Greatswords need Love!

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
62

I watch your vids, Velsix - good stuff. You’re the first high-level streamer player I’ve seen say this. That’s not to say you’re wrong, your words carry weight. Most I’ve seen seem to list it as trash-tier.

Even approaching it right you take two push-attacks and two heavies to kill a single SV, that’s not good in any sense. This just highlights the weapon’s weakness here.

A showing of good gameplay by yourself in a controlled environment. Incidentally, you can see the number 2 pop up on targets hit after the first target - against unstaggered opponents (yes, I know what stagger is; I’ve talked about in prior comments, I was in the closed beta when it was first added and discussed it heavily with others) the first armored target will take around 16 damage on a headshot, the second 10 (if a headshot, but since there is an angle on the strikes you’ll usually bodyshot, in which case it is 5 damage) and against further targets the damage will drop even more to 3 or 2.

Still, this doesn’t undercut what you say. You put up the proof, so kudos.

You dislike every idea I’ve put forth, so what would you suggest would make it a more engaging weapon?

63

Greatsword only really starts to outdamage other weapons when it’s hitting over 6 units, and it’s surprisingly rare even on higher difficulties to actually find yourself in a position where you can get good enough angles or reach to do that.

64

In the Greatsword’s case, it’s that it 1) has a boring moveset, since lights and heavies are visually nearly the same, and 2) has very poor DPS against single targets, which is very noticeable. The ability to cleave hordes in general isn’t a super valuable role, since even something like Dual Daggers can kill hordes fairly well if you have decent skill.

You can easily walk up to a single Marauder, SV, and even optimally (as was shown in a clip above) you’re needing many hits; the weapon does not feel like it is what it looks like. Most weapons in VT manage to strike a decent balance of playing into their power fantasy without being too powerful, but the GS fails in coming anywhere close to its power fantasy; you imagine you can lop the heads off at least common enemies in one great swing, and instead you have to hack away at them. Doesn’t feel good. I still strongly think that something to increase its pace, especially against lone armored enemies, would do wonders for the weapon’s feel.

Now, people are making great arguments that it carries itself in mixed hordes, which does have value! But it’s just harder to see that value in practice, because those situations are very hectic - the only way you can is with modded realm, going into a map and spawning hordes of enemies with health numbers on to get a very clear idea of what the weapon can do.

This is a shame, because (while it does make sense with the moves we’ve got), in the lore of the setting a Greatsword should be one of the best weapons against a big chungus warrior. And even if we’re talking IRL, some of the best theories about how these swords were used revolves around them being like hybrid swords/polearms.

You could choke your grip up on the blade to hold them more like a spear and stab more precisely for an armored enemy’s weak points. It was a different period, and total plate armor was falling out of fashion then, but still. There’s plenty of reason to say this weapon should at least be in the ‘average’ section of armor damage (whether through new attacks or not), not on the low end.

So, again, all my suggestions for new attacks are not to destroy the weapon’s current role, but to give it some scenarios where it can fulfill the fantasy of being a giant cool sword, and also play into its tabletop role.

65

I don’t have much to add to this discussion that hasn’t already been said, but I do want to remark that just because this weapon is simple doesn’t mean this weapon is easy. There’s a very significant difference between those thing.

Its moveset is simple as it gets. You basically got sweeps, and more sweeps. But it’s still not easy to use the Greatsword because using it requires top notch timing, distancing, patience, and situational awareness to get most out of its strenghts and especially to prevent getting hit while using it. Using this weapon to its highest potential is actually quite hard. I think that’s one of the reasons this weapon has a bad rep; People use it like they would use another weapon, think that it just can’t do better because it doesn’t have any other fancy moves, and falsely conclude there isn’t more potential to it. But with practise and a slightly different midset this weapon does pretty well. Case in point: @Rebel hacking down a Stormvermin horde with a Greatsword faster and safer than the same class would take to do that with weapons that are considered more “meta”.

Other examples of what I mean: A weapon that is simple and relatively “easy” to use is the Rapier. It has sweeps for hordes, stabs for single target, and it can compensate for a lot of sloppy positioning with good mobility and cheap pushes. There’s still a lot of skill needed to play higher difficulties off course, but what I mean is that the weapon itself isn’t complicated to use and using it to its full potential is pretty straightforward and feels natural. An example of a weapon that is both complicated and hard is the Axe & Shield, which needs complicated combos and a very specific and different mindset to use to its fullest potential. Like the Greatsword it often gets a bad rep because people try it once, use it like they would use another weapon, and conclude it is trash before having figured out the “knack” it requires.

