Weapons need downsides, else everything will play the same, there will be no need for players to adapt and find solutions to weapon’s weakness. You may argue that nerfing attack speed is anti-fun (whatever the %), but i disagree, in general there should be more playstyles that revolve around slower attacking weapons, instead of AS and SS stacking galore. Of course the slowness needs to be compensated appropriately - by other parameters (as damage, stagger, cleave).
Concerning Merc - i can see that his kit might do a bit too much, he has both great cleave and AS, and crit chance for even more AS (swift slaying proccing). He should be balanced in conjunction with Swift slaying. Just my 2 cents.
It got nerfed for a reason. Who are you people saying it’s “too slow”? It’s still viable even on Cata+ content, which means it’s pretty viable through most, if not all vanilla content.
That doesn’t make it require more skill. Just means that for many classes you can no longer pull off a heavy attack before the monster or elite swings again. As for hordes, it just means you either won’t clear them as quickly as before or will have to throw in a couple more pushes.
On the one hand, I disagree about x-sword being useless and still find anti-elite builds for Merc and a particularly off-meta GK build to be completely Cata viable and effective.
On the other hand, I don’t want to convince anyone here otherwise because I’m seeing Huntsman and FK’s in QP not using the x-sword for the first time. And even better, they’re not all dying repeatedly trying to hit trade with elites. It’s great. I saw a Huntsman with a sword and mace for the first time since the plague started and he wasn’t getting separated in a horde, he was pushing and dodging and holding the S key to get back to the group and as soon as he passed the frontline he pulled his bow out and went back to shooting elites. I’ve never seen a 300 ping Kruber player do that before!
Ok I’m joking, but I do feel like QP Krubers are improving thanks to his kit getting improved and x-sword being toned down.
You know heavy attacks werent nerfed at all in atk spd? You clearly didn’t read it at all, and yeah lower attack speed means you need more skill and control to use it
What are you saying? The patch notes state this: Reduced animation speed by 8.5% for all attacks.
And i would say it’s very board definiton of the word skill being used to do more pushing.
making the weapon slower wont make it require more skill to use. it just lowers its dps and make swift slaying even more mandatory for it. it was already slow before, now its just even slower for careers with little to no speed bonuses. it als werent a very mobile weapon, unlike greatsword with its 10% dodge range and 3 dodges.
The problem is a strawman’s one.
Which is the base difficulty for balance’s purpose? Legend?
Ok.
Legend difficulty has too much armor for the low AP weapons to be viable and so people are obviously choosing AP builds.
So the solution should be tweaking the armored foes’ numbers .
Instead on addressing the illness, they are pointing at the synptoms and nerfing AP weapons
A couple extra pushes is not skill. If you play Mercenary you could get away with not pushing, anyone else and you had to mix in pushes and push attacks anyway.
And being forced to use light attacks or not attack at all when being chased by the monster is not more skill being needed. Where before you could calculate the risk and reward of getting a charged hit in between each attack, now you solely kite because the attack speed is too slow.
The same can be said for elites. Before, if you knew your timings you could just get in a killing blow before you yourself would get downed by an overhead, now, you just have to wait even longer for an opportunity.
Precise aiming and pulling off extended combos for extra dps is skill, not being forced to wait because you can no longer physically get the attack off and block before being hit yourself
Being able to use a slow weapon effectively in all situations is skill. Yes you can just choose to not attack and in that regard it’s not really skill to use the weapon, as you are not using it. Gamesense, positioning, timings, combo’s are all skills.
If a weapon gets lower attack speed you either have to bypass it with talents or get used to new timings.
So yes, just pressing m1 is not a difficult skill, but i’m talking about using it effectively, and that is a skill. Everyone can light attack spam something or press 1 button without thinking, but if you don’t have the skill to use it in all the situations you will be bad with it, learning timings is a skill, changing attack speed changes those timings, which requires you to adjust and re learn, also needs to re learn certain situations where before you could do certain things and now you cannot get that attack off anymore.
It’s like crit lights or hs lights not flinching enemies anymore. If before you could just spam light attacks and control enemies, now you need to push more, be more mindfull of your stam, position yourself better, be less aggressive, re learn enemy behaviour, etc. It is skill to be good at that or use those weapons effectively in those scenario’s.
Edit: i understand what ur saying, i just don’t agree that you don’t consider it a skill to use a low attack speed weapon.
But what you say can be said for any weapon, getting used to timing of a weapon doesen’t require skill. Hitting headshot consistenly require skill, chaining different comboes require skill. Since nothing changed in it’s attack pattern Ex requires the exact same skill than before at most i can give you that you need the “skill” to be able to learn how to use a weapon since you need to learn new timings but come on anyone can do it.
Yes like i said. Learning to use a weapon effectively in every situation requires skill.
Also a skill isn’t something only the pro’s can do. Tapping m1 is still a skill, regardless of how easy it is to do. it’s just an ‘easier skill’ to learn.
I love that the Royale with Cheese build guides have been updated, like half of the Kruber ones still use Exec, and here we are still nearly 40 comments deep arguing over whether or not it’s ok.
It’s fine. Literally nothing else can be achieved without waiting a month and seeing pick rates, which we don’t have access to anyway. I have a strong suspicion the pick rate will remain high.
Please, let the dust settle, if people still think it sucks in a month we can revisit this topic.
Only thing it did was make the weapon less attractive for FK and HS. Merc still doesn’t care, as the slow swing speed can be countered with Paced Strikes in every situation where the slow swing speed would be a true detriment. GK also doesn’t care, since he can bring a second melee weapon and his alpha-strike damage bonus allows him to stack attack speed, anyhow, without losing access to any relevant break points. The weapon does feel a bit clunky now, I think -5% speed reduction would have been enough. Xsword will still be a solid pick on Krubers two most picked carreers, mainly because his arsenal still needs some tweaking.
