I dont see how making the light attacks a copy or at least something pretty similiar in usage would change anything. Even if you make the light extremely powerful you would just invalidate hte charged attacks. Having two kind of attacks be pretty much the same is just lazy design and will never work out.
But yeah thats why I wanted to give the light a least some using as an anti armor tool. The easiest waya of making both kind of attacks (at least with one attack from the combo) effective is imo usually to give them distinctive roles. Allowing light 2 to be part of the anti armor combo would be exactly that.
Are you saying only light 2 should be changed and light 1 left the way it is now?
Just a suggestion to not change to much and make it a bid harder to pull of constantly as you would need to manage your stamina. Not sure if just adding a double overhead for light combo would be to much.
Its just a small step that can be increaed if we see that it is to much.
Not too long ago I was also in the camp of the people that felt Greatsword needed a buff. Admittedly, I hardly ever play it, however. But then I played a few rounds of Tzeenchian Twins / Vanguard on Enchanterâs Lair with somebody playing Merc with Greatsword (might have been @Rebel ?), and he shredded with it. Killed heaps (and fast), hardly ever got hit, had an impressive number of Elite kills at the end, amazing stuff. And that wasnât because he had to pick up slack from the rest of the team either. So now I think thereâs more to it than one who isnât experienced with the weapon expects at first. That should be considered before buffing the weapon.
I played Greatsword a bit after seeing that, but I couldnât make it work so well. But just because it underperforms in the hands of someone who doesnât have the knack yet, doesnât mean itâs an underpowered weapon. Iâve seen what it can do. And that was impressive. Guess itâs just a high skill ceiling weapon.
Now having said that, Iâm not the person who can argue best about if the Greatsword needs buffs, and if so, what those buffs should be, but I also wanted to add to this discussion in general that comparing weapons with breakpoints alone paints a very incomplete picture. There is a lot of stuff that isnât expressed in raw numbers that matters immensely. Not just move combinations, but also cleave profile, attack speed, angle of the strikes, stagger, mobility while striking, mobility while blocking, etc.; Those sort of things. In the end thereâs only one âstatâ that really matters, and thatâs how effectively the weapon got you through a combat situation. If youâd just look at breakpoints and raw numbers, youâd expect the Heavy Spear (for example) to be a lot less good that it effectively is because of all its characteristics working so well together. Iâve seen a similar discussion fallacy in the other thread about the Billhook.
How can it be a hiugh skill ceiling weapon when it hardly has any combos?
And yeah just because one competent player gets to use a weapon and make it work doesnt mean its good. I played it alot these days on twins. That thing does what it does but its still supbar.
I can bring any irrelevant weapon to cata and win with it. Thats not the point. I dont only look at numbers. I played it and then looked at the numbers. And if you read this thread carefully then you will see me looking at all its stats. Stagger, cleave, mobility and damage.
Greatsword is absolutely not a weak or overshadowed weapon, I honestly have no idea where people get this idea from. Iâve used it from Legend to C3O and itâs my go-to weapon for when I want to tryhard, and Iâll go so far as to say that I would absolutely take it over executioner.
Yeah, 1 more dodge count than executioner puts it at 3. Thatâs literally a 50% increase over executioner and going from 2 to 3 is actually very significant, and the dodge bonus is a nice boon as well. Definitely superior at dodging. And as someone mentioned, swinging light attacks with executioner slows your movement speed a lot more than heavy attacks with greatsword.
The light attacks do similar damage to heavies, and have better DPS against eliteless hordes. You use light attacks when youâre clearing lower mass hordes with little or no elites, or as a quick attack to interrupt an attack.
