Ive played the greatsword on merc a bid recently. Especially in twins. And during those runs I noticed that the greatsword some issue it has. Its not a bad weapon. Dont get me wrong. But it also lacks behind the alternatives.
First what I think is good on this weapon.
The pushstab is great to mix into combat. Doesnt take long.
The push itself has a good strength.
The charge attack cleave is high and feels satisfying when cleaving even through elites in the horde.
The problem is that its armor damage is trash and its light attack has no role (ignoring vs slaves).
My suggestion would be:
Increase the armor damage of the pushstab so you could two shot (maybe with a 10% breakpoint) sv on cata.
Change the light attack patter. Maybe make the 2nd light attack and upperhead that can be chained into from the pushstab. Something that allows the light attack with the pushstab to be the dedicated anti elite combo.
Minor changes: decrease the slowdown on charged attacks a bid and maybe a slight increase in as of charged attacks.
Edit: As I get a lot of replies thinking that the damage of the greatsword isnt as bad here are some facts.
With 15% power:
The light attack is only capable to oneshot bodyshot slave rats. With a headshot you can also oneshot ungors.
The charged attack can oneshot bodyshot slaves, ungor, fanatics, clanrats. With headshot and 3.9% power vs you get to oneshot a gor as well.
The push attack needs 3 headshots to kill a stormvermin. It would need 34.4% power more to get that down to a two shot. Thats not doable with a meele weapon without additional power from talents.
All of this is for the first target hit.
If we look at second target hit the light attack doesnt oneshot anything. The charged at least kills a second slave with body or headshot. With 4.6% more power that also applies to headshotting an ungor.
Third target numbers are not relevant due to low damage.
Compare that to the executioneer that oneshot headshots slaves, ungors, fanatic and clanrats even without 15% power on a light headshot. On the second target you still kill the slave with a light headshot.
With 6.5% power vs the charged attack oneshot headshots a stormvermin.
Yes the charged is a single target attack but thats not much of an issue given the sheer stagger of light headshotting that still cleaves through 2 SV and only really stops at Chaos Warriors. You can easily stunlock 3 SV with just light attacks if you need to.
The Greatswords needs overhaul. Its light attack speed is slower than chaged attack!
And in lore, the greatswords are one of the really powerful elite weapon. The Warhammer’s Two hander is basically a bloody big and heavy sword that could even damge to fully armoured opponent.
So, what I think is, it should somewhat like between 2h axe and 2h hammer?
*Oh, and I really hope devs improve its animation. Especially the blocking animation.
I used to think like you, that it was not good enough to compete on any level with the Exe sword or even the 2h hammer as FK.
It’s definitely a much higher skill requirement and also counter intuitive to all the other heavy weapons as players (me!) are so used to heavy swinging weapons staggering enemies to stop their attacks that when a swing does not snap-stagger them out of their attacks and lots of people get hit thinking that a heavy swing will stagger an SV out of its overhead. I learned that the hard way.
It become more valuable at higher difficulties with lots of things mixed in a horde, and this is where it comes into it’s own. Using it with the FK, and having the speed increase from charge and speed increase from pushing talent really make is lots of fun to plough through mixed hordes, knowing you’re causing damage to all in the swing and not being checked by armour. In fact, playing as FK there’s very rarely a time when I’m not enjoying some speed buff (S.Slaying, Push to Speed, or charge… or all 3) and it’s a THP generating monster - on par with exe easily.
Building for VS armour is useful, but I found a lot of success giving it more stamina and spamming the push-stab.
Now I’m used to it I’d hesitate to give it an armour buff as this would make it a real mincing machine in a mixed horde, with only a shield to stop you marmalising everything.
While I appreciate other opinions I think you didnt understand me/read what I said.
I played it in cata twins. What higher you want to play it on? Weaves or what?
And I dont go by any opinion of its armor damage. I am looking at actual numbers.
Atm you would need 3.4% to 3shot a headshot a SV with the push attack. Even with Reikland Reaper active (15% power) you cant get that low enough to 2shot a SV. That would need another 34.3%. Which is just not doable reliable as you would need other talents active.
