Low attack speed, sure, but its stagger is fine. Better than most things that aren’t heavy two-handers or meant solely for cc. The pattern is fine; weird how they changed it from the four-hit pattern of game 1 IMO, but does a good job of allowing you to hit many heads. It’s also got a better mobility profile than two-handed axe or hammer, which is quite nice. The damage is kind of low except for if you score headshots - which is how it’s supposed to be. It’s a precision two-hander, which is super unique.
I think it’s in a good position; it’s got a role, it fulfills that role, and it’s got advantages and disadvantages. If anything, I’d say it’s just simply better balanced than the halberd, which has very few downsides.
I thought the same thing about the overhead, and rarely used it except when I had to in the first game. It was the weapon I primarily used on my first times clearing Cata, though, and eventually I learned the right timing for using the overhead (even slower in game 1) very effectively.
It’s a really weird weapon because it seems like beating things with a bat, but it’s actually a super precision weapon. You need a lot of practice with it to get the right feel for when to start an overhead.
The argument for the exec sword I read here pretty much shows that it needs some work. Maybe it has a high skill ceiling and you need to “work around” its quirks, but again, it boils down to: you can, but why would you want to? I can do anything I can do with exec sword with either halberd or hammer and more. The exec sword heavy attack is marginally better than the light attack combo of hammer or the push-attack double-whammy of halberd. Exec sword might need higher skill but it doesnt reap in any reward and it really doesn’t fill any role.
It’s definitely not the worst of the two-handed weapons. It’s a damage-dealing finesse weapon. Landing headshots is only difficult if you’re not precise enough. Landing headshots consistently IS extremely doable with practice - that’s all the weapon takes, practice. It has a higher skill ceiling, but also a higher reward.
Honestly; having “mained” this weapon through VT1 Cata, I am quite well aware of how it has changed and how it still stacks up against enemies. The fundamentals haven’t changed from the first game, even if its numbers have been tweaked (I do miss the infinite cleave/stagger, but I understand why they tuned it down).
Missing an attack is a user input fault that you get past with time and is a factor for any melee weapon that you go for headshots with. It is EXTREMELY powerful if you can land the headshots; on enemies of varying heights, yes, this is more difficult. But you can vary your angle for each slash, and body-shotting the bigger ones can still stagger them - or you dodge-dance. This is also why the push attack is excellent; the angle allows you to hit enemies of different heights in the head if you aim properly. Again; high skill for high reward.
I literally see nothing bad about its strike pattern; it is very level, allowing you to very easily hit multiple heads, unlike the two-handed axe (a much worse weapon) or any other two-handed sword.
If you treat it as a control weapon - yes, it’s a weaker hammer. If you treat it as a finesse damage-dealing weapon with moderate CC, you understand why it is good. Add on top of that its massive charged attack headshot damage, and it is in a unique position but also extremely usable. Plus, it is one of the best melee weapons in the game for dealing with bosses.
Oh, and let’s not forget its fantastic pace; an overhead with a little bit of +infantry will let it one-shot Marauders even without a headshot! On a headshot it can one-shot Stormvermin as well.
In practice, on Legend, the lack of control isn’t even an issue because you just kill them so quickly. Each swipe can kill several enemies, especially if you have any +power things active (which both Foot Knight and Merc can stack with talents). With Merc especially, it becomes an insane killing machine.
They have. There is much more enemies now. And much more armored foes. That is why so many weapons became worthless.
CC is bread and butter in VT2, since there is so many enemies. That’s the problem.
But I got your idea of hitting the head. Though it is very hard to hit heads with weapons, that swing horizontally, since the hit usually goes into shoulder before reaching the head. I even find it easier hitting heads with Kerillian 2h sword, than with side to side swings.
So yeah, thanks to your explanation, I now realized, that Executioner is a little bit better, than I used to think of it. But it lacks CC so much, omg.
Just to be clear; I meant the fundamentals of the XSword specifically; nailing headshots on rats is exactly the same as it was in the first game, despite the other changes. Those skills carry over, though there are certainly new ones to be learned due to the new enemies!
Thankfully now it can one-shot a Stormvermin with an overhead! On Cata in the first game, it only did 14 damage and they had 20 health, so its anti-armor ability has actually improved quite a bit (the overhead is a lot faster now, too!)
I can’t tell if your serious or not, from my experience using the ExSword on legend I would say the thing is monstrous. The swing speed to damage ratio is nuts.
How about adjusting to the heavy attack slowdown instead of asking for buffs. You can charge it up a reasonable time to time your swing on approaching enemies.
" killing SV with one blow" OK with the right built Halberd do it with 1.5 blow, not to talk about the Halberd push attack precision and easy to trigger, and one x sword charged attack is like 3-4 from Halberd and from safe distance at the same time, really all ppl say how good executioner sword it is think how many times you go with it on a serious champion or legend run I have more than 200 hours on mercenary and playing champion and legend well x sword it’s a good idea fun when you delivered the heavy blow but when you want to go Pro you will go with your Halberd , perhaps if they merged the 2 different 2handed swords in one or give x sword armor piercing trait they will have a good alternative to Halberd, for ppl saying how wonderful x sword is try to kill SV with shield or pick an elite target through crowd, it’s so slow. Its fun when you have time space and less enemies to evolve but this is not e everyday vermitide game
And the only weapon than you can take as mercenary to play your role dps-offtank without lots off ammo on range weapon is Halberd and 2 handed hammer as second choice, to play competitive on high difficulty, the other kruber classes can use other weapons because the one is tank and the other have range weapon as main, so before start the nerf Halberd or executioner is great things try to to spend good amount of time on champions - legend as mercenary and try to be good at it,
I’m afraid I can only give you my general observation. I’ve been using the ExSword on the huntsman with the swift slaying trait and it cuts through everything like butter and I’ve been finding it a joy to use, it’s swiftly becoming my favourite weapon in the game.
I think the huntsman’s Make 'Em Bleed talent is what makes it viable, so maybe that’s where the divergence is happening, I’ve not used it with the other 2 career paths.