No curse res and 60% bcr, so it’s gotta be Cata.
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He only plays Cata and modded difficulty
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I’ve been trying that build out (on Cata), and I’d rather have a one-handed sword. Mobility would be much better - and their damage is bizarrely comparable. Greatsword is higher, but only by a very small amount. As just one example, a three-hit Sword combo will deal 60.75 damage to a Marauder, and the Greatsword (with three lights) will deal 62.25, so in either case another hit will be needed, but the Sword will do it faster and is much more likely to get a headshot with its third hit, which will be a guaranteed kill. It’s hard to figure in the bonus damage from Stagger, exactly, though I think the weapons will remain comparable. Given the size difference, I’d really want a Greatsword to do better against a single enemy.
In practice, if the bots are distracted, even a single Stormvermin brings progress to a halt unless I want to use my ranged weapon to kill them - pace is terrible. Even against hordes, it seems to throw enemies about a lot - it is a great blender against Skaven hordes, but that’s not a high accomplishment. Against Chaos hordes I found the fights were protracted - you’re not likely to be killing more than one Fanatic per swing, and many others will be sent flying all around. Even fairly open areas seemed to become messy pretty quickly.
The big problem was just that if things went bad, there’s just zero clutch ability with this weapon. It fulfills a common role, but that’s the only thing it does. This is its weakness - I mean, yes, you can cleave tons of Stormvermin with heavies, but you’re doing 2 damage after a couple targets, so it’s really kinda meaningless. I suppose adding AP damage to lights would be in the same boat, but as people seem to think that tickling a dozen Stormvermin at a time is constructive, having this effect on lights would play into that even more.
You are entirely dependent on your allies if there are Chaos Warriors. Again, you can cleave a bunch and tickle them, but it will take you ages to kill a single enemy. It’s good “team-oriented” design if you think that means you should not be able to do all things, but it’s not fun design. There seems a very valid middle ground where different weapons have pros and cons but should be able to theoretically meet every challenge, just at varying degrees of skill. Technically the current weapon does fall in there, but long passes the point of “tedious”. Even if your dodging skills are perfect against a patrol of Chaos Warriors, you will be there for a very, very, very long time.
It just has too few ways to do anything close to acceptable armor damage. And this is inarguably a big deal if you are trying to clutch, are just separated, or just (most commonly) are in a position where you are the one who has to deal with this Chaos Warrior in front of you.
Anecdote from a game; I approach a lone Stormvermin, and a horde starts to come. I use a push-attack and headshot the SV. It’s not dead, so I use a heavy attack and get a headshot. I do that again. It is still alive and my team are now engaging the horde, so this means their horde-clearer is not there and are now without me.
I use another and get a bodyshot on this attack - it is STILL ALIVE. I have a good angle, so I just throw a light and get another headshot, and finally kill it. Overkill is 0.5 damage. This is so much worse than any other weapon. And yes, there was a better option in this scenario (three push attacks), but that’s still a significant time and amount of resources for a single SV.
I don’t think the half-swording special attack would make the weapon much more effective in a heavy, mixed horde or massed group of armor. You will still have to mobile, cleaving and very slowly whittling down your enemies. But in thinner mixed hordes, or against single enemies, you’ll have some option for killing the target in a decent time frame. And by decent time frame, I do mean the time before another horde comes.
Oh, perhaps it could do a little more to monsters, too, since stabs seem to be good against them in general and otherwise this weapon is extremely weak against monsters.
Likewise, the super-heavy charged attack will be something that can stagger massed armor (with the penalty of a longer wind-up time than even a heavy from a 2H Hammer) and can deal decent AP damage to one of those enemies. This becomes the move you have to play skillfully to get off into massed armor, using height differences and ults and generally good movement to get in position for. Likewise, it is a very good engage that puts your team onto a strong initial footing against massed armor.
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Now, kudos to anyone who can make this thing work in Cata or modded difficulties. You have a fantastically coordinated team and you are far more skilled than anyone else with this weapon. However, the game doesn’t cater only to the absolute pinnacle. It doesn’t just cater to Cata players, either - but we’re not just addressing the weapons statistical inadequacies, but its fun, that comes from things like having interesting movesets, and that’s applicable across every difficult.
Ultimately, I think the disagreements come from a place of thinking that it’s okay that “x weapon just cannot deal with y situation”. You can think that, it’s valid. I strongly disagree, because it creates a lot of frustration for people who do not have regular, stellar teams. I would rather weapons all have some degree of versatility, but how much of a degree, how much skill is required to unlock them, that creates a much more interesting experience for a much broader category of players - including many who are highly-skilled.
If you really think this weapon is just versatile enough on its own - I just don’t know what to say in response, because the stats, the numbers, just are not there.
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ok I’ll bite, what does this even mean?