Thats merc obv who has an inherent AS buff and higher cleave.
For FK you could get the twoshot with 10.3% power vs AND Have at Thee (15% Power) AND Taal’s Champion (10% power). Doable but alot of invest that would also make him less reliable due to not having Crowd Clearers 15% Attack Speed.
TL;DR thanks for your input but thats just subjective and not supported by the actual numbers.
The light attacks are faster than the heavy ones and they leave less gaps for enemies to attack through when dealing with say a unarmored horde than the heavy does which leaves me satisfied with their usefulness.
Heavy attacks meanwhile have the perk of not getting stopped by armor&shields and staggers anything “lighter” than a chaos warrior quite often at the expense of having more gaps between attacks that say charging enemies can land hits through.
Both have good use as i see it.
The only part i´d view as weakish is the single target damage but on the other hand it might be a fair tradeoff for such a excellent cleave.
Outside of slaves and ungors you cant oneshot any infantry enemy even with headshot. You would need 30% AND Reikland Reaper active to even headshot oneshot a fanatic.
The heavy attack can oneshot headshot slaves, ungors, fanatics and clanrats. With 3.9% power vs you could even oneshot headshot a gor. Thats anything short of a marauder. And honestly if you do minimal charges properly the attack speed of light and charged attacks isnt that far of.
2 shot headshot for so many low tier infantry units isnt really great for a hordeclear weapon.
If we compare that to its direct contender (the executioner sword) you can headshot oneshot anything short of a gor and maraudereven without reikland reaper active. With 16% more power vs even a gor. And that is with a much better headshot angle and about the same attack speed.
Indeed, but this all boils down to what the two swords are good at, exe has better damage and clears lone enemies much faster but Greatsword is far superior when dealing with numerous and mixed opponents thanks to far superior cleave.
After all, it´s a pretty damn shitty feeling when you bring the executioner sword to a skaven horde only to have this one stormvermin with his supporting slaverats leave you helpless.
Charge an heavy attack? Slaverats will stop you. Clear slaverats? Your light swings will be stopped by the stormvermins armor.
Or dealing with a bunch of shields, executioner sucks nearly as badly as the elf spear at that…so in the end they both have a place.
One is a anti elite and single target damage option with low-ish horde clear, the second is a top class (for melee) anti horde weapon.
I agree with you, Greatsword needs a buff… But, imho, the most important thing (and very easy to apply too) is buff the heavy combo’s attack speed.
You know that exe can headshot light attack stagger SV right? Anything short of a CW can be light headshotted for stagger. At least outside of attacks which is totally fine. So no the exe is better even vs mixed hordes.
Alright admittedly there was a hole on my example based on there only being one stormvermin, amend that to two stormvermin and the example holds x)
Point in case, if you hit the stormvermins head or body and you wont hit anything except maybe slaverats or a fanatic. Then you´ll be in deep crap when the second stormvermin or rest of the horde goes in.
Toss a monk or a berserker in there and there is hardly any hope at all, meanwhile greatsword can easily stagger a few stormvermin around and even deal with clustering monks.
Then there is the deal about being able to hit multiple chaos warriors or shields with every swing.
Additionally, the light attacks cleave through Stormvermin. The height difference for the headshot can be mitigated with the push light and the third light.
The Greatsword needs a very small increase to the speed of it’s lights and a minor increase to it’s heavies super armour damage (for cw on cata it takes 17 heavies on bodyshot with Smiter, 5 stacks of More the Merrier and Reikland Reaper, and the subsequent chaos warriors in the cleave take an irrelevant amount of damage (it does 6.89 damage, cw have 248.5 hp). I agree with your points on it’s breakpoints as well.
I think it’s important to note that the Greatsword is his only weapon that can keep paced strikes up against multiple Chaos Warriors without having to rely on chaff/other elites. Not often relevant, but it matters on FOW and some Weaves so there’s that at least.
These buffs would also need to be done very carefully if they decide to take this route. Even now, a strength pot on Merc with Smiter, More the Merrier and Reikland Reaper shreds Chaos Warriors (4 heavy bodyshots on the first target cleaved, 14 on the second but by the time the first one is dead the second will be reduced to only three heavies if it becomes the 1st target in the cleave).