The thing about greatsword is that it has the absolute best cleave in the entire game, coupled with heavy linesman modifier. That is itâs main trait that makes it really good. While executioner can oneshot Stormvermin with a well placed heavy attack, greatsword can kill 4 stormvermin at once with a few heavy attacks. A lot of these arguments boils to âbreakpointsâ or âsingle-target elite damageâ when all of that is completely irrelevant for greatsword or even just most weapons really. Yes, greatsword is weak at killing single elites, but does it need to kill them fast? How many situations have you been in where you just desperately need to kill this one chaos warrior as fast as possible, and nothing else? Whatâs the point of oneshotting an ungor when thereâs still a horde of them? Youâll need 2 swings either way. What people donât take into account is that greatsword does better and better the more enemies it fights. The fact that it can hit 4 stormvermin, while not doing a lot of damage to each of them individually, the aggregate damage is quite impressive, and can make you dispatch them quite fast.
Executioner doesnât even compare to the amount of cleave greatsword has. It will always 100% get stopped by a chaos warrior, gets stopped quickly by maulers and only cleaves through around 2 stormvermin if you get headshots (which you wonât always will). If youâre fighting a horde of 10 shields, several stormvermin, maulers, dozens of raiders, fanatics, berserkers etc, then greatsword is absolutely superior to executioner in destroying such a horde. To give you an example, I was playing Tzeentchian Twins on Enchanters Lair, and we drop down into the first encounter. 4 chaos warriors spawn in, dozens of raiders, fanatics, maulers etc. And with Mercenary I literally cleaved all of them, did damage to all of them (especially with the huge power buffs), crowd controlled the lesser infantry enemies (they canât charge up an attack since Iâm hitting them), killed a lot of enemies, kept killing as they kept splitting, and at the end of it I ended up with several mauler and chaos warrior kills, despite the fact that it doesnât do great anti-armour damage, just the fact that I would keep reliably hitting them meant that I wore them down without even having to focus on them while I was also killing literally everything else. Thereâs not much else I can say that would add to the argument of âgreatsword is effectiveâ, I know a lot of people donât like it, but for me itâs genuinely a crutch weapon.
Now, thatâs not to say that I wouldnât like some changes to greatsword. Itâs a very powerful weapon, but itâs also not a very complex weapon and it can be quite boring. Cleaving massive hordes of enemies is very fun, but the fact that the greatsword only really has one simple attack chain for killing enemies (heavy attacks for everything, weave in some push-attacks, and light attacks for low mass hordes) makes it a bit boring to use sometimes. I would totally support a revamp of the light attack chain, adding in more fancier and intricate moves like an uppercut, a vertical swing, diagonal swing etc. And another attack I would absolutely support getting added is a stab attack. All the greatsword have very pointy and stabby blades, yet stab attacks are not used at all. What I would add is a heavy stab attack only accessible after doing a push-attack (similar to how dual hammers has a light overhead swing attack only accessible directly after a push). Push-attack â heavy-stab would be your way to deal with armoured enemies, with the heavy-stab having 20% more damage than the push attack, and overall increasing anti-armour DPS by only a bit. This would make the greatsword perfect in my opinion and make it even more fun to use. I donât think of this as a buff, more like a rework/revamp to make the weapon more fun to use with more combos and a better light attack pattern (not necessarily more powerful).
Other than that though, I absolutely donât support the notion that itâs a weak weapon, and I absolutely do not support any kind of buff to itâs heavy attack chain. Like, why would you even suggest that? Itâs the strongest attack the weapon has, itâs legitimately really powerful, why would you even think about buffing itâs attack speed?
Hereâs some further thoughts I have had regarding the Greatsword:
It makes it easier for allies to focus on elites if you can consistently keep chaff infantry staggered that other weapons would find difficult to hit. The Two-Handed Hammer can do this all the way up to CW, where it gets stopped. Exec canât cleave CW either. Nor can the Spear, but the Greatsword can.
The Greatswordâs stagger also has nice sweetspot where enemies arenât being thrown away from the team and making them hard to kill (imo stagger a lot of things lightly>throw a cw/horde into a wall most of the time).
How many times has anyone here seen a Merc with an Exec in a high-dps low stagger team pull back from a horde to get a heavy in and expose everyone else to more damage? Or run out of stamina fighting a low number of shields(The anti shield combo on the greatsword is great (heavy + push for sv, and non-sv shield breaking on the push attack which is safer than the heavy on the Exec).
