot that means:

Infinite second wind 15% toughness regen on dodge
Infinite duellist 50% crit & weakspot damage on dodge
Infinte dance of death -75%spread and -50% recoil

While dance of death is insignificant in most cases, second wind alone makes you virtually unkillable. You can survive insane situations.

Agile is broken and should not be in the game.

In other words you want that they remove agile cause zealot have good talents that enhance this weapon…
This happens also with veteran and ranged weapon…
This happens also with psykers and warp damages (staves)…

But, I agree on one thing. Duellist is too strong. And this has nothing to do with DS.
But if you nerf it, other classes should also get nerfs to balance them toward the zealot.

[supra898]

@Pirx

psykers because they’re squishy

squishy

yea no

[gpkgpk]

Eh I’ve carried 3 others fairly regularly, and while I’m a good (great?) player I don’t think I’m exceptional. It’s not hard for 2 good players to carry people kicking and screaming, however frustrating it can be, to a win.
This is made much easier with some OP weapons and abilities and it seems to have gotten easier.

[Tarquelne]

1. I enjoyed the anti-armor power of rapiers and dual daggers in VT2. The idea that a hero can run up to a Chaos Knight and kill him by poking him in the eye back is very high fantasy: It fit the game’s genre.

To whatever degree Darktide is sci-fi … or space opera, or space-fantasy, or whatever - I think knives and swords out-doing Thunderhammers works against the genre. It’s not as much fun.

2. I’d rather weapons that really shined in one (or more!) areas be rather weak in others. It makes weapon choice more interesting, and encourages teamwork.

I think the DS’s mobility and anti-armor performance is so good, I’d have more fun if they were weaker in other area - more interesting decisions both before and during play. (If I had my druthers, they’d be quite poor against carapace, but be at least a little better at horde-clear than they are now.)

I wonder if linking their performance to target-size would help - give them a penalty against larger-than-normal-human targets. And heck, against berserker-types too … the Rager doesn’t care you just poked a hole in his brain. He’s not really using it, anyway.

[jackjackson]

@Ralendil

In other words you want that they remove agile cause zealot have good talents that enhance this weapon…
This happens also with veteran and ranged weapon…
This happens also with psykers and warp damages (staves)…

But, I agree on one thing. Duellist is too strong. And this has nothing to do with DS.
But if you nerf it, other classes should also get nerfs to balance them toward the zealot.

Agile is a dogsht talent on every class. It allows you to infinitely dodge, which is the single most powerful defensive/survival/clutch tool in any tide game. There’s a force swords got their infinite dodges removed: balance.

All the talents I’ve listed are perfectly fine since they depend on the melee weapon’s dodge limit and how you spend your dodges.

Agile basically kicks any balance out of the window. You can’t fix a blessing that’s broken in its core.

Duelling sword is also too strong on every class period. Zealot is just one example. The fact that Fatshark gave it Thrust on top of agile and uncanny is something.

[Jonboy]

@gpkgpk

Do the bots play with themselves when nobody is looking?

Forget electric sheep, this is one of the most fundamental questions of our century.

This deserves its own forum, let alone its own topic.

[gpkgpk]

Vulcan salute and not 1, but ~2 Blade Runner refs recently!? What a time to be alive!

[gpkgpk]

That’s the thing, you don’t even need agile or thrust on DS on zealot. Uncanny strike AND Shred|Riposte|Precog and profit.

[dragomusic]

@jackjackson

Remove agile and change rending across the board. It’s a bad mechanic that trivializes armored enemies. That alone should be enough to reign knife and duelling in.

That would not. Precognition, with finesse crit shots is way more powerful than Rending on both of those weapons. And agile is a crutch, a very good crutch, but not neccassary to make those weapons good. They would still be Zealots top 2 weapons if only those were changed.

[BitzThe8Bit]

Arguably, Uncanny Strike could be unchanged, Zealot and Vet have talents that directly nullify the use of this blessing, I don’t even need the blessing or thrust for my Zealot to 2 shot a crusher, even with the MK V version. Secondly, Agile shouldn’t fully restock dodges on weak spot kill and instead replenish one dodge on fodder weak spot kill and two on elites. This would allow you to still pretty reliably dodge dance, but not a “get out of jail free card” from most dangers by sneezing on a poxwalker.
I’m also of the spicy opinion that blessings shouldn’t give stat ups. So another rework of Agile would be each level of it gets you one extra dodge replenished from weak spot kills.

[CobaltNinja]

@Jaqbasd

Why heresy screenshot tho?

It was to say that such an opinion was HERESY!

[Nish]

@Jaqbasd

DPS – Is high. THIS WEAPON CAN 1 TAP EVERY ENEMY IN THE GAME THAT IS NOT A BOSS.

I watched some of the gameplay you provided and you definitely didn’t one-tap every enemy in the game.

I haven’t played around with how much investment something like a crusher one-shot would need, because I feel it’s unnecessary, but I suspect it similar requirement than the other weapons, right? Or I suspect even a lot more…

@Jaqbasd

• Ogryn weapons need special action, then they need to charge the slow heavy attack of slow Ogryn weapons, hold to get 3 stacks of Thrust and then they can kill one crusher.
• Thunder Hammer needs a special action that stuns you, has the lowest mobility in game and sometimes even fails to get the one tap even if you jump through all the hoops
• Eviscerator – needs to rev up and ult to 1 tap.
• Dagger – should also be nerfed.

I mean sure argue that it’s OP, but let’s stay in the realm of reality. You have a big write-up here, a video, and I think that over-blowing stuff does take away lot from your point.

