dagger knocks shieldvermins shield aside in one charged attack? didn’t know that
Just tested it to make sure - unfortunately it doesn’t. Not sure what he means by unblock-able but it neither damages through shield nor knocks the shield aside even after C2. C2 does break Bulwarks shields though, except that that happens slower than C1 of mace. Mace also has the same dodge range and count as dagger which means literally the only thing it has over mace is the pushstab/lights for faster movement out of combat.
I should clarify that by ‘viable’ I simply meant it’s the strongest option by a long way, in the same way that halberd is for Kruber. Mace, halberd, dual daggers and twin axes crowd out other options just by their existence. They each do everything too well, as well as having the strongest or tied strongest AP out of their respective arsenals. These weapons do need to be brought down a peg, but the other weapons could also be raised several more before they’re even half as good; this post was just to highlight the fundamental root of the problem which is the requirement of AP for ‘viability’.
What made non-ap weapons semi-viable in VT1 was the Killing Blow . Even with a sword and shield you could wail away on an SV an proc a Killing Blow quite quickly, making that sole skill raise the weaker anti-AP weapons to a point of holding their own. Of course, in VT1 Salty’s axe was boss at killing SV and there weren’t so many armoured enemies as in VT2.
The weapons listed
Mace, halberd, dual daggers and twin axes
Are actually OP rather than the only ones viable. Being too good at everything is OP and as such these weapons need to have ONE SINGLE aspect of the OP-ness reigned in. If they’re going to be anti-armour then they need to be weaker against hordes… and so on.
Finally, the fact that so many talents and traits are straight up broken is giving us a skewed perspective on what weapons are completely viable. Zealot and WHC are utterly broken so discussing Salty’s weapons when we’re comparing them to classes that are badly skewed is an exercise in futility.
There needs to be a BUG FIX patch so we know every trait and talent is working properly, then we can discuss balancing weapons. To balance weapons now might get completely wrecked when they fix the glaring bugs.
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Agree for the Halberd for sure. I’d say the mace is in a good spot; it is more of a jack of all trades that does OK against everything, but not the best at any particular thing.
dual daggers / axes are already not good at everything, they’re weak against hordes.
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They aren’t that good at holding a horde at bay (i. e. horde control) but if there’s at least some room to maneuver around the enemies (or a friend to control them), they slaughter enemies as well as any dedicated slaughter weapon.
This I agree with wholeheartedly. The worst balance problems are sorted now (besides Hammer/Mace & Shield), the rest can wait until the rest of the stuff works correctly. Then, small changes at a time both to weapons and Talents.
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It absolutely does. Idk what your test was, but I’m +250 on Mage playing mostly w/ dagger, so I know what I’m talking about.
The 1st dagger charge-attack doesn’t do direct damage, but it applies DoT, and it definitely staggers SV, knocking aside their shields if they have one, which opens them up for the 2nd charge attack. The stagger is inconsistent, and won’t work if the SV is too far into their attack animation, but otherwise it 's fine, and can even cleave through 2 or 3 enemies.
Nerfing either Mace or Dagger is dumb. They don’t over-perform, they’re just better than Flame-Sword and Reg Sword. Buffing the two under-performers makes more sense. Otherwise we’re left with the inverse of the same problem.
Try to load up mod realm and install damage numbers and hp bars, then come back and tell us if it deals damage through shields.
Even with 30% power vs i’m not able to open shield-vermin with a charge 1, unless they received stagger from another source. I imagine this is also why you found it inconsistent.
Tests without any bonuses on legend against shieldvermin.
Dagger:
Some times the 2nd hit of the combo breaks their blocks but most of the time it doesn’t (very unreliable >crit<).
But every 4 light attack breaks the block every time (quite fast). I found it really hard to follow up in time with the ap attacks.
You can easily cycle to their backs (just keep hitting them with light attacks) but again I found it really hard to follow up in time with the ap attacks.
Mace:
Can’t break a shieldvermin’s block without the help of crits (never got it below 4 light attacks).
Can’t cycle to a shieldvermin’s back ever (the stagger is too great).
Can easily push a shieldvermin over a cliff.
This is balanced as her melee is supposed to be weaker and she has ranged options to deal with shields.
This is trailing off topic a bit but shields drop from stagger not damage. You open a shield SV with mace from light>pushstab.
well… I mean, yeah, but what weapon can’t do at least that much? If there’s room to maneuver even the 1H axe is ok for hordes. But with dual dags or axes, if you get cornered / don’t have that friend to help you, you’re toast.
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Exactly, or push 2x with any weapon…