New Weapon Traits in Chaos Wastes

While the update itself is certainly a great highlight in on itself (for all the different reasons), there is something very interesting that has been added within it.

During the Chaos Wastes run, your weapons can get new unique traits, instead of the usual ones.
Regrowth - Critical hits heal 5 (temporary) health. (All Melee weapons)
Shard Strike - Killing an armoured enemy sends metal shards to damage other nearby enemies. (Lasts 16 sec. All Melee weapons)
Bloodthirst - Increase Attack Speed by 2% for every 5 kills (Up to 5 times). Resets if you do not kill anything for 30 sec. (All Melee weapons)
Deadeye - Each headshot increases the damage of the next attack by 10%. (up to 20 times). If you hit an enemy anywhere otherthan the head, 1 stack gets removed. (All Melee and Ranged weapons except Moonfire bow)
Divine Shield - Damage taken is reduced to 20 damage or half of its original value, which ever is highest. (Shield Melee weapons) Edit. This trait is a carbon copy of Slayer and Zealot old talents.
Shockwave - Critical hits stagger nearby enemeis. (Heavy Melee weapons, all Ranged weapons)

[Heavy melee weapons]
Markus Kruber : Bretonnian Longsword, Executioner Sword, Great Hammer, Greatsword, Halberd, Tuskgor Spear
Bardin Goreksson : Great Axe, Great Hammer, War Pick, Cog Hammer
Kerillian : Elven Spear, Glaive, Greatsword
Victor Saltzpyre : Greatsword, Bill Hook

(Information taken from a Steam Guide by Royale w/ Cheese: Steam Community :: Guide :: Chaos Waste Mechanic Handbook)

Although some of these traits would surely be completely busted in certain builds and circumstances (for example regrowth/shockwave on Pyro/WHC), I think some of them could be easily added into the base game and be VERY competitive with the current “Swift Slaying” meta.
I am looking at Shockwave and Divine Shield in particular.
At one hand, I agree, that a Footknight/Ironbreraker with Divine Shield would be just stupidly unkillable, but at the other, having Divine Shield on characters like RV/Huntsman/Grailknight would be a godsent and make their presence a bit more justifyable if the rest of the team consists of glass cannons.
In addition, existence of regrowth would make picking up a healshare talent a much more valid strategy on characters without THP on ult.
And Bloodthirst would be rather handy on weapons that have good damage, but lack the crit/attack speed for constant Swift Slaying uptime.

But I am aware, that there will inevitably come up some seriously broken combos if these traits get just straight up transfered into the game without any tweaks.
What do you guys think?

Personally, I’d say:

  1. Regrowth needs to be toned down and have a limited list of weapons that can use it (so we don’t have Pyro/WHC/Shade facetanking a horde Zealot style).
  2. Shockwave would probably be alright on Shield+Mace/Shield+Hammer/Sienna’s Mace (since it could use some love to be more popular in the masses), but the stagger has to be limited, so players can’t just bum-rush a boss with Billhook/Spear/Coghammer (maybe make light attack crits be unable to stagger bosses, so players have to at least charge their attacks if the want to humiliate the boss).
  3. Divine Shield could (maybe?) be alright as it is, but it (probably?) should override the innate damage ressistances to avoid unkillability on IB/FK (though the wording seems to suggest that any damage below 20 is unchanged, so a death by a thousand cuts is not an issue + you have to hold the shield in hands for it to work, so being hit while holding a gun would still be painful).

I am definetely not sure about Shard Strike and Deadeye.
The former looks a bit too “magical” to have freely available outside of Weaves/ChaosWastes, while the latter seems like a recipie for disaster on weapons like ExSword, which have nice horizontal swipes and hit heads easily. Just immagine stacking this buff to 200% bonus and then doing a Hassan Chop on a boss. Now immagine if it crits. Then immagine playing Grail Knight with crit-instakill talent.

What do you say?


Disclamer: Author does not consider himself a balance expert. Reader discretion is advised.

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I wondered the same, but I’m no balance expert either, so I have no idea about the outcome.

One thing I wouldn’t like is seeing Shard Strike into the base game. I dislike that animation. It made sense in the weaves, since it’s a highly magical effect, and weaves VFX are all over the place, but I find it mildly annoying on CWs and I definitely woldn’t like it in adventure maps.