With the Greatsword you can literally dodge into hordes while spamming lights and heavies to keep hordes back. It takes a horde composed of only Marauders to push you.
I canât decide myself. I love the dynamic this weapon has in a team, but it kind of loses that when someone brings a flamethrower (but that might just be because the flamethrowers are actually really op). Worse if the Conflag is also present.
The lights also have a large window where you canât block-cancel, but that might just be a skill thing.
I donât like the fact that most of this discussion seemingly debates the strenghts and weaknesses of the greatsword with mainly Merc in mind. Take away Mercâs insane talents that boost a lot of weapons into being reasonably good, then take another look at the greatsword.
How does it perform for FK or Huntsman in comparison?
Youâre absolutely correct that just because a good player can make a weapon work, that doesnât mean the weapon itself is good. I just talked about that anecdote to illustrate that the Greatsword is potentially as good as any other weapon. And in the run I was talking about, it definitely wasnât a case of one good player with Greatsword with lesser skilled players so his numbers were inflated. It was a run in which a Merc with Greatsword matched up with a good Shade and WHC. Which would be an argument in favor of the position that the Greatsword is good when used right.
As for the Greatsword being high skill ceiling even though it has a very limited moveset: Thereâs much more than mastery of moves and combos needed to be good with a weapon. Stuff like timing, a good feel for the striking distance, an instinctive feeling for its mobility and how to kite and fight without getting hit with it, and the general combat reflexes to instinctively know what to do (strike, dodge, block, etc.) in which situations, that are developed from having used a weapon a long time.
Iâm not a bad player, I can pull my weight well in Cata+ games, but Iâll admit that Iâm somewhat of a limited player; I can only do that with a couple of weapons (and not nesescarily meta weapons). Thatâs because with those weapons I have all those aspects down. Iâm not practiced well with, for example, Sword and Dagger, so Iâll do a lot worse with those than with, say, Axe & Shield. Thatâs not an argument to buff S&D, thoughâŚ
EDIT:
@kuli : Thatâs a very fair remark. Anybody with a lot of experience with, say, FK and Greatsword have anything to add? Earlier in this thread there was talk about how FKâs speed buffs made the Greatsword work, though.
None of the things you emphazised are only applicable to greatsword though. I am rather certain that your merc would have been much better of if he had the same expe3rience/skill with a spear or exe. So yeah one anecdotal evidence will not make any difference.
As said Ive played this thing for 2 days straight now. And yes its not trash tier but its as said no good either.
FK with greatsword might top of at more AS but then hed do like 0 damage. Thats what I described earlier. If he would get proper damage on that thing he would loose out on AS though.
I dont even consider huntsman for greatsword cause huntsmans concept is just not meant for meele weapons. If you constantly pull out your meele weapon as huntsman you do sth wrong. Huntsmans meele is a tool for defense and getting out of situations for the most part. So discussing the strengths of a weapon for a class that isnt build around is just doesnt make any sense.
But if you want we can discuss greatsword on zealot and get the same result. Its weaker than the alternatives due to the reasons described.
None of which anyone managed to convince me otherwise. All I get is anecdotal evidence of one or two runs without any proof or facts that really support their argument.
Only thing Id mildly admit is that I trashed the mobility a bid to much. Yes 3 dodges with 10% increased distance is nice. But that still in no world is an excuse for its shitty damage compared to the laternatives. If that would be the case billhook would have 0 damage âŚ
People thinks about â2H Sword can penetrate armored enemiesâ like an exclusive⌠but Exeâs swipes can go through armors too⌠and, if you can hit heads (itâs enough swing the weapon to head height), you can damage them even more.
Same speech about the cleave, thatâs considered a 2H Swordâs advantage: in reality Exe hasnât problems to cleave the entirer horde (in twin Cata and high weaves too)⌠And, about C3O, itâs not an official gameâs content: we canât balance a weapon around it.
While how much more damage Exe can do (vs hordes and armors) is pretty clear.
Iâm not saying 2H sword is trash, and maybe it could have also a little niche⌠but this niche is too, too little. Buff its attack speed (on heavy combo) would just help this weapon, without distorting nothing.
