That’s the real issue for me. If the lights are given a good purpose, then the weapon is put in a good spot.
Rebel came up with the idea of lights being used for single non-armoured targets like Maulers, which could require animation changes, but I think it would be good even if it was just a tweaking of the damage of lights and heavies.
We could transfer infantry damage from the heavies to the lights. We could also transfer mobility from the heavies to the lights, which would make it worse at kiting but encourages users to mix in lights to make the distance required to use a heavy.
it was Sleezy’s idea specifically iirc but yeah we wanted to just make greatsword feel a bit more fluid to use without buffing damage; we felt it was in a good place stats wise outside the slow down
Also I don’t think it’s a give or take, we don’t need to rebalance the whole weapon to just make a single facet of it more engaging. It’s already been establish earlier in the thread that one of the main issues with the lights is that they’re just not very interesting so simply changing the angle of a swing would go a long way to fix that without stat tweaking.
Greatsword is visually very boring to use, and light attacks are mostly obsolete. I want primarily more attack variety visually and every weapon to make use of every attack. This would make it more pleasing and fun to use.
I think best would be Heavy sweep into heavy sweep like its currently, Heavy sweep into light sweep and then add a light stab or more angled attack that you can chain into from push attack.
for me its fun to combine both lights and heavies to mince hordes and even mixed hordes sometimes. Heavies act as an opener, lights for staying power and interrupting, i like this dynamic of switching these 2 cleaving attacks depending on my & enemy position, if i flank i can spam lights, if i’m jousting i throw heavy as opener, then slash 1-2 times with lights, dodge back, repeat. If i fight in narrow space, i switch to mainly using lights with heavies as needed, if i’m in open space i switch to mainly heavies with lights as needed.
IRL a greatsword is perfect pick to fight multiple opponents, there’s even documented techniques to do that, related to Montante (spanish greatsword):
So when i combine two different cleaving attacks, to change my pace & angle as needed, it gives a sense of mastery with a weapon. A mastery about fighting multiple opponents, specifically.
Also, don’t you have a problem with 1h sword? both heavies and light 1&2 do the same thing (but differently).
yeah but what are the reasons for lights not being interesting? I think i nail the reason - because chargeds are too perfect now, and the whole idea of mixing both attacks to fight multiple enemies is pointless. Chargeds have all: damage, cleave, stagger, mobility, and you can reach a level of attack speed that will be enough to just spam them.
I wonder what would you say, if you used 2h sword w/o swift slaying and any attack speed talent, with just static +10% AS.
So my suggestion is this: lights should get armor cleave and slight movespeed buff, heavies should get a slight nerf to charge speed, and nerf to mobility (to 40% run speed seems good).
I could spam some more quotes but I’ll digress: it’s clear that people love the heavy attacks and find the lights to be boring and a bit weak/purposeless. People don’t have this problem with 2h hammer though it seems and that’s because the lights and heavies serve 2 distinct purposes. People also don’t have this issue with 1h sword despite the 1st 2 lights serving the same role as the heavies, which I would put down to speed and animation differences.
Another thing people aren’t particularly keen on is the single target facet of greatsword being stamina-gated. I think it’d be fine to just change the L2 to be flatly horizontal and add an L3 lunge which Push attack and H2 can chain into. It’d add a lot of depth to the weapon without taking anything away from it. It WOULD be a buff but the numbers could be tweaked in a way where all its doing is just reducing the amount of stamina you need to consume rather than making it a single target killing machine. I wouldn’t nerf or change the heavy attacks, they’re the signature draw of the weapon and the thing people love about it. I also wouldn’t want to step on Bsword’s toes in terms of play-style offered.
Also don’t think Greatsword is in any danger of becoming overpowered any time soon if the single target is slightly buffed
I have a solution I’ve suggested before. If you pay close attention, you can see the the Light attacks and Heavy attacks don’t actually have the same attack pattern. The lights are steeper, and form a “V” shape. The heavies are shallow, and go not-quite-but-almost perfectly horizontal.
Swapping that pattern between light and heavies would fix the weapon in one go, without changing any attacks or adding new animations. The flat-but-not-quite light attacks would be ideal for anti-horde, which is a perfect match for their speed. The V-angle heavy attacks would be much easier to headshot with, perfect for improving it’s anti elite even with no change to damage, while still cleaving to the sides enough to keep it’s mixed-horde identity. It’s basically the perfect fix, and there’s no chance of it being OP because the damage doesn’t change.
Might even be enough to revert the recent BBB changes, which I love but tbh are not needed anymore if the attack patterns are swapped.
Don’t like that at all.
More diagonal chargeds would see their signature damage potential to 3rd+ target wasted. Its a nerf to chargeds, cause they wont be able to fill a role of single target killer due to low anti armor damage (even with hs).
