So pre WoM the Greatsword was a pretty solid weapon, not great but also nowhere near bad i´d say, however post WoM after a test just now i feel that this thing feels weak.
Its old niche was that it was a unusually mobile twohander with a easy to access headshot for some targeted …vanquishing of choice opponents but WoM changes has made this difficult, i´ll list some reasons.
Enemies got smarter and are better at targeting so dodge dancing isnt nearly as effective.
Greater enemy healthbars means it´s lower damage makes killing things a real chore, takes like 4-5 light hits to kill a normal rotblood marauder and these guys come by a dozen at a time.
Beastmen, fewer than the other enemy types but usually bulkier or posses more range which is…a tad bit difficult to deal with on the greatsword.
It lacks stagger and cleave to manage hordes or even generate temp health well.
It´s old niche doesnt work and enemies got tougher while it remained the same, overall it feels pretty bad.
These are all my subjective opinions though, but still as such i´d like to request some buffs for the weapon…and i´d like to mention i believe that the waystalker talent called “Blood shot” is probably overpowered.
Elf 2 handed was a weapon I always struggled to use well. I’m still hoping that one day it will get switched to Krubs Ex Sword attack profile for light attacks and leave the heavy attack as it is. It could use a slight damage buff in my opinion as well.
I disagree, I think it’s in the right spot. I would like to see the attack speed talent on headshots changed back to the 50% headshot damage talent. That’d be far more useful and I think a lot of longbow users would switch back to that from bloodshot. With the bleed talent being for swift bow and the bloodshot for hagbane. I really like that they have a talent catered around each bow.
I could always make the 2hander work even though i never found it to be as strong as the real powerhouses like the spear/Glaive/SnD or even the DD&SnS if playing shade-
Although i have always found the 1handed sword and the 1hand axe to be pretty dang terrible.
As for blood shot,the reason i found it nuts is when playing the longbow actually, i just went around and killed say a slaverat, then i made a quick headshot and either killed or badly chunked a chaos warrior while anything smaller just died even on a bodyshot.
Once i got the hang of going melee then sneaking in longbow shots i found myself pretty much decimating most bigger targets around with little effort,it felt really awesome but i figure it´s probably over the top x)
Actually it’s one of the best weapons in the game, although easy to use badly, and it basically requires Handmaiden now that WS lost her stamina talent.
The secret is it’s push attack, and it’s playstyle. It’s not a left-click monster, in fact it’s very weak that way. Instead, use it methodically and plan ahead by 1 or 2 swings so you don’t get caught exposed. The Push Attack>Light>Light combo is brilliant for clearing hordes, and with +block angle can keep you from getting flanked. It’s one of the very rare weapons that works well with Mainstay, because the push combo keeps every enemy staggered and it gives it enough cleave power to work even vs hyperdense hordes. The downside is it consumes stamina like crazy which is why it only works on HM.
Why FS decided to take out the +push angle and +stamina talents right at the time where those things became useful, I will never know
The heavy is not amazing but certainly gets the job done, you MUST get headshots with it or it’s very weak. There’s a hidden followup heavy (simply left click after the stab, just like Glaive) that looks like a light attack so it’s easy to miss, but it’s not a light it pierces armor and has lots of cleave. It’s very handy for clearing hordes after stabbing an elite, or for increasing DPS when you can’t reach a boss’ head.
It works well with Swift Slaying because of the +25% crit push attack, but I use Opportunist to make the push stronger at it’s flanks so I don’t get surrounded.
The Glaive is almost identical, but it loses a lot of cleave and gains a much deadlier anti-elite heavy attack.
I dont really like when weapons get balanced around a single career and i dont want to view that as the norm either, i´d rather have some manner of specific nerfs go through if that is the case.
Rather than the weapon becoming useless for 2 out of 3 users that is.
As for the pushattack crit bonus, i am well aware, and i tried the idea of dodging around while doing it however i found that if you take 1 bad hit then you lose all your stamina and thus lose your means to actually much of anything.
The style drains your stamina very quickly after and a hit when its low staggers you which can quickly turn very bad.
Such a style is simply a high risk gamble with the reward being that you are able to do the job that others can do while playing much more normally and at far lesser risk…added with how the low damage+cleave means you still end up taking a good while longer to accomplish the same job.
To be fair, it DID work with waystalker too before they gutted her talent tree. Headshot bonus and Stam Regen both made it awesome - but those were the days now past . It was never a good choice for shade because dual weapons are always better for infiltrate.
You’re of course entitled to your opinion, but nonetheless it’s extremely effective with 1 or 2 niche builds, and FS has stated that they are ok with some weapons being niche. On Swordmaiden I reguarly top out in # of melee kills, # of elite kills, total damage done, and come 2nd or 3rd on monster damage as well. It’s a versatile and powerful weapon if you build to it’s strengths and use them.