I think it means 2h hammer light is overhead, Axe and shield light3 is overhead, Mace and shield is overhead pushstab, Bret Sword has overheads, exe sword overhead heavy and so on, AND they give immediate feedback to your attacks in that things appear to die fast.
There’s actually a handy “Download All” button in your forum profile that will send you an email with an attachment putting all of your posts into a csv file, including the ones made on currently inaccessible parts of the forum.
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Tecnicaly i agree with you 100%, but practicaly this would work if the game was designed in a different way. Sadly right now unless you play with a team that coordinates building each one to cover the other weaknesses you are going to have a bad time playing one of those overspecialised weapons. I would say even if you play in a good team if by any chance things go south you are in for a bad time.
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Absolutely no one plays GS in cataclysm.
The reason is obvious.
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damn I guess me and a bunch of friends stopped existing 
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Me too 
Thanos Click
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I think the Greatsword handles armour and mixed hordes well. It’s got less stagger than a 2H Hammer but it kills trash, has more reach, doesn’t stagger elites out of range and its single target armour dps/shield breaking attack is tied to a push, which makes it a safe attack. The sweeps are very wide, to the point that the weapon works defensively despite its speed.
The Greatsword underperforms when everything is going well and is under control. This is in exchange for doing well under pressure.
Exactly. It’s also crazy with a str pot.
Merc’s synergy with this weapon is very good. Even Bret Longsword’s synergy isn’t as good because it only does damage cleave past armour on charged 1/charged 2 crits.
It’s got a good skill ceiling but I think it’s a simple weapon. Really all it is dodge at the end of charged swings and mix push-attacks and charged swings. Getting headshots on CWs though is satisfying. I would definitely welcome some variance in its light attack pattern.
I may be being arrogant, but I disagree. It does feel bad on Deathwish to me but I and another player I play with can still manage to use it to decent effect on Merc on dwonsc3plus trios (the other player is crazy though, they were doing that with Halberd too).
It’s Merc with two builds for me:
- Better single target/stagger: https://www.ranaldsgift.com/1/112111/17,1,4,6/14,5,3,7/3,2,1/1,4,2/7,2,3. This one is more useful in a team where the extra cleave build is overkill.
- Max cleave: https://www.ranaldsgift.com/1/123111/17,1,4,6/14,5,3,7/3,2,1/1,4,2/7,2,3. Great for true solos. The amount of cooldown return per swing is good vs a horde https://youtu.be/WPbxucZPAWs?t=896. This much cleave lets the lights cleave infantry shields easily, given them very high thp efficiency, and lets the heavies deal with shielded SV like a 2H Hammer.
Reikland Reaper is my preference but it still works with Strike Together if you want more overall team dps. Merc is flexible with this weapon. So long as you have enough power to stagger SV out of running attacks it’s good.
As for the careers overall:
- Merc: Great. Merc gives the weapon all it could ever want (stagger, cleave, crit, attack speed), making it reasonably versatile as well. Dodge talent is very good with Greatsword.
- Foot Knight: Decent due to high attack speed, high thp generation, better shield breaking capabilities due to extra stamina and it looks cool on FK. Becomes a very classic frontline weapon on FK, in a way that even Merc doesn’t quite match.
- Grail Knight: Poor due to bad synergy with single-target focused kit and lacking cleave thp.
- Huntsman & BH: Very poor because both lack cleave thp, lack power for staggering elites (they can run Hunter though to have good enough stagger) and the armour cleave is less useful for these two because of ranged elite clear.
- WHC: Okay-ish. It has great Flense synergy and Killing Shot makes up for the armour dps, but it only really suffers vs CWs which Killing Shot doesn’t help with, the headshot passive does nothing for it, single target tag is poor synergy with a multi-focus weapon and WHC lacks stagger strength. Again, the dodge talent is very good with Greatsword, but it’s mostly Flense doing the work for WHC.
- Zealot: Good. Not quite as good as Merc but comparable.
I was using it on Cata FoW to good effect at about 800 hours play time. That’s still a lot of hours but it’s also Greatsword vs Cata FoW. Other weapons kind of suck there because you have to hold block with them more often when fighting groups of elites, but the Greatsword lets a player keep playing.
It works so well in true solo that imo the only weapon that beats it there is the Mace and Sword (that’s through brute force because it just has such high horde dps).
At any rate, I’d welcome new attacks, animations and such. I think pretty much everyone agrees the lights could have a more distinct purpose from the charged swings.
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This is a pretty poor argument that can easily be turned the other way around. I don’t think every weapon (or career, for that matter) in the game should cater to the clueless player who simply wants to run through the middle of the map when rats are crawling out all around them and there are 3 assassins lurking about. You don’t really need a galactic brain to handle Cataclysm nor a full squad of number crunching nerds who are all human versions of the damage & breakpoints calculator.