While lights with their lower damage (to further targets) would be sub-par for swing extensions.
Then there’s a key difference in controls - charged attack lends itself so much better for swing extension, than light attack, even if both would have the same horizontal angle. Mainly due to how hitbox travels - it doesn’t passes the middle of the screen too quickly, giving you more time to drag it and extend with mouse, until it reaches the end. In simpler words, low speed of travel of charged attack - is beneficial for swing extension, which is a very fun mechanic i wouldn’t want to be reduced.
Edit:
about the whole “lights are redudant and boring”.
Do you remember how greatsword was in the first Vermintide? Isn’t the established meta was about using lights predominantly?
Seems like the changes during V2 lifetime, related to heavies armor cleave and increased heavies damage, are the reasons why you forgot about lights.
And now the mobility buff, tripple the run speed while charging… it’s too powercreepy. And then ppl say like the weapon doesn’t have nuance or complexity - of course it will lose it, if you won’t have to deal with drawbacks in some way, like using dodge to get into position for charged release.
well, let’s ignore the fact they’re very different games at this point. It’s less about buffs to GS heavies and more that shields, armour and density are much more prevalent in V2, especially as of Winds Of Magic’s release. Let’s say heavies had no armour sliding, lower damage output etc. so lights were the main tool:
Agreed, that’s why heavies were buffed massively over the course of V2. But what about lights? I don’t remember them being buffed to fit new game’s difficulty, except recent +10% AS buff? Isn’t that kinda not fair? To speak like “lights aren’t interesting, they’re boring and redundant”, simply because they weren’t recieved the same kind of adjustment for the second game - getting armor cleave and some damage increase.
Could always buff the attack speed further. In Armoury I think it still says the lights are slower (pretty sure they aren’t though). I’d rather a damage boost, as any more attack speed would feel more like a 1h weapon.
Would you suggest giving the lights armour sliding and armour piercing damage or just one of the two?
I think armour sliding without ap like the Exec’s lights could be interesting. I also wouldn’t be against a minor amount of ap without sliding either. They could also be given Mauler cleave like the Dual Sword’s light attacks.
I thought of that. They would have to get headshots to cleave well, like X sword. Since they would be flatter anyway, this would work just fine.
As they are now, they suck at cleaving, and also suck at single target, so they are basically useless. At least this way they would have a distinct niche.
No it wouldn’t be wasted, that’s the point. That 2nd and 3rd target damage boost is still enough to kill a slave or fanatic, which elites often have by their side. The angled heavy could be aimed at the head, but it still is relatively wide, and could take out the trash next to the elite at the same time. To get a full cleave across an entire horde would require mouse swinging to augment the attack’s natural pattern. It also makes positioning important, since you’d have to corral enemies a little to get maximum cleave potential. That’s a skill, and requiring skillfull play to maximize it’s use is the hallmark of a well designed weapon IMO.
After thoroughly testing GS the last couple days on kruber
20% pwch (my usuall)
10% skaven
10% crit
Footknight 10% power (the blue fist talent) +15% for elite stagger (heavies to SW or just charge does this)
30% AS by charging 10 enemies
Light attacks on legend+ are necessary since heavies are slow and enemies trickle in. You can dodge wave or go into them with block so they are grouped - push - HA. This works very rarely and overall when you are alone you dont have time for HA
The wind up time for heavies is SLOW it almost like trying to use flail and I dont consider weapons THAT viable if they REQUIRE 5% AS rolled on them and charm - but when you have the time and space to use them they feel great
TO compare->
Kerilians GS has 6 instead of 3 dodges / 10% crit chance on lights and !25% on push! / easy access to SOLID anti armor combo with HIGH crit dmg modifier. / She lacks heavy linesman but absurd crit chance makes up for it very easily
Even if you gave human GS +10% AS on heavies too it wouldnt fix the problem that the weapon has 2 attacks. Ligh and heavy are the same with different numbers and anti armor is stamina gated
Great Axe can be inspiration here -> Heavy attacks on GS get +7.5% attack speed so they arent super sluggish
Light attacks get 3rd one -> the same overhead as push attack. SO anti armor chain is push + LA
This would make HA spam more responsive AND addition of 3rd LA gives atleast a option to hurt CHW cuz right now you spend 5 stamina and the thing still stands.
honestly can’t say this has been my experience with GS at all? one thing I can agree with is that the single-target/anti-armour push attack spam is a tad monotonous
Maybe its our fightign style but I have issues spaming heavies, its just not possible. I need to use many LA inbetween since the weapon is slow.
Iam toping kills (since trash dies to me easy) or keeping very close to slayers or zealots (but not in elites killed)
But it still fells sub par to his other weapons.
