Fatshark, is this type of feedback relevant today? @FatsharkQuickpaw @FatsharkCatfish
About the quality of weapons: the animations, combo chains, sound, the feel, various visual glitches.
I’ve noted about 20 other weapons that can have their video feedback, its just that i’m most motivated about halberd.
I’m a bit curious what the future holds for Vermintide. There’s also so many weapons overall, that improving the quality of existing ones might be a good direction.
No reason to keep the combo? The reason is that doing what you propose is a big nerf to clearing hordes, 5% attackspeed + wont change that. To me that sounds like a bad idea, even if it is true that the combo looks stiff and awkward. That’s a thing plenty of weapons share and in such cases the use matters more.
You´d basically have to raise attackspeed by…30%? More? To match the current pace with the proposed change. The transitions between heavy sweep-light stab would need to be extremely quick since the stab has no clear on its own. Or possibly, significantly buff the heavy sweep making it hit like a falling tree.
How do Tuskgor spear and Elven spear function then?
They too don’t have sweep after sweep.
Its simple: stack some attack speed, and you’re good. And it will be easier with the suggested buff. +10% AS is big, +5% is moderate increase. Add +10% from properties, 20% from SS (that Merc and Huntsman have no problem proccing), and you’re set.
And its not like you don’t do anything between Heavy sweeps (that also have armor cleave - which increase the safety by a lot). The Light stabs, especially with buffed damage, can be used to focus marauders, or just kill 2-3 slaverats in one hit (Merc can hit 3).
If i am not mistaken the Tuskor has a significantly wider sweep and better stagger on its heavy sweep, so much so that the halberd isnt on the same level at all.
As for the elven spear, its heavy sweep is actually just borderline useless for horde clear on cata, it is too slow, hits too few, too low damage cleave, too low stagger and chains into a single target attack…no, the Spears horde fighting ability comes from mainly two sources, one being from its push attack which has a better mix of attributes. And the second being that the spear itself has the very notable perk of its critical hits having zero falloff on damage and stagger decay. This is significant since most weapons meanwhile have about 50% or more falloff on any target hit after the first.
But even then…the elven spear isnt actually great on its own, what makes it great, is the careers using it. All of Keri´s paths can greatly amp the spear if they want to, all of them…except Waystalker. Waystalker is the only one who doesnt really vibe well with the spear, no extra crit, damage or stamina to mash push-attacks.
Tuskgor has a wider sweep animation, true, but Halberd Heavy sweep is not to be underestimated, if you extend it you easily hit in 120°, and anything higher is impractical.
So the stagger and stagger cleave can be increased a bit for Halberd Heavy sweep, good point.
The stronger part about Halberd sweep is damage:
Damage on 5 infantry
Halberd heavy sweep:
19.5+15+9+7.5+4.5
= 55.5
(dmg cleave 11,94)
Tuskgor heavy sweep:
16.5+9+4.5+3+3
= 36
(dmg cleave 8,95)
And armor cleave. A Tuskgor spear Heavy sweep will meet the first Stormvermin and stop there, a Halberd Heavy sweep will go through SV, CW, Mauler. That is massive difference, completely changes how you can approach a fight.
Also, since Light stab is a lot faster than Light sweep, you will be able to output more Heavy sweeps per second with Light stab ↔ Heavy sweep, than with the current Light sweep ↔ Heavy sweep. So in a mixed elite+horde fight, the Halberd might become even safer.
And we have Merc that is melee powerhouse. FK has also some nice stuff going (stagger strength, a bit of power).
…You do know that this rotation move is basically a gimmick for cata and up right? This because weapons have a built-in limit for how many targets they actually hit. So when faced with cata-density you dont have to bother rotating, you´ll probably be pretty far from hitting everything anyway. And it is at this point that the more important question is how much cleave value you got. The Tuskor if memory serves has about double what halberd has…however granted, you do raise a valid point on armor-gliding.
Halberd does not go through CWs i am almost completely certain, their armor class is “super” which is a step above base armor that Halberd deals with. As for maulers, i am fairly sure they are so beefy that even if it doesnt hardstop it doesnt hit much at all beyond one of them.