Another reason people dislike the Greatsword is because earlier in the game’s life the weapon was pretty lackluster, and people haven’t reallly picked up on the buffs and subtle meta changes that happened since. They just remembered the weapon was bad, its moveset hasn’t changed significantly, and thus they falsely think it’s still a useless weapon.

66

I think a lot of the arguments for greatsword in this thread are a bit too reliant on this, honestly. It definitely is good in those situations, but I wouldn’t ever particularly plan around that being the case, and I think it still doesn’t touch on greatsword being pretty pointless because its niche in normal play is mostly better filled by ranged weapons.

Even in clutch situations, I’d almost always rather fight a SV pat with a corus staff or something than a greatsword, just teleport away and kite when you can’t make space. Can melt them with really no risk if your terrain is half decent.

Generally (as in for most people playing it) in situations where you’ve got these insane numbers of elites up you’re pretty screwed if you’re forced to solo anyway, because they aren’t all that’s spawning. Mass elites like that are almost always a modded pat or higher percent twitch mode thing.

Edit: To make my point here a bit clearer, I think that while it can clutch well, that it’s not particularly strong enough for it to be something I’d actively choose to run when considering what the best comp for most content is. I don’t know if ability to clutch well is necessarily worth running it over a weapon that contributes to a comp that wouldn’t need to clutch there in the first place, if that makes sense, and if I was in a pub where I’d reliably have to clutch stuff anyway I probably would play zealot, BW or whc anyway, if not trying to just invis cheese stuff.

67

My statement was in regards to high pressure, not clutching.

Kruber cannot teleport, nor does Kruber have a Coruscation staff. The Greatsword compares well in high pressure to Kruber’s other melee weapons, ults and ranged weapons. The discussion has made the comparison between the Exec and Greatsword a few times. This refers to dps uptime with low amounts of blocking required.

68

H1 y H2 should be single target overhead. And push-attack a heavy sweep.

69

So … make it exactly like executioner sword? Nooo thanks

70

Yeah, I agree. Shouldn’t destroy its identity. I think the special weapon attack is severely under-used and could add a lot to many weapons to round them out and make them more fun. I don’t think everything needs them, but this is definitely a case I think it’d be good.

71

special attack: kruber and saltz just kick a target in the dongliz

72

Dunmahglass

73

The Bretonian Longsword is already the in-between of Exe/Greatsword.

Greatsword has it’s place as a Horde clear with ok Elite damage up to Cata and then one of the best Elite density Melee Weapons on Cata+ with Merc/Zealot.

I think the Light Attacks are greatly underrated.

74

Are the light attacks underrated? You use them until wooden shields and elites show up.

75

Every time a Greatsword thread comes up, people usually compare them to Exe Sword’s, or don’t mention them at all. They’re actually pretty good. Especially for safely maintaining THP.

76

They’re fine on their own, but they’re just so similar to the heavies in function that it makes the moveset feel somewhat redundant. It’s vexing when it has such glaring deficiencies against elites. In no way is it “okay”, really. You can make it work, but it’s actually worse than the 1H sword in terms of realistic, optimal combos (solely because the 1H sword can follow two heavies with the third light that has a very good chance of headshotting + good AP to begin with).

77

I think in the other threads we played with the idea of making the Push-Attack something more and maybe adding a Special-Attack, but over all, it’s pretty good on Cata+. Exe and Bret GS are better and more fun for lower difficulties anyway.

The only other suggestion I could have, without turning GS into Bret GS#2, is to add a new mechanic, maybe a rythmic one, where you have to time Heavies or Lights for greater Stagger/Cleave/Damage/Crit%.

When you look at how insane it is on Cata+, it’s hard to push for anything that doesn’t make it completely ridiculous in terms of versatility.

Even the most recent buff to Movement Speed during Heavies had a lot of people scratching their heads tbh. Noone asked for it, but it did benefit it even more on higher difficulties.

78

Call me guilty. I’d be down for the light attacks having more flare, specifically in line with Rebel’s ideas way back during the WoM beta.

Current light attacks aren’t too bad against berserkers or as a follow up after staggering enemies with a heavy, either.

79

Of all of the greatsword buff suggestions I’ve seen, I think the most sensible one was giving the push-stab a follow up single target attack. Similar to what the dual hammers have. That way you can get more damage per stamina without increasing the damage of the push-stab or delving into weird territory like stamina cost reduction.

80

I would like that, something like elf sword light 3, would make the weapon a little more engaging.

81

Can you please post a video where you playing it and not being carried by the party in armor situations?