It’s weird, because it is both his best weapon against groups of chaos warriors (cleave and good stagger on crit, great clear with str pot) and one of his worst against them (poor damage outside of crits, and it’s risky to spam the push when CW do so much stamina damage).
Guess we play differently. Cause the only time I really struggle gainst mixed hordes with exe is when there is a CW in the mix as he stops the swing.
I just did a quick test vs 3 SV on modded realm with exe. You cleave 2 SV heads with light attacks and due to the high as you got you can pretty much stunlock them.
Similiar things can be done to monks (unless they are in an attack combo). And Id argue that greatsword isnt really better gainst those. Sure you can stagger more of them but you also take considerably more time clearing them out thus prolonging the fight thus making it more likely to get hits due to small mistakes.
And yeah sure greatsword can hit multiple chaos warrios/shields. But it does so little damage to those that this isnt really an argument as it is not helpful to take ages gainst CW where exe can jsut charge attack headshot them and kill them much faster making it less risky as there are less enemies.
I dont understand how changing the speed of light attacks would make any meaningful difference. The light attacks do so little damage that its pretty irrelevant anyway. Hence I suggest changing the combo to something that helps the greatswords issue with elite/armor damage.
I dont think that having a weapon whose light and charged attacks are so similiar would have any meaningful use for both. Weapons that actually utilize their full kit are usually the ones with a bid more complex patterns but also make it much more worthwhile to use them.
And as you said all these minor benefits gainst Chaos Warriors/Elites are pretty meaningless if you take that long to kill any of them. Cause then its just a bandaid instead of an advantage.
I’ve been playing with it recently and actually had VERY good results from it. Like, can carry a team good. However, it requires absolutely mastering it’s moveset to compensate for it’s flaws.
-It’s much more mobile the X-Sword, so you can use to to “herd” a horde into a kill zone while dodging around them.
-It cleaves through SV and Maulers, so it’s great for the mixed hordes you get on higher difficulty.
-With practice, you can weave left and right to get headshots with every hit as the sword goes from left swing to right swing. Not easy, but very effective, and largely compensates for it’s low boss damage. You can also chain headshots by standing to the boss’s right side (your left) and block-canceling to get the first heavy, it will always go right-to-left and into the bosses head.
-It’s high base cleave means it benefits a lot from stacking power vs race, becoming one of the few true AOE weapons since 2.0 nerfed cleave in general.
-The push attack is completely reliable at killing SV and other elites, if not especially powerful.
-It takes a lot of experience to know when to use heavies vs lights. Heavies have a lot more cleave, and lights will stop short in a mixed horde if maulers or marauders are present, but heavies will go through. You can’t just left click at horde and expect it to work, you have to be constantly evaluating how much cleave you need at any given time, and making sure you can get the space you need to wind up a heavy on demand.
I would suggest only the smallest of changes:
-Swap the Light attack pattern (currently a horizontal flattened v-shape) with the Heavy attack pattern (currently a nearly flat cleave). Swapping these two would let the heavy attacks be aimed more reliably at heads, compensating a bit for the weapons weakness, while increasing the effectiveness of light attacks vs hordes, increasing the weapons overall reaction speed and usefulness because heavies would no longer be needed for basic enemies.
-Buff the push attack as needed to keep the 2-headshot SV breakpoint (this already exists on Legend) in all difficulties.
That’s it. No actual new movesets or dps changes. It’s actually very good already, just very hard to use, probably too hard - it’s a lot of effort to get up to an average performance. Left-click spammers need not apply. IMO it should be a bit more accessible, especially since it’s Kruber’s starting weapon, but it doesn’t need any more actual power.
Very hard to use weapon. I tried it a couple weeks ago. The frustration was prob one reason I haven’t played since.
Streamer GuzT (GuzThe) is prob the best Krub main in the game. He owned with Greatsword in Tzeench, so that interested me. I struggled to survive Legend runs with it. Whereas the day prior I completed Blightreaper Cata in the weekly Tzeench/Vanguard as Slayer. Evidently one can learn Greatsword but damn.
greatsword needs to hit armored heads easier and do more damage
executioner sword is a lot better in every way, normal attack to kill hordes, charged attack against armored, simple
Much more mobile? It has 1 dodge more than the executioneer and a meager dodge bonus of 10%. Thats not what Id call much more. Sure its noticable but that still doesnt warrant its drawbacks.