I do not feel like this is the case, it is a bit faster but not much by any means. And not so much that it compensates for missing hitting anything from 1 target instead of 3-6.
Indeed, so the weapons are fairly comparable on a baseline level, and so i wanted to state that if the spear is alright then the halberd is too. Neither should really go down. And i do believe the suggested change is a downward turn.
No, i don’t know this (as a Greatsword enjoyer).
Yep, and Halberd Heavy sweep could use a stagger cleave increase.
It still have a better damage cleave than tuskgor.
Load up mod realm and check it then.
Mercs cleave passives + talents help with that. You can hit 4 Maulers in a row (3 by default on him).
0,81s vs 0.54s, Light stab is 50% faster.
So if the Elven spear can have mixed stabs with sweeps, then surely if we do buffs to Heavy sweep & Light stab of Halberd, it will also be alright with a mixed stab<->sweep combo.
…FIiiiiine 
, that one is something of an exception being one of if not the most cleaving thing in the game with gliding ontop even. On Merc with his multipliers and i concede that there will be angles for camera-sweep use.
That´d be opening the rabbit hole for a lot of balance discussion on …pretty much all weapons though. Halberd is already considered very good by most standards.
I did, it does actually cleave, but the CW’s does soak the cleave up really well, as does the raiders. Hit either first and majority of targets beyond are safe. Tested on huntsman for the sake of verifying baseline capability.
This isnt really a good argument imo, in the same style one could argue that Spear is absolutely amazing on the Elf…since Handmaiden with the Power from Pain build can decimate smaller but mixed hordes with ease with high power fast light attacks. Then call it OP overall while ignoring that only Handmaiden really takes this out so far.
The difference is is basically 0.3 seconds 
And if we are talking time spent, the light attack hits up to 5 infantries of the smallest classes, 3 slightly bigger ones like gors or 2 marauders. The Light stab meanwhile peaks at 2 slaverats. So the light sweep yields arguably between 2 to 5 times the value of a light stab. A tiny 0.3 seconds of extra speed does not compensate for cata hordes at all. Not without absolutely pumping more damage and stagger into the heavy sweep which is just powercreep from a balance perspective or from a design one, pretty much another heavy spam which he already has options for. OPTIONS.
The elf doesnt even have one darn it!
Mixed stabs? The elf spear goes “Stab-stab-sweep - repeat” . This pattern is linear to the point of extremity nearly. The only fluidity from the weapon comes from the push-attack&stabs chaining into heavy stab. The latter which you use a lot because you pretty much never wana use the first heavy attack for anything except hitting armor when you cant headshot chain with “stab-heavy stab” repeats.
The elf spear is very linear in its gameplay, i do not want that for halberd.
Greathammer too, and some other examples with high stagger cleave.
Which you extend not for damage like the Greatsword, but for crowd control.
You think Heavy sweep would be too strong with the way it will combo?
If 0.3 seconds is nothing, then 0.5 seconds is also almost nothing right? So at this point, you can imagine that you repeat Heavy sweep after Heavy sweep, when you do [Heavy sweep ↔ Light stab] combo.
And with +5% baseline attack speed buff, the whole thing would be fast enough to horde clear as good as before, just with different benefits and drawbacks.
And its not like you’re supposed to play this game solo, this change i think will make teamplay more rewarding. Because you’re a bit less comfortable fighting solo. But with more (and better) Heavy sweeps, you amplify the effectiveness of a melee blender with other teammates. You cleave through armor and stagger trash, when other players are hit-stopping at first elite.
In the case of cata hordes, the Light 1 sweep can be relatively useless (and just as dangerous) if you hit an elite enemy first.
There is absolutely a middleground possible, no need to think in extremes.
I think this change to Halberd will make it no more linear than it currently is.
To reiterate what buffs are needed:
+6% attack speed
Light 2 stab damage - from 12 to 15 for infantry (Tuskgor spear profile).
Heavy 2 sweep stagger cleave - from 8.95 to 11.94 (Bretonnian Longsword Light 1 profile)
Heavy 2 sweep damage cleave - from 11.94 to 13.43 (Bretonnian Longsword Light 1 profile)
Heavy 2 sweep stagger power - from 5.477 to 6.024 (Greatsword Heavy attack).