You just need a bare minimum of common sense and a basic understanding of the game’s rules, which granted are never really explained properly but rather are learned through experience as you go along. The greatsword is already one of the most versatile and reliable two-handed weapons in the game. Learn to use it properly and play to its strengths. It has far more advantages than drawbacks.
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I’m only going to respond to a few bits here, just want to say that greatsword is the polar opposite of everything you’ve said here, but your comment shows a lack of experience with it.
My guy, you are doing it completely backwards! This should be a warning on how NOT to use the greatsword against single targets. The core problem here is you not understanding what stagger the greatsword is capable of, and not taking advantage of what is essentially a 60% damage increase. Let me demonstrate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1uSzUTvvdw
So what’s happening here? I headshot the Stormvermin with a heavy swing, which staggers it. Staggered enemies are then further even easier to stagger, which lets me add an extra stagger count by just simply pushing. Executing a push-attack after a heavy swing means it is completely staggered, and I’m cashing in the 60% damage bonus with the push-attack. Note as well that this is the completely base(d) greatsword, with no stat increases at all. The only possible boost I might have here is 5% power from TMtM. And of course, this is Cataclysm, on Legend you can 2-shot them, although you might need like 10% armour power on charm.
And this is where greatsword is at its weakest - that is single-target anti-armour damage. And even here it’s not even that bad. It kills the Stormvermin pretty quickly.
(If you don’t know where the extra damage comes from, staggered enemies take 20% more damage, adding an extra stagger count bumps it up to 40%. Mainstay those numbers up further to 40% and 60% respectively. This is one of the few weapons where I think Mainstay is superior to something like Smiter)
Oh yeah? Here’s me killing 35 Stormvermin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSAg6Xaex38
Clearly it’s not just doing “2” damage a swing. Watch as each swing starts to chop down multiple of them at once after a while. Watch the kill feed and the damage numbers.
“Oh, but you’re just using Mercenary as a crutch for a weak weapon!”
No weapon exists in a vacuum. If I’m not using greatsword with Mercenary and his excellent ult, the 10% attack speed and 40% power boost, then it’s WHC with 40% CDR ult, Killing Shot activating and killing 3 Stormvermin at once with one crit swing and increased dodge talent, or even Zealot with 30% power, up to 40% attack speed and insane survivability.
Don’t look at just the damage either. Think about how well this lowers cooldown each swing, since I’m always cleaving multiple enemies at a time, think about how well it generates tHP as well. It’s a monster with tHP on cleave.
Clutch situations is exactly what it’s good for. It has decent stagger and good mobility, both properties are what you want in a weapon when clutching. No disablers can hide behind any sort of elites or density, if there’s a packmaster in a horde you can just chop him down with heavy swings and go right through any Stormvermin. Likewise with assassins.
And yes, I am saying that I wouldn’t be able to do the same with executioner sword. The mobility of the weapon would kill me, it having only 2 dodge count and 0 extra range, and it would be tough to find an opening to do any heavy attack. Halberd I could probably manage, but I’d feel less comfortable.
And lastly, yes, the weapon is ultimately not great against Chaos Warriors. It’s a shame, I know. It deals slow damage against them. But even here it has properties that shine, because rarely are Chaos Warriors alone. Whatever is hiding behind them get chopped down (like in Righteous Stand first terror event, last wave has Warriors + Monks & slave support). Even then, I’ve solo’ed Chaos Patrols on Legend when I was trying to True Solo, it just took a bit of time.
P.S. - are the videos lagging for anyone else too?
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@Rebel
I wouldn’t mind seeing the push strength being bumped a little bit.
I’m not entirely sure, but I’m pretty certain it already has medium-strength pushes, on par with something like spear. You can see in the Hordevermin video I’m capable of staggering Stormvermin there with a simple push, and that’s cause I stacked up 40% power from Mercenary.
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@Rebel
Aye, I guess.
Takes a fair bit of power to push stagger SV out of attacks, something WHC lacks.
Lets be real, the push attack isn’t exactly the fastest thing out there, a little more push strength to commit to that attack would help.
Other than that, yeah just some more options outside of cleave, cleave, cleave would be nice.
Like a little more light attack love or a thrust attack, possibly gated behind the push attack; think Virtue of Audacity overhead into thrust stab.
The reason why few people play a lot o weapons is mostly because very little people bother to really learn and test the weapons and just follow those 2 o 3 mainstream builds easly found in 1 minute google search, which, i want to be clear , i’m not shaming anyone for doing since most people, me included, don’t always have the time to spend in practicing a single game. Also the fact that the weapon is kinda letargic doesn’t help in making more seasoned V2 players opt for it.
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True, if you don’t appreciate the cleave that greatsword has, then it’s a very dull weapon.
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100% agree. 2h sword feels like the perfect weapon to me, requiring skill to be effective and so satisfying to use when you get a good rhythm going. Heavy swings slicing enemies in half never gets old 
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