Its boss damage is trash but thats ok if it would be better vs armor. 41 dmg on a heavy headshot vs executioners 66 vs monster armor.
For what would you stack any kind of power vs when you dont hit any meaningful breakpoint? The only breakpoint you can reach is a oneshot headshot on a gor (3.9%). The push attack is far from reliable at killing stormvermin with needing 3 pushstabs to the face when the weapon only has 3 stamina shields.
Its not hard to figure out when to use lights instead of heavies. When you fight naked hordes cause the damage of it is trash. It can only onehit kill slaves with lights (with 15% power active) where the charged can onehit kill slaves, ungor, fanatics and clan rats.
So yes the light doesnt have a distinct role.
Please have a look at previous answers as all of this was already explained. I dont get it why people think I didnt check the facts instead of just giving ideas of by pure subjective opinion.
Dodge is not the only aspect of mobility. There’s also the base move speed loss when you are attacking. Now, it’s not fast, but compared to X-sword (which brings you almost to a standstill), Gsword lets you move around a lot more while swinging. This is a lot more useful then people give it credit for, especially in open terrain where you can’t funnel rats into a kill zone. Compare to Sienna Dagger or Elf 1hSword for weapons that don’t slow you down at all, just to see how big the difference can be.
Stacking power is not for breakpoints, it’s to improve cleave power. You’ll cleave through more enemies and will do higher damage to each one if you stack power. It’s very important for anti-horde weapons.
As for the rest, it doesn’t matter to me if you take the advice on how to use Gsword effectively or not, the fact remains it can be done and it’s powerful when done well. Buffing it would easily put it into meme weapon status. I think a small adjustment to the attack patterns would make it a lot more easy to use without changing it’s role or raw power level.
Have a look at the first post where I edited breakpoints evern for 2nd target. And yes any amount of power vs that doesnt reduce the hits to kill is pretty irrelevant. You can put as much power vs on a weapon as you want. If you dont reduce the amount of hits you do on any target its pretty irrelevant as it has NO effect whatsoever on the time you need to kill the same group of enemies.
Fair point. I like the idea of an anti-armour combo with the 2nd light and the push attack. Still, the first light wouldn’t serve much purpose.
I’ve got some ideas for how that first light could be made useful if it was kept. Maybe a mix of these would work:
The first light’s cleave could deal the damage it did to the first target to every target it hits. Or it’s damage drop-off could be decreased by a lot.
It’s cleave against Gors and Marauders could be better with the tank modifier.
It could be given the same stagger and damage cleave as the heavy (just without Heavy Linesmen) and the same infantry damage as the heavy.
An attack speed boost so that it doesn’t combo more slowly than the Executioner’s Sword’s lights.
A movement curve that makes it good for positioning.
A headshot modifier and/or armour damage that lets the Greatsword do passable armour damage if you run out of stamina or need to conserve it.
From my own experience, the lights are good for getting swift slaying up, killing stragglers and finishing off damaged enemies. I don’t feel like they actually contribute in any meaningful way to horde clear except against Skavenslaves and Ungors, which is hardly a positive when almost all of Kruber’s weapons do that well or better anyway.
I’m open to anyone more experienced with the weapon than myself changing my mind though. I’m especially curious about how the damage cleave profiles/horde dps of the lights and heavies compare against each other when pitted against varying groups of horde enemies e.g. With 2 stacks of More the Merrier, Smiter and 10% vs Skaven or Infantry the light should kill two Clanrats in two hits on cata if it headshots (the second target in the cleave only requires a bodyshot, which makes them damaged enough for the following light to kill them with a headshot, and then the cleave on that second light should bodyshot the first Clanrat) because of the cleave, while the heavy will also take two, but I’m not sure if that scales well to actually relevant horde situations as I am not knowledgeable enough on cleave damage/target limits.