And thats it, very simple. And we have a halberd that doesn’t look so stiff and ugly when you fight hordes.
Alright, Merc is a bit of an exception to the normal stuff with how much he can improve cleave, i typically do not use the big hammer on anything but slayer. However, on him i easily reach the cleave limits so that merc trick doesnt come to mind.
As a rule of thumb, most careers on most weapons, really have no use for it. Thus its a gimmick 95% of the time.
To some extent yes, because pumping more power into the heavies makes them that much better at dealing mixed armor waves if nothing else. It dumbs down the design and gameplay when the answer is effectively “mash lights/heavies into everything”.
Halberd right now is one of the very few weapons that has to actually adapt its use to the situation making it possibly the most skill expressive piece in the game.
0.3 seconds is a third of a second, its such an extremely small difference that 99% of players probably cant really feel it during use. And the issue is exactly that making what is basically heavy sweep mashing possible, is bad.
If teamplay is your angle, why not just use shield or Greathammer? That was never really what halberd specialized in. Its thing is being versatile and good against everything even if not the absolute best at everything. Kruber doesnt need halberd to be his equivalent of the Fire-flail.
The mace&sword pairing is already close to that.
Not horribly so, even that attack has armor damage, linesman and the still high baseline range on halberd. Mostly the same things that make it so the light stab isnt awful under the same circumstances.
No the issue here is that either the heavy spam works or it doesnt, if it does, its too strong on the basis that the heavy attack already rocks solid values. The current drawback is precisely that you cant just mash them outright. Gotta use the light sweep (with its drawbacks accounted for) or block cancel (safer but less damage).
At the “cheap” price of powercreep and dumbing down the design, making it easier and more powerful to just mash heavies into things. Ah the price of beauty.
Its also reliant on what stuff you fight - skaven hordes have much less mass that in general its hard to reach cleave limit on them. Plus, there’s a slot system that distributes enemies around. In case of hyperdensity - yes you’ll hit cleave limit with everything, but with a surrounding horde, there’s often an unused cleave that is being wasted.
Whether its a gimmick or not, your initial point was that Tuskgor sweep is better than Halberd’s, because Tuskgor sweep hits in wider angle:
How is that different from current Halberd’s “mash Light 1 sweep ↔ Heavy 2 sweep” when you face a horde or a mixed horde?
We don’t increase armor damage or 1st target damage for Halberd Heavy sweep. The armor damage of Halberd Heavy sweep is the same as Greatsword Heavy attack (± 1).
And if you want to switch to singletarget attack/combo, you can do it anytime. And with buffed speed - it would be easier to snipe elites that way.
Those weapons fill a different role, more stagger focused.
A closer comparison would be to Greatsword. In this case with less powerful Heavy sweeps, because Halberd already has great singletarget, which also can be a support playstyle - with Heavy 1 stab range, or Push attack combo, eliminating elites while frontline is being held.
Skill isnt a factor here? Teamplay? The variety of enemy composition isn’t as well?
Also its false that you can’t mash [Light sweep ↔ Heavy sweep] outright - Merc trivializes the horde fighting. And you wouldn’t use a halberd on huntsman really if you want to be optimal, a ranged career have different needs & wants.
Do you honestly think these listed buffs are powercreep?
Let me remind you, that you thought the new combo would match the current in horde-clear, if:
+5% wont change that, but +6% allows mashing?
As for dumbing down - its the opposite, because you’d need to do better dodgework, positioning or better at aiming (because you have less sweeps per second overall), or stick to teammates more.
As i said, different benefits and drawbacks. Even with Greatsword there’s nuance how you fight a mixed horde (unless you stack max attack speed on Merc or Zealot).
I dont min/max or grind cata so I cant comment on all the math…but I personally don’t see any issues with the weapon. I would prefer new weapons with different styles than changing existing ones.
And yes, the beauty matters.
Otherwise, FS wouldn’t spend time and money animating new weapons, like Holy GreatHammer. They’d just fully copy paste animations from other similar weapons.
Why don’t we see the same stiff looking animations or combos from new weapons they released?
