Just returning from a six month hiatus (aka pre-Winds of Magic) What did I miss?

Before I left I had most of Okri’s Challenges done (minus the deeds). Consistently cleared boards on Legendary. Mostly played a Slayer, occasionally Ironbreaker.

What should I know coming back into this? How different are the classes? Is there a new Tier order? Has playstyle changed tremendously (aka is Dodge still king? Are shield still hot garbage, etc etc.) Are the new Winds of Magic weapons good and what role to they fill?

Went to read up on the state of the game post Winds of Magic and there really isn’t a comprehensive listing out there that I could find. Thanks all.

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Dodge is still critical, but no longer a one-off king. You need stamina and proper block control to succeed.

Stagger has changed. The more you stagger an enemy the more damage they take (up to a cap) and shields/great-weapons apply more stagger than smaller, high-dodge weapons. Shields are extremely viable since this update but not as DPS strong as the other weapons (same as before, essentially, but shields now do enough damage to be viable).

Saltzy’s billhook is a very powerful weapon but requires practice to be good at; certain attacks need not be used all the time but have their place against elites and hordes.

Kruber’s great-spear is great and spear-y and does everything very well and has great range.

Kerillian’s spear and shield is fantastic, but drops her DPS considerably and, when considering her normal kit, this can be a pretty intense change for a lot of players.

Sienna’s flail is cool if also a little underwhelming last I checked (IDK, though, I don’t have a ton of information on this one).

Bardin’s throwing axes are amazing. You throw them into people and one-shot most enemies but you can recall them like Mjollnir. 11/10, would throw through Rasknitt’s head again.

Be warned that the talents have shifted a lot but, as with games where break-points exist, there’s always going to be a “most optimized build.” Play with it yourself before you let anyone tell you what is “absolutely required” or “absolutely terrible.”

Cataclysm is terrifying. There are those who can face it and those who are sane :stuck_out_tongue:

Handmaiden has been reigned in and is now reasonable; Shade is still good; Waystalker is still e-z-p-z mode and strong; Huntsman struggles because he’s really got none of the passive super-buffs the other careers have but is still a fun career to play; Mercenary Captain is great in all situations but long range sniping; Foot-Knight got a lot of love and is a great teammate to have nowadays but still underpowered, some might say; Unchained was nerfed into the ground but is playable if you like the style; Pyromancer/BW are insanely powerful at the moment and win games solo (fact check me on that, haven’t played them in a bit); Ranger Vet is solid but not godly just as before; Slayer is still bonkers and fun to play but requires more care and less fanatical left-clicking than before; Iron-Breaker got a lot of love, too, and now feels like you do more than just stand there; Zealot is still bonkers but his ranged was nerfed hard (this is a good thing); Witch-Hunter Captain I can’t remark on; Bounty-Hunter is still 1-shotting lots of things and being mediocre to a bit above that in the mean-time of those giant headshot-crits.

:smiley: Welcome back! Feel free to correct me as you see fit

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Nothing

@Torantolis That was extremely helpful. Thank you very much for taking the time to type that out.

I know I’ll be taking a few weeks to mess around with weapons and builds to see what works (before I left I was running a Dual Hammer/1H Axe Slayer and that was working great) but this gives me a good baseline to start from.

One follow-up question – we’ll be kicking into the Winds of Magic Weaves shortly. What level of play would you equate these to (aka are they on Legendary in difficulty; normal from 1-20, hard from 20-40, legendary from 40-80, cata from 80-120 ; or some other difficulty curve). I ask in case I have to replace some members of my crew and want to know what skill level I should be looking for.

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@Lenny Demonstrably untrue.

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Not that it’s a problem but we’re sorta just chewing the umgak in here as opposed to providing feedback, so this thread is likely best set to be under the “FatShark Lounge”. Happy to respond, though :slight_smile:

Uhhhhh, man, I’m not the guy to ask for weaves. I know there’s a couple of users who know the weaves top to bottom, though, so I’ll ping a few in hopes they can help you there. Uhhhh, I know @Froh has played a bunch and I think @KaelusVonSestiaf has also smashed through his… can’t recall off the top of my head. Any thoughts, gents?

Edit: @JayJay might also be able to direct you!

Eventually weaves get super out of control and it becomes less about, “These enemies are imminently deadly,” and more like, “there’s just so many ged-demn Gutter-Runners this is getting absurd.” So take whatever skill level friends you have and make 'em take it up a notch!

I recommend Dual-Axes/Throwing Axes for a stable start and expanding back to hammers from there, personally, but that’s because I can’t stand not being able to pierce armor on Slayer. Your call, though!

1-10 is Recruit.
11-20 is Veteran.
21-30 is Champion.
31-40 is Legend.
41-60 Is Cataclysm
61-80 is Cataclysm 2
81-120 is Cataclysm 3

I think that’s how the difficulties are set up, I’m a bit iffy on when Cataclysm starts tiering up.

Overall, one thing to consider is that Weave is 100% a team effort, not just through playing as a team, but also through gearing up as a team. The tougher the weaves get, the more it starts feeling like each weave is a puzzle. A puzzle where the solution is the build and team composition you four get up to.

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What you missed is a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Yes, it was justified. However, FS seems to have learned and mended their ways. Most of the WoM problems are now fixed, there have been two good content patches, and things are looking up. This is a good time to be coming back.

-Stagger system is new. Other posters covered it.
-Beastmen are new. You’ll meet them soon enough. They used to be bugtacular but they are pretty much in line where they belong now.
-Weaves were and still are dead on arrival. There’s no hope of getting games through the matchmaker. If you want to try them out, you’ll need to find a group on a V2 discord or something.
-Every character got a talent overhaul. Forget everything you knew about builds, it’s probably different now.
-Enemies have some new behavior, in particular the running attacks don’t stop if you dodge anymore, so dodging backwards rarely works, go sideways.
-The game is overall harder then it used to be, and thanks to the dodge timing change it’s less forgiving of bad ping as well. You may want to host your own games if ping is a problem; otherwise use Champ to get back in the swing of things.
-There are 2 new maps. They are free for everyone.
-There’s now a cosmetic shop, talk to Lohner. It’s replacing DLC’s as the revenue stream for FS - buy something if you want to support them, otherwise it’s pretty bland stuff.

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You mean weaves ? S1 was hard. It was hard and frustrating. And also bugged.
S2 was less frustrating, but still bugs near the end (that have been patched since). It’s way better than s1, but some issues remains :
→ Enemies becoming damage resistant, means aoe becomes king, and cataclysm speedying melee, and making enemies kinda more resistant to cleave and stagger means melee become awful the further you go.
→ Lack of rewards for the main game
→ You can’t quick play into a ranked weave anymore
→ “Quick play” weaves doesn’t take into account ranked at all. And the lack of rewards don’t make the mode appealing.
→ Weaves above champions aren’t taken into account for the 100 hats grind challenge making the mode less appealing.
→ S1 challenges are not completable anymore, removing a sized chunk of grind based challenges which could have go through a lot of seasons and making you switch char between seasons in the process.
→ Still have to grind to 120 to get the latest rewards.

Apart from that. S2 are way better balanced difficulty wise (no weird BIG SPIKE of difficulty, like 23 in season 1 which was miles ahead of let’s say the 30 next in terms of difficulty).

No more “can’t complete because purple bar is no complete and there’s no enemy anymore” with the exception of some recruit QP weaves (where you have to actually wait a lot but enemies comes).

Time is better balanced.

Changes to some winds (death for example) made those winds actually more fun to play.

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