Greatswords are technically viable and the buff wasn’t necessary at all. So I have no idea why you buffed them like you did.
The problem have always been and continues to be the redundant movesets where the Heavy attacks are literally just stronger slower versions of the Light attacks. What Greatswords needed was NEW movesets to make it more interesting. Brettonian Longsword, Great Reckoner, Billhook, and Halberds should be the gold standard for engaging movesets.
Do you know why people are generally fine with Kerillian’s Greatsword even though that weapon isn’t the best in her kit? Because that sword changes things up with a stabbing heavy to complement the wide light swings, not to mention it was pretty cool how she can hold her heavy attack indefinitely.
TL;DR - GS was viable, didn’t need buffs, it was repetitive and boring, needed a reworked moveset
I really like Greatsword cause, for the most part, it does exactly one job and that job very well. Lots of enemies in front of you and not too many shields or a monster? Swing away and everything dies. It even does a lot of damage against armor and super armor as long as it’s 3+ of them. You really need yourself some attack speed and maybe some extra power (wink wink play Zealot) and accept you’re not gonna be the one to kill that monster and it’s a perfectly fine weapon.
I don’t see a problem with the moveset either. Heavies are obviously what you use most of the time, but you still have your lights for slightly better DPS against pure infantry and PA in case you need to finish off one or two single enemies that are left. It’s even surprisingly mobile cause heavy spam with a bit of attack speed is about a 10% movetech.
Plus GS gives Zealot the opportunity to get the damage dealt green circle pretty well as long as there’s no other really op builds in your lobby cause you’re always damaging lots of targets.
Greatsword was the best weapon for Merc bot before the S&S appears and now it is the best weapon for Merc bot again. I am pretty happy with it because my Merc bot looks amazing with it.
My problem with greatsword was not its damage, but its clunkiness. Somehow people imagine 2h swords as something extremely heavy. Like I would give you a 5kg weight to make some biceps curls with one hand, and thereafter I give you a 10 kg weight to do the same but now you can use both hands. And you would complain the 10 kg is way too heavy. Dude, I said use both hands!
So GS is slow. It is even slower than top heavy weapons like the elven glaive or the great hammer!
The clunkiness appears in the long waiting times between attacks:
This start time is 0 in case of one-handed weapons. But 0.65 is huge. The same for glaive is 0.55 and 0.7 for the great hammer, even though these are top heavy weapons!
On the other hand, the elven greatsword has only 0.55
This clunkiness makes it unable to you to defend against sudden attacks, for example when 2 monks teleport next to you.
And of course the lack of serious single target attack. The damage profile of the bret sword for the push attack helps the weapon, but you should add halved push cost to it or use my idea to start a new, heavy overhead cycle with the push attack. Or give it more stamina. Something that makes repeated overheads possible.
I think it’s worth it to keep in mind the casual (or new) players: a weapon with simple moveset can be a blessing to them. Not every single weapon has to have a tricky moveset with a learning curve.
It was even buffed in the wrong way, although the damage profile of the bret long push attack is welcome, there was never a need to increase the damage and the cleave of the normal attack
Someone playing that low a level isn’t even going to understand what a move set even is. They’ll see enemies and spam L1 and they’ll see their weapon moving menacingly in front of them and see the enemy magically die when their weapons connects with the bad guys’ bodies.
They’ll have just as much fun with any weapons regardless of movesets.
(the tutorial could probably be improved though, such as…giving Kruber literally any weapon besides his great hammer and giving foot knight a weapon that’s impossible to equip, but that’s a discussion for another thread)
I say these because I have many friends who play VT casually and they would specifically look for weapons with simple attack patterns (basically an easy to understand L1 chain)
Is it really the attack pattern though. I get the argument with easy to use and I agree. But the GS is based on timing which makes it more difficult to use despite the simple moveset.
I mean Dual Weapons are popular for a reason. Because they are overtuned and are simple to use. Press LMB to solve most issues.
That’s not true, based on darktide forum feedback i saw.
There are people complaining about eviscerator moveset in darktide, pointing out it as a main reason why they don’t want to use this weapon.
And now new eviscerator been added and people praising it for its super simple moveset.
I can’t tell you about majority or minority, but it certainly not just two random dudes complaining.
Personally i don’t care about moveset being simple as long there are enough weapons with interesting moveset for me, but i have no trubles with your approach either.
Buff to stats is just feels good i don’t think it brake anything,
so why not?
If you play casually attack patterns mean nothing. They’ll just mash light attack and things magically dies as the bad guys connect with the sharp parts of their swinging objects
it’s not the case if low cleave attacks, like pokes and overheads, is present in weapons moveset.
Those attacks leaves you exposed for the horde, and that where casuals may struggle and get constantly hit by just spaming attacks.
They don’t know about, or don’t want to bother with hevy/light mixing combos, push attack rotations and animation cancelling that is used to get appropriate attack patterns for appropriate situations.
Casuals aren’t playing in legend or cataclysm. They’ll spam the light attack at the few rats in front of them and they’ll die. And if the bots did the killing blow they’ll think they did it.
But that’s completely straying from the point. The problem with the greatsword is how redundant it is. Noone is suggesting changing all of its attacks into stabs and overheads. But certainly change them up so they’re not completely identical.
No weapon needs to be noob friendly as they’re playing at a level where they’ll mow everything down by mashing at the correct direction
Greatswords moveset isn’t redundant, combining lights and heavies for horde clear is its defining characteristic.
Heavies uses are: as opener \ wide dragged swing vs surrounding horde \ assisting teammate or when elites are mixed in.
Lights serve for preserving attack initiative (replacing the need for push or block) \ when you flank a horde or enemies form a low angle of threat \ to finish off lone survivors after heavy swing (not wasting time for a full heavy).
I’m glad they keep the classic moveset, its one of the reasons i keep coming back to play some VT2.
There is really a weapon for every taste in this game. What stands out to me about greatsword, is how creative it feels, because its very reliant on swing hitbox drags, and combining lights and heavies to do horde clear. Which is simpler for meta weapons (and they can do more elsewhere), but they lack the satisfaction of clever and fluid comboing between lights and heavies, they’re too simple - usually one attack type per type of threat, with maybe a block cancel. Or like halberd - where youre locked in a fixed repeating combo (L - H - L - H). With GS you can make the next swing whatever you want it to be, and it always looks great since any type of heavy attack (both of them) transition naturally into light attack, and vice versa (the blade keeps moving in x shape, there is no sudden stops or reversing).
I like the damage buffs too, they reinforce the weapons concept. It was lacking a bit in damage output, now it feels more rewarding to extend those swings.