I can’t come up with a single worse looking combo than [Light 1 sweep ↔ Heavy 2 sweep] of the Halberd.
Pulling an jav out of your butt as an elf is absurd
And i think i clarified later that i meant that it both has better overall cleave, it hits more targets, and it easily hits the cleave limit most of the time, partly in thanks to the very wide sweep. Merc cleave boost sheningans aside.
Currently if you get say superarmor,shields or just a sufficiently dense horde the normal combo doesnt work , the lights get stuck and you have to instead use various combos to gradually thin the targets out. Push attacks into light overhead double drop etc.
The Greathammer kills mixed hordes faster than the Greatsword, this thanks to it being much more resistant towards armor, shields and other disruptive elements. Exception being superarmor which soaks the swings.
Greatsword is better at pure chaff, unarmored targets that do not disrupt and somewhat strangely, superarmor clusters thanks to the gliding heavies…albeit harder to use.
Guessing about teamplay is pretty pointless, i could guess that you got a battlewizard annihilating any horde that gets near you in about 1-2 seconds per wave. Or an outcast engineer bombing them, or a hagstalker, or any other wizard built for AOE really.
That’s most of my games anyhow.
The lights doesnt glide on shields and doesnt stagger more bulked targets like maulers, this means one has to mix up the combo’s when those come into play.
I stated that i think your suggested changes are a nerf, and that i believe one would need a big boost to possibly both attackspeed and hitting power to make it work for the same purposes as it does now. At the expense of also making it more versatile against different types = stronger = powercreep.
Have you seen how the elf handles her greatsword? The whole thing is an atrocity. Its like she struggles to lift it so she halfway throws it with each swing. And her 1hand axe…yikes to that new combo as well.
As for Saltz’s Greathammer, that was part of a larger release sent with the Warrior Priest release, and on that note, out of like.-…6? Weapons released, 4 of them used existing animations. His greathammer used some old and got some new.
Only the hammer&tome was and is unique.
If we look back at older weapon releases like when Kruber got Spear&shield, it was largely just a ripoff from the elf except slower but with extra sweeps. Or the new elf bow which…used longbow’s build and had to be emergency tuned because the effects on it blinded the user due to how the aiming puts the bow in the center of the screen and covers a large part.
Fire flail? Same as base flail for 9 outa 10 animations…and so on.
I thought people use Light 1 block cancel, isn’t it?
So we clarified, how wide the Halberd Heavy sweep animation is - does not matter?
(Since you can extend it.)
With the change and buffs i listed (that you consider being a nerf), i believe it would allow to use the Heavy 2 sweep in those circumstances, without also powering through.
It would be an added option, you won’t control everything with it (you’d still want pushes and push-stabs to focus elites). You definitely won’t control elites, and your damage output vs armor or elites would suck if you just do Light stab ↔ Heavy sweep. Take Greatsword Heavy spam vs stormvermins, and divide the kill speed by like 1.5.
This wasn’t my experience at all.
You also can use Greatsword pushstabs to destroy marauder shields.
Heavy attacks of these weapons function similarly when you hit marauder shielders. 2 hits and they’re open.
Greathammer just kills infantry so slow. It is better at focusing elites in a horde, thats true, but to me Greatsword is a lot faster, since you just destroy infantry, and can play around elites.
I was assuming a teammate fighting in melee, nothing special.
So i guess you agree that skill matters, and enemy composition too, for whether or not the Heavy spam would work or not for someone.
I thought you were commenting about the post directly - with the buffs i suggested, calling them dumbing down and powercreep. Don’t make it more complicated than it should be.
So if the current suggestion is a nerf. I have a different proposition.
For the same combo change though.
You say that its hard to use [Light 1 sweep ↔ Heavy 2 sweep] with enough density, shields, elites, that you need to switch to other moves.
Also you didn’t know that Heavy 2 cleaves through CW (must be not playing halberd on Merc).
And you say that the horde clear speed will drop drastically if the combo is changed:
So i assume you value [Light 1 sweep ↔ Heavy 2 sweep] for the pure infantry clear speed.
What if, we remove armor cleave property on Heavy 2 sweep. That will close the door towards dumbing down in a mixed fight. (you weren’t relying on L1-H2 in a mixed fight anyway, right).