Wanting to overdo it, we could rework the light combo too: nerf its stagger, nerf its cleave but buff the damage⌠in order to make it useful for the fast pacing and give it a better niche compared with the ânewâ faster heavy combo.
Look, I donât play Greatsword enough to be able to discuss its strenghts and weaknesses properly from firsthand experience. But people have been giving detailed, number backed, responses to your arguments. @Rebel explained in his last post clearly how the Greatswordâs effective DPS in realistic combat scenarios in his Cata+ runs is better than that of Executioner or whatever. You hardly engaged his points. Just repeated your own ones.
Executioner can cleave through 2 stormvermin with headshots. Greatsword can cleave through several stormvermin and dozens of other enemies without the need to do headshots. Executioner cannot cleave through chaos warriors, several maulers and stormvermin while also hitting all the chaff infantry in between, keeping them stunlocked and killing them while wearing down all the elite enemies mentioned above, while greatsword can do that.
Thatâs literally not true. Executioner struggles to cleave big regular Cataclysm hordes, and especially if elites are involved. Greatsword has literally 3x the amount of cleave it has, meaning it hits more enemies and loses less damage as it cleaves more enemies. Objectively far more damage. With greatsword you donât have to worry about specifically focusing elites or any enemies, you can keep spamming heavy attacks, kill all the chaff infantry in between while wearing down all the elites, and greatsword does excellent damage against maulers and berserkers. The only thing it âstrugglesâ with are armoured elites, and even then it deals good damage when fighting several elites, since it can hit several at once, dealing damage to all of them, so the aggregate damage is good. The only thing it truly struggles with is single-target elites, which is a completely moot point since that is never an issue - there is no situation where you desperately need to kill this one specific enemy.
This statement is false. As discussed above, itâs pretty clear that it is ânotâ clear that executioner is better than greatsword, especially when it canât do this:
Greatsword can destroy this horde with ease, executioner will struggle more, due to the fact that it couldnât even cleave half of it, itâs heavy attacks are slow to charge up if youâre trying to pick off the elites, and the dodge is a lot worse, meaning youâll have more trouble evading attacks.
I donât like your idea. I think your idea is terrible. I think that you donât have enough experience with this weapon to make calls like this.
As talked about in this post above, greatsword does very solid damage to infantry. It deals nicely with packs of maulers, berserkers, and infantry hordes. Against groups of armoured enemies it performs a lot better than single-target armoured enemies, since naturally it will hit several of them at once. Itâs not 0 damage, itâs as ridiculous as saying that executioner has 0 cleave. Greatswords base damage is actually higher than that of executioner.
Iâm sure you know that better than I do.
I didnât come here to engage in a prolonged discussion. Iâve said what I wanted to say, Iâve expressed my opinion that greatsword is not a weak weapon, Iâve said why. Nothing anyone says will change my mind about greatsword, I know myself personally that itâs great, I use it myself in high tier content, nothing changes that fact.
Rebel mostly argued with anecdotal evidence. Besides his suggestion (which didnt argue against my point) the only number he brought up is he can cleave 4 SV.
Ok lets take the 4 SV and compare damage.
Greatsword Heavy (if we use the so high prised Heavy attack with its elite cleave) does: 18.5, 8.5, 5.25,4.25 damge to the 4 stormvermin. A stormvermin on cata has 86.5 HP.
Since the hits alternate in sides the first SV would die after 7 hits. The fourth after 8.
The (inititally) second SV would die after the 12th hit and the third after the 13th hit. If we use pushstabs we would still need a total of 12 hits (as all of them are singletarget). Exe can kill those 4 SV in 4 hits.
Thats not what I call damage. Thats what I call tickling an enemy.
Not gonna do the whole calculation for a mauler again but just as a reminder:
Maulers on cata have 162 HP. Greatsword does 37, 17.75, 10.25, 8.5, 5.25 damage. Calculate yourself how many hits that would need. A lot to make it short.
People seem to think that saying a weapon is weaker than the alternatives means saying its a trash weapon. I just want to bring greatsword to the same level as the alternatives so its actually an option.