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Restricting traits to certain weapons is an interesting balance approach. However, I still think that these particular traits are kinda busted. Especially Divine Shield (even if tied to shield weapons) basically makes every career with access to it a tank. In that regard I would like to see other traits for the Adventure Mode as it will also help making the two modes feel more different which is in my opinion a good thing.

I would also like to see a change to Swift Slaying first to tackle that meta.

That said the issue with changing/removing traits (and properties) from the pool in Adventure Mode is the existence of countless weapons having these already. There could be a server-wide change be necessary. Just adding to the existing pool is less of a problem though.

Overall, I would like to see more of a rework of what we have instead of just adding stuff.

Pretty cool stuff, i would aprove of em.

decent but i dislike hardresets, they just make things frustrating, would prefer “loose 1 stack ever 6-8seconds.”

i get that moonfire is busted and all. but excluding singular weapons for no other reason is dumb, it just introduces complications in understanding for players and buffing and nerfing things for the devs, moonfire needs a nerf but thats a seperate story.

if i would run a shield and get this i would be sad, not because its not good but because i already have high survivalbility and much rather need dmg, i would suggest a perk like "when blocking and pushing apply bleeding to targets (based of the strngh of enemy atack and power of user).

potentially insanely broken, tho worth to explore.

I’m surprised that only 2hd weapons are considered heavy

Bloodthirst would be amazing alternative to SS, it would open a lot of other build that dont base on crit chance. But im not even sure if its working, its hard to tell considering how its dont even show up when active

In terms of Rework, we already have few precidents: Barkskin and Natural Bond.

Barkskin started out as a completely busted trait in the pre-launch beta, giving players a stacking damage resistance buff each time they healed themself (back then the THP talents were locked at higher levels and gave regular green HP if I remember correctly), but it also worked on Waystalker’s passive regen, essentially giving her a complete damage immunity after some time. This was obviously not good and got changed soon after to work only with Draughts and Medkits, but as a result, the trait ended up not being useful when compared to alternatives.
It took Fatshark a long time to change Barkskin into it’s current form (aboput a year I think), but it was still unpopular, until Winds of Magic happened and dying too fast became an issue.

Natural Bond had an “anti-synergy” problem, as it outright prevented people from healing themself on their own, making players with this trait a burden on their teammates, who had to always carry around a medipack just in case their comrade falls down. This was changed at about the same time with Barkskin and the reworked NB is still a popular choice to this day.


I do still agree that Swift Slaying power level needs to be adressed, but people had been discussing it on the forums for years by now. I don’t think I can give any more useful input at this point aside from “maybe lower the numbers?”

In regards to Divine Shield making anyone carrying it a tank - yes, that’s kind of the point.
But normal shield weapons (not talking about Shield+Spear yet) are not exactly nimble and providing additional tankiness doesn’t go against the shields overall theme.

I agree, the hard reset does make it a less desirable choice (especially the reset on swap part).
But I also don’t think the player should have a 100% uptime of this buff during non-horde sections of the map with low population.
There is probably a middle ground to be struck.

I think Moonfire exclusion is a result of something in the game and not a personal attack on Moonbow on it’s own, since it is not available for any of the new traits.

Well, I wasn’t the one designing these traits. They are already in the game, so I am just suggesting to add some of them to the regular crafting roster.

what are you reffering to?

makes sense, ive didnt detect that notion.

Moonfire bow is the only weapon that can’t have any of the new Chaos Wastes traits.
Of 2 traits that affect Ranged weapons (Deadeye and Shockwave) both are not applicable to Moonfire Bow, and only to it specifically. Out of all Ranged weapons.

Deadeye and Bloodthirst are great but losing the buff when switching weapons is punishing. Deadeye could also use a tracking buff icon.

I agree, but it seems to me to be a bit overtuned compared to the other choices. Maybe I’m wrong in this assessment, but I think I’d be running that property on virtually any shield I own.

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I think there is a point to be made about Off Balance still having a reason to be used (since it allows you to reach a stagger breakpoint for Plague Monks).
And in addition, if Shockwave actually gets added as an option for (at least) Shield&Hammer/Mace, it could be a nice alternative for these weapons, compensating lack of resistance with high bullying potential.

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