Just wanted to thank Fatshark for buffing the Elven 2H Sword.
I’ve been using it a lot with the Handmaiden since this beta patch and it went from possibly most useless weapon in the game IMHO, to a viable alternative to the Glaive (with some tradeoffs).
Sure the Glaive does much more damage and is just as good (if not slightly better) as horde clearing but there are some qualities of the Elf 2H Sword that make it a viable alternative.
And that alternative is being able to go from offense to defense and back fluidly (as the Handmaiden).
The main reason is the 2H Swords push attack and return to guard speed (mainly due to animation speed). It is very fast an allows you to attack and then return to defense quickly and to not expose yourself for too long. Additionally, based upon the outcome of the push attack you an launch into the normal light swing pattern of the 2H Sword or go back to guard, effectively switching between offense, defense and control quickly.
Another good thing about the 2H Sword is the push attack with the 25% additional chance to crit. I find that if I have a target off on the left side of my screen when I initiate the push attack, the 2H Sword hits it in the head and this can cause a 1-shot kill on a Storm Vermin if I crit. (I do run Skaven + Armored for 20% bonus though…)
Unfortunately, despite the buff to armor penetration, it’s still very ineffective at dealing with elites, requiring several heavy attacks to the head to kill most targets. Requiring you to dance forwards and back jousting repeatedly. Making it difficult to deal with mixed hordes where a few armored / shielded targets are mixed in with the masses.
The follow up attack to the Heavy Attack is a wide, fast sweep of the blade that at first glance appears to be a good horde clearing attack with linesman and good damage. But the problem is that this is a follow up to the Heavy Attack which is intended for elites/armored targets and is thus realistically useless.
Instead of a wide sweeping cleave as a follow up to the Heavy Attack, I’d like to see some form of downward chop like on the executioner’s sword as a follow up to the Heavy Attack to make the weapon more effective vs armored targets where Headshots matter.
As it stands, the changes are very good to the state of the game as it attempts to alleviate the fact that certain weapons are obsolete, however without addressing the 2H Swords ability to deal with armored targets and elites it will forever been in the shadow of the glaive.