Not counting the 40% power increase from Mercenary, headshot damage, and stagger bonus for up to 60% more damage and critical hits. Even without taking that into account, that damage in total is half of a stormvermin from just one swing. Not bad for a weapon thatâs also vastly better at clearing hordes. Not to mention that this example is bogus anyways, since youâll be fighting chaff infantry all the time, and the greatsword would clean all that up while also damaging these stormvermin while getting 60% damage from stagger and Mercenary buffs (and yes, greatsword headshots and crit bodyshots can stagger stormvermin, meaning you will build up that damage bonus, not to mention any outside sources like your teammates staggering enemies, FK ult, Mercenary ult)
Except for this:
which is factually correct, executioner would have trouble cleaving this horde.
And also this, which is a real situation that happened, and similar hordes of enemies happen often in regular Cataclysm too (minus Tzeentchian Twins of course). Again, executioner literally would not cleave anything here, it would get stopped by the first chaos warrior. Greatsword cleaved absolutely everything and killed all the chaff in between while wore down all the maulers and chaos warriors. But I guess thatâs âanecdotal evidenceâ.
Your calculations suck, mate.
And Iâm saying it already is a viable option and gave plenty of âanecdotalâ evidence as to why.
For Huntsmen, he only has health on kill and stagger. He also doesnât have the power to make it stagger well, and the weapon scales better with power than headshot power. Not great for health on kill.
It also doesnât make space that well in the immediate sense like the spear does, and doesnât disengage from hordes well as a result.
For Foot Knight, it can be good or bad. Iâve had amazing matches with it and some terrible ones. FKâs stamina and max attack speed make it actually pretty good at dispatching shielded enemies.
His ultâs stagger doesnât really benefit the weapon unfortunately, not in the same way it does for the Exec and the Greathammer at least. At max speed he can hit-trade into hordes the same way a Zealot does.
It doesnât do great elite damage because you run out of stamina for the push attack, and the weapon doesnât do enough stagger damage to make Have At Thee consistent outside of Stormvermin.
In short, FK makes it even better against hordes (actual lawnmower) and more effective defensively outside of stagger, but does less elite damage. He also just canât quite make itâs heavies cleave through the fabric of reality like Mercenary can. Doesnât synergise with Huntsmenâs talents afaik.
Not sure what youâre assuming but that seems to be a generous amount of damage, if I assume 40% power from More the Merrier+Reikland reaper, and smiter itâs 13.5-6.25-3.75-3.25, even 30% power vs Skaven doesnât get me there: if youâre assuming mainstay thatâs pretty bold because you only stagger SV on headshot/crit and thatâs only enough for a flinch.
Quick check on modded realm. Numbers seem about right.
And actually those numbers should be lower since its unlikely that you headshot all 4. You might headshot the first two (unless they stay all in one spot) but the target 3/4 will most likely not get headshotted.
@Pershing I made the mistake of accounting for headshots on all 4. So yeah those numbers are messed up. And even with vastly increased damage numbers (aka headshotting 4 SV which is unlikely to impossible) the numbers still are utter trash.
I donât have enough experience with FK greatsword, but I feel like FK ult would help a lot, staggering all the enemies for the damage bonus (and of course speed buff).
Very well.
From my experience using greatsword clearing elites like this is not a problem regardless. Again, you can still reliably spam heavies to kill them and any enemies in between. Crits and any stagger damage bonus helps clear them a lot faster. The test in question also didnât take into account the push attack, which you would weave in to pluck out elites, and the fact that in my opinion such a test doesnât show how good the greatsword is, since itâs main thing is that itâs a crowd clearer and it keeps for some reason getting tested on armoured enemies. Yes it has worse anti-armour damage than executioner, if it didnât then it would be overpowered. But the damage is still not bad.
Itâs absolutely fine. On High Elite density it becomes one of the best Melee Weapons in the game, and has no issue mowing them down.
I use the Push-Attacks maybe once or twice a match on Twins, and still manage to top Elite kills.