Same with plasma. If you play STG auric you know you won’t get much more than 40% of special/elite kill if you are playing with people that have both arms intact and more brain cells than an Ogryn, so the “clears all enemies before anything” is something I always just smile at.

@Jaqbasd

This makes it so the harder modifiers aren’t a challenge to experienced players and instead turn to dps rush to get that sweet orange ‘damage dealt’ number on the scoreboard.

@Jaqbasd

(as proven by content creators like tanner and telopots beating maeltorms without perks, blessings or/and curios (or just straight up level 1)).

I mean GJ for people who play this game as a job, and I agree that the game is just too easy even on the hardest difficulty, but it was design decision to make the push the game into a direction where players can just deal with anything alone. Something approved of even by the players who find this game too easy.

I can just echo what I said in other threads. The weapons are the most balanced it ever was, it’s only that the game is just too easy.

You can pick the 4th-5th best melee and ranged weapon on most classes and still carry scrubs to victory if you are good enough (and you don’t have to be no-lifer good enough).

Again I agree with the sentiment that there is too much player power in general, but calling for nerfs left and right feels like just wailing from players that want the game harder. Unless we get a proper powercrunch that hits everything including defenses, general mobility, and make the game actually require teamplay it will stay that way.

[IGN_Vera]

@Jaqbasd

This is how I think this weapon should be adjusted to bring it down to earth while not killing it.

This weapon shouldn’t be as effective against everything in the game, so it needs to be weaker against carapace and unyielding. A 20% base damage nerf to both armor types should be reasonable.

Next, the blessings.

Thrust – should be removed, this weapon shouldn’t have so much power and 1-shot breakpoints,

Uncanny – should be lowered to 20% or 30% rending at max stacks level 4 (all brittlenes perks of weaker weapons cap at 40%),

Agile – should only restore dodges on weakspot kills or removed (as mentioned, Force Swords were “too op”),

I was expecting to disagree with most of what you had to say, but after reading through your post I agree entirely. These are good solutions for Dueling Sword and would not completely ruin it.

[Ralendil]

@jackjackson

Agile is a dogsht talent on every class. It allows you to infinitely dodge, which is the single most powerful defensive/survival/clutch tool in any tide game. There’s a force swords got their infinite dodges removed: balance.

Yes… and you loose DPS for this.

@jackjackson

Duelling sword is also too strong on every class period. Zealot is just one example. The fact that Fatshark gave it Thrust on top of agile and uncanny is something.

I disagree. Balanced if you consider PG, revolver, boltgun and psykers staves.
It is even rarely at these levels of damages (seen only ONE time a player that did insane amount of damage… and still lower than what can do someone skilled with the OP weapons I quoted).

@BitzThe8Bit

Agile shouldn’t fully restock dodges on weak spot kill and instead replenish one dodge on fodder weak spot kill and two on elites.

Then I would not pick it and would go for precognition (as I use to put riposte with agile).
How to make a blessing useless and restrict gameplays? by nerfing things to the ground.
Seriously there are so many OP weapons in this game that we can let unchanged the duelling swords. Especially cause they were introduced to other classes few times ago and that OP weapons are left unchanged for months.

[jackjackson]

@Ralendil

I disagree. Balanced if you consider PG, revolver, boltgun and psykers staves.
It is even rarely at these levels of damages (seen only ONE time a player that did insane amount of damage… and still lower than what can do someone skilled with the OP weapons I quoted).

Just because those weapons are OP, it doesn’t mean that it’s ok for duelling sword to be. A lot of weapons and talents should be nerfed.

We shouldn’t be deleting entire screens of crushers or maulers in 2 seconds. The game has been worse for that. FS balance solution to the patch 13 powercreep was simply to add more of everything. The only thing that changes is us simply killing more, just as fast.

As it stands the game is a walking simulator on mael/histg as soon as you have more than 2 competent people. That shouldn’t happen. It’s not fun to dominate everything on the highest difficulty.

[NewNoise10]

【Forum Weapon】 No

[Mavrik]

You nerf duelling swords then everyone goes back to combat blades, simple as. This game needs movement speed normalized across all weapons.

[Ralendil]

@jackjackson

Just because those weapons are OP, it doesn’t mean that it’s ok for duelling sword to be. A lot of weapons and talents should be nerfed.

On this I totally agree.
Understand me. I am in favor for a balance. Ideally I prefer that they nerf what is too strong, especially cause I know that what is weaker can still perform in higher difficulties. Several weapons need a buff but a lot of things (talents, blessings, weapons) need to be reviewed (so be nerfed OR buffed, it depends).

But I have no confidence they will nerf. So I would hate that this weapon, that is and here I agree too strong on zealot (duellist helps this) would be nerfed while the other classes keep their OP weapons.

So, until they start to balance with true nerfs, I am totally against a nerf that would hurt a weapon that is seen as too strong for what? 1 month?
Lot of weapons are too strong for a lot of months… Revolver it is since patch 13, so since October 2023… more than 1 year!

@Mavrik

You nerf duelling swords then everyone goes back to combat blades, simple as. This game needs movement speed normalized across all weapons.

True but this means there’s a problem to be honest.
Let’s say it, dagger needs that the reach of this weapon is inverted with tactical axe. And also that the movement bonus on heavy hit is lowered.

And to compare things… I think the achlys needs a bit of cleave, the same of the rashad combat axe. But, why do I point this? Cause the DS has too much cleave. It can delete hordes while being a great single target weapon. Here what is wrong on duelling sword. A weapon should not have everything.
But again… I don’t want that they nerf it afterr 1 month when there are weapons OP for more than 1 year.
And this even if the outrageous buff of the boltgun made the revolver something average… this is not cause they have made a weapon far too powerful that the old OP weapon is now ok.