TLDR: Blessings boring, here’s some ideas how to make them not.
Currently all most of the weapon blessings seem to do,
is fix some downsides of the weapon. This is not particularly interesting and leads to some blessings being mandatory on most weapons. On top of this it also can end up with a weapon being better at the thing is supposed to be bad at then a weapon purpose built for that task (looking at you duelling sword and knife).
What we need is an overhaul that looks at each weapon and what it is supposed to do, then offers blessings that change the playstyle or role of the weapon slightly.
I’ll use the thunder hammer as an example. Partly because it’s a good example of crappy blessings, and partly because I’m determined for it to become good one day and will keep flogging this dead horse until it does.
Thrust (+power on heavy attack charge) is a mandatory blessing. All this does is make the thunder hammer do what it’s supposed to do anyway, which is smite the crap out of big things.
Here’s some ideas of blessings that could change it’s playstyle.
Thunderstruck (Charged attacks stagger enemies in a small radius around the impact zone)
Unstable impact (Charged attack does less single target damage but creates an aoe cone on impact)
Limited power (Charged attack does less damage but has an instant activation time and no self stagger)
Emperors wrath (Charged attack passes through lesser enemies and impacts on elites/specials, this is the current ironhelm thunder hammer charged attack)
These obviously aren’t perfect or balanced yet, but they are way more interesting then some generic +damage on kill.
So what ideas do you have? Have a go at picking your favourite weapon and see what blessings you can come up with that changes it’s playstyle a bit.
At the moment it doesn’t really matter how cool or boring the blessings are. Dealing with the crafting system is just too much of a chore to be even remotely enjoyable. Keep the ideas rolling, but until slotting in and out acquired blessings is as easy as slotting in and out obtained talent points then I don’t really see a point personally.
I know I’m a bit of a downer. I’m just sad at the current state. I don’t mean to disparage your ideas.
Oh it’s a very valid point you have. These ideas would just be for if they do a crafting system overhaul. Might as well revisit the whole thing and not just half ass part of it.
I think all blessings should be like Adhesive Charge, something that changes the functionality of the weapon and makes them genuinely unique without messing with their stats. The stat variance just makes them annoying to balance, making them more functionality quirks would be more interesting.
Yeah adhesive charge is one of the better designed blessings. It provides added utility and damage, without directly boosting the damage of the weapon.
Unstable Impact and Emperors Wrath sounds very solid when i read it. I think that would get more people to use the hammer more with Unstable Impact. Emperors Wrath sounds like it would be better suited for a talent slot for general weapon use imo. That would bring a better feel to the Ability itself since i think it should have done that to begin with.
Limited power seems like a throw away blessing that would be used in a bugged state with a future patch that will get utilized to the max before it gets fixed lol. No stagger and instant activation sounds like a dream i would want to come true tho!