I like this weapon on paper, as a versatile cleave weapon that can deal with both hordes and elites effectively, but it has too many great flaws.
First of all, this weapon has terrible damage. While it is slower than the Catchan claw and moderately faster than the chainsword’s lights and heavies, it is out damaged by both by a laughable amount. Without a massive damage buff, there is no reason to need or want to use this weapon.
The attack patterns for heavies are horrible. The first heavy is a vertical strike which is very useful for headshots, but the second heavy is this weird underhand diagonal strike which is extremely hard to hit heads with. Simply make this heavy and follow up heavies more overheads to give this sword its anti-elite capabilities.
Last of all, this weapon is just outclassed and doesn’t do anything unique that other swords do better, even after damage buffs, as it will always fall behind the Catchan claw for horde clear and chainswords and hammers will always out damage it. Maybe if it was scaled up to have longer range than all other swords and be held in both hands it would feel more unique.
My suggested solutions are all listed above but if you really want to fix this weapon, give it its own niche, and make it very fun to use, disregard everything above and make this weapon mechanically identical to the Brettonian Longsword.
The main problem is zealot should have access to a powerful, slow, cleaving weapon early, and you unlock this thing early, but it does nothing effectively, so its also a progression problem, but if this sword just had way better damage numbers it would maybe be useful but still be grossly outshined by the chainswords and thunder hammer anyhow, so it might need even more love to promote weapon diversity.
I actually liked the heavy sword. I think it fills a similar role to the chainsword early on. The special attack has a small wind up but is a diagonal strike that is very easy to hit headshots with. You can chain the first heavy and special attack for a ton of head hits on specials. Coupled with the crits from zealots charge you can shred down even maulers easily.
It does get outclassed by other weapons later but I think it has the benefit of not locking you in place like the chainsword rev.
Agreed, the weapon feels useless. Bought one on my zealot and tested it in the meat grinder before a mission. Needless to say, I did not end up ever using it lol
I just picked up one of these swords, the damage is so awful, i thought it was a bug. i went from killing minions in one hit with an ax significantly less powerful, to requiring 4 hits to kill the weakest mobs in game.
Im surprised no one else is mentioning this, but then again maybe not since everyone is just spamming the chain/power weapons. When I first saw these early on in the beta I was excited to use them cause they look very cool, but seriously… I have no idea how this made it into the game in such a pathetically weak state. Fatshark, please these things are in DESPERATE need of a tune-up.
I’d love to have h1 from Kerillians greatsword on this, with the block cancel and movement increase retained. That thing was soooo smooth and well animated, great on HM with some atk speed boost.
I totally agree, it takes like 6-7 hits (body hits) to kill a normal horder, with my lvl7 Zealot with a green 150pw turtolsky mk 6, while a 134pw achlys mk 8 easily one-shots horders with one hit.
sure the axe doesnt have the cleave of the sword, but slightly wounding lots of horders doesnt make up for completely removing a source of incoming damage.
It just isnt worth the energy and time to use, which is unfortunate since its one of the signature weapons of the Preacher.
I might revisit this sword when my char is more leveled up, but I doubt it will shine at higher levels.