Then we buff the damage of Heavy 2 sweep, to Greatsword Heavy profile. So you’re fully compensated for the drop in trash horde DPS.
Here’s the numbers, sweeps when hitting 5 infantry:
Halberd Light 1 sweep:
15+8+5.25+4+4
= 36.25
Halberd Heavy 2 sweep:
19.5+15+9+7.5+4.5
= 55.5
Halberd Light 2 stab
= 15 (buffed)
Greatsword Heavy:
29.75+21+15+10.75+4.5
= 81 (for new Halberd Heavy sweep)
With one rotation before (L1+H2) you do 91,75, with new rotation (L2+H2) you do 96. And its on top of moderate cleave buffs and speed buff:
You get a little more DPS, but a little less horde control - which is not a big deal.
Maybe remove attack speed buff, this will require testing.
I can see that elven greatsword isn’t looking good, no problem with elven axe though.
Well, 3 of WP weapons are just reskins… and we got 3 new weapons, with 2 that look fresh. For a career DLC that is normal.
Which animations are old? I don’t see it. You must also consider the transitions between strikes.
Maybe Light 1 strike is copied, but starting frames from idle are new.
When Light 1 or Light 2 bonk against geometry / armor and then go to idle - also never seen these animations.
Full Heavy chain looks new, with all the transitions.
There’s only so much ways you can animate a flail, or one-handed spear.
You can nitpick the details, and i can list new animations since release, but that sounds so pointless.
Cause the idea still stands.
The point is not only about new animations, its that they string them together to look good. They’d never release something like a halberd’s infinite [L1 sweep ↔ H2 sweep] chain, which you’re kinda shoehorned to use. That, or Light 1 block cancel.
It does matter, because its also a question of ease of use. If you have to swing the screen like a tennis rack each time to get good value (on one specific career) then its worse(even if only on that career).
You gotta consider that the heavy sweep already packs significantly better cleave, damage and stagger. So any change where the heavy sweep is easier and stronger to use is innately a powercreep.
Using pushstab to break shields is a gimmick when 2 pushes leaves them wide open 7 outa 10 times. Push the group to open em up then start dropping lights or heavies accordingly.
And that alone still doesnt really narrow it down…“teammate in melee” is anything from an elf impotently swinging a 1h axe to a slayer tearing a whole horde apart like paper. Potential variations are too extremely to make any kind of “average” judgement.
I did indeed forget about it because its usually not really optimal, the CW will soak the heavy to the point where it hardly cleaves anything afterwards. Same issue as with say maulers for any other career other than merc.
I do indeed not value l1-h2 in situations where armor is in my face normally, but i do value the block-h2 more then. I do not really favor removing that, at least not without significantly buffing the stagger value on the push to maintain stormvemin fighting ability. But that’s kinda just shuffling numbers for no reason.
I find it to be the most awkward feeling weapon in the game, plus possibly the worst one too but …well personal preferences aside.
Normal how exactly? Most other careers got like…2 new weapons on average, only one really unique at that. At best.
Saltz got how many new ones, even if only slightly redone&buffed, plus one true unique and one semi?
The transitions on it are really great, its overal a much more thoroughly developed and fulfilled piece compared to most others in the game. As for older stuff, not really any direct ripoffs but the heavy 1 is highly similar in terms of feel at least. And his heavy chain 3rd is like a normal light one but amped up.
The mere existance of the elf 1h axe is kinda against this xd.
But on a more serious note, its true that more recept releases like Necro scythe or slightly older ones like Krub brett sword have recived love on a different level compared to original releases like elf greatsword for instance. Or halberd. But do not forget, not all new releases got this equally.
Fire flail for one is visually spectacular but its really just base flail but stronger + fire effects, gotta earn that DLC tag.
As mentioned, elf moonbow original just ripped the longbow rig completely, which was a small disaster because the effects on the bow covered the screen when aiming which just blinded the user instead. Not on all skins if i recall but on like two or so.
And so on.
Love was not spread equally, it was only really bigger releases like the …GK, Necro and mostly the warrior priest that got the big sendoffs.