I think it’s fine as a niche weapon, and considering how many other excellent options Kerillian has as alternatives.
My main complain is that it’s now only viable on HM, and that wasn’t due to any changes with the sword but due to changes in WS talents. She lost a lot of good build options actually, so what if 1 or 2 are stronger, there are a bunch that are simply no longer possible, which is why I say it was gutted.
Not asking for the EX Sword, just saying the swipe back and forth with the sword should be more horizontal. Right now she tends to swing almost up with her strikes and her heavy attack is no where near the Ex Sword either.
You seem to be missing the point regarding the FK needing additional ammo reserves. None the less, the 2 handed sword is really only viable on HM anyway. As it’s assassination damage on shade is the lowest of all elf weapons besides the axe if I remember correctly.
Stuff you pointed notwithstanding, I’d want for her heavy stab followup to be faster. As slow as it is now, it really leaves you vulnerable and isn’t useful for much.
I always liked 2h sword whenever I (rarely) played the Elf, WS.
The ability to easily headshot elites of my choice within high density has a lot of value in my eyes.
It probably wouldn’t be my weapon of choice for Cata but that could be easily fixed by giving it better horizontal swings for headshots - Exec sword kinda deal. Or maybe just by making it faster.
This excuse got old 2 hours after WoM release, dodge dancing still works perfectly fine, dodge spamming doesn’t.
Taking bullet points in patch notes out of context is one thing, realizing how it all works together is another. Show me an enemy that takes considerably more hits to kill now than it did before. You may need to adjust slightly to get back 1-2 old BPs but that’s about it. I still have yet to notice a single important BP that I’d be missing because of WoM. Unless, of course, you are comparing old Legend BPs to Cata BPs…
Funny you should ask, since this is even a 2hs breakpoint - Fanatics can no longer be 1 hit by elven 2hs light attacks, that breakpoint cannot be reached (on legend). That’s a 100% increase in horde clear time.
Unless you push them first. Which is why 2hs now requires the Push>Light>Light combo, and why it only works on HM.
I’m also 90% sure that WS can no longer reach the 1-hit headshot SV breakpoint with the heavy stab. TBH I never tested it because without the stamina talent the weapon is just a no-go on that career anyway.
I tried to make this weapon work (on HM), and it kinda worked ok until I ran into multiple Shieldvermin. How do you deal with these? C1 is too slow to be useful it seems, and banging with push and lights takes forever…
Dodge dancing is bascially spamming dodge although one also has to be mindful of bigger enemy hits like a charging elite for instance, smaller enemies wont really hit more than once in a blue moon because they were too slow in changing directions.
What we got now however is a situation where smaller enemies have gotten really good at that, so if you are even a bit unlucky you´ll instantly have 3 points of stamina drained just from them which can be extremely dangerous.
If you mix in pushes you can alleviate this but you have to be careful and conserve your stamina properly, it´s not really hard but it is important to avoid getting downed by a random heap of bestmen.
Now with a weapon like the greatsword that relies on dodge dancing to stay safe while attacking with swift slaying up at all times to be truly effective things dont really flow well anymore IMO.
Of course you can spam the push-attack for its high damage+crit bonus but that drains your stamina and greatly increases the risks and all you really gain is the ability to be on par with the ordinarily “good” weapons.
As for breakpoints, well @RandomLurker basically stated that already although i´d like to add that several enemies like the rotblood mauler seem far far harder to stagger with the greatsword than before as well.
Had one standing infront of me as i went in with a heavy and it wasnt really doing anything, i jab it and expect it to recoil but instead it just doesnt react and even starts doing a heavy attack like 1 second later.
The greatsword never had high damage per hit, the idea was mobility+attackspeed but higher healthbars+stagger threshholds makes this work very poorly.
Except for some niche handmaiden build that utilizes a great deal of stamina regen to spam her push-attack x)
That’s not how math works.
You’re just shy of that BP (you can still hit the BP with Handmaiden) and it only matters for the first enemy you hit with the light attack.
Everything else after the 1st hit took 2+ hits before already and it’s already staggered for the 2nd hit.
Pushing exists for a reason. There’s quite a few builds that let you delete armored elites in 1-2 hits with your melee weapon even on Cata… meanwhile people who still don’t understand the value of stamina in terms of pushing are claiming that Legend is “too spongy”. And there’s nothing new about that, it’s been a thing since the release of VT2.
Even if you invest a heap of anti chaos power so that you have to spend 1 hit less on the fanatics what will you do about armored enemies? Non-chaos ones?
With some exceptions they got beefier too and you have to deal with them as well, not to mention the beastmen.
And i agree that there are builds that lets you delete armored stuff in just a couple of hits, but not for the greatsword , it has only suffered losses with the new systems and no gains.
