Great Swords are considered pretty low-tier weapons, being focused on horde clear almost entirely when many weapons can do that decently. It makes sense from a historical/logical perspective that they have bad anti-armor damage, since you really can’t just cut through armor or pound it with a sword.
But . . . in Warhammer lore, they ARE anti-armor weapons. And applying that logic to Vermintide - would it really be terrible if their light attacks dealt some damage to armor? I think if light attacks did some - say 3-5 (300-500 in target dummy terms), it’d be all right. Charged attacks could even go as high as 10 (1000) and still not be extremely overpowered. It would still take four charged body hits to kill a Stormvermin - that’s not exceptional, but it also means they’d not be completely useless. Many dedicated anti-armor weapons can 1-2 shot Stormvermin reliably.
“usable” and “excellent” is two completely different things.
Moreover Kruber and Victor 2h swords are Longswords, not Greatswords; yes, rather long Longswords, but still not Greatswords, cause because of their weight, the latter had a very long grip to work as a leverage.
Update: after further examination, I honestly don’t know which category these swords fall into. Their length is at the upper limit for longsword and at the lower limit for greatsword, their grip is that of a longsword, but they have ricasso, guard and other features of greatsword. So these 2h swords either end up being some unweildy monstrosities, or just a very long longsword with some unneeded features and elements.
So as for armor, such a sword is as bad as a longsword for dealing with it.
Firstly, to reiterate; you cannot use a sword to cut or bash through armor. Yes, you can thrust for weak points, but that was primarily on longswords - which the two-handed swords in VT definitely are not, and the two in question don’t even have thrusting attacks. On the historical weapons, greatswords tended to have blunter points than longswords, coming into use after full plate armor had become less common, and were specialized for use against pike formations.
Longswords are visually distinctive from greatswords. Kruber and Victor’s great swords do have appropriate (or close to appropriate) length grips for great swords, which are longer than the grips on longswords (which could actually be wielded in one hand if necessary, hence some other monikers such as “hand and a half” or “bastard” swords). Many of the skins in VT also have the parrying hooks that are unique to great swords. Some of the skins even have the distinctive ‘flame blade’ shape that was seen on great swords but not longswords.
“These swords represent the final stage in the trend of increasing size that started in the 14th century. In its developed form, the Zweihänder acquired the characteristics of a polearm rather than a sword due to their large size and weight and therefore increased range and striking power. Consequently, it was not carried in a sheath but across the shoulder like a halberd.”
This argument is pointless, since no melee weapon can actually pierce plate far enough to damage the wielder, yet we have armor piercing weapons in game, that can do just that. Anti armor weapons were used to crumple armor first, then the hits could reach the flesh behind it. Or their force could be directly transferred to the person behind the armor.
As for swords, greatsword is heavy enough and has a nice leverage on its grip, so it can be used to crumple armor. Also any sword’s guard or pommel can be used as a club.
Any sword can be used for thrusting attacks, unless its point is not completely blunt. And no, they did not have blunt points in general.
No comment.
No, they do not. Look at the grip length and the gap between the hands: here and here.
Thanks for info, but why are you telling us this. That is irrelevant to the topic. Also greatswords can also be wielded in one hand, as well as spears or any other weapons.
I am aware of that and that is exaclty what I say - VT2 2-handed swords resemble greatswords, yet rather short, have short grip and are used in a longsword manner, not greatsword manner.
That’s the point of my post. This thing does look like a zweihander at the first glance, but it is not it when you take a closer look.
There is no logical connection between the above quote and
this quote. Though I agree with the wiki citation.
Everything is relative, my friend. Halberd, a 2-handed 2 meter polearm weighted about the same - 2.5-3.5 kg. So yes, this sword is HEAVY compared to other melee medieval weapons.
That’s what unfamiliar people usually get surprised by. Usually in pop culture and even in role-playing games melee weapons are depicted as very cumbersome and very unwieldy. In reality they were very light and easy to use.
Also in reality 2h weapons are at least as fast and easy to use as 1h weapons, often even faster.
That’s the point of my post. This thing does look like a zweihander at the first glance, but it is not it when you take a closer look.
Of course they are. They are using the same weappon as the elite of the emperial infantry:
They are even called: Bihänder.
Also, they are inspired by the german Landsknechte. And now guess which weappon they used.
There is no logical connection between…
There is. There were more used as a Polearm rather than a sword. And what is the Polearm good at?
The Zweihänder in this game should have the best armor pircing in the game, maybe a bit worse than the helbard. They do have armor pircing in the tabletop game, in Total War Warhammer and otherall in the lore.
It should have armor piercing since empire greatswords fight black orcs and black orcs have some of heaviest and toughest armor in the lore. I suggest a re-work of the 2h great sword make it have ap on light attack like what op said and give it a thrusting heavy attack instead of the heavy attack swing.
I’d rather FS put a bit more work in it this time. Giving the light attacks AP would make the two-handers stronger, but it would also make them another no-thought weapon - and possibly too strong. They do need some more work to be on par with other weapons, especially with Markus having 2-h Hammer, Executioner and Halberd for competition, but number-tweaking doesn’t necessarily cut it anymore. Reworking either the light attack or heavy attack pattern to include easier headshot strikes (and possibly giving those strikes additional armor piercing) would help a lot imo. While giving a single overhead strike for heavy would likely get it too close to Exec for meaningful difference, and giving a stab attack for heavy would be too close to Kerillian’s two-hander, making either one part of a pattern could work. Tweak it so that we can manipulate the pattern by mixing lights and heavies (as is done with most weapons) and we have a weapon specialized in crowd-clearing, still capable of dealing with armor in crowd or alone, but requiring skill to use well.
I thought about this, and my idea is to let 2h-sword charged attack pierce 1 armored target. And make it, so x-sword charged attack would pierce ALL unarmored targets hit, possibly even armored targets that died to the strike. That would make both of them cool, unique and viable.
That’s an interesting thought about letting it hit multiple armored enemies, though I’m not sure how this would help the XSword’s charged attack, since it’s an overhead with almost no cleave. The XSword doesn’t really need help being viable, anyway. If we did want to buff it, I’d say give it back something it lost from the first game; infinite (or much higher) cleave for stagger. That was one of the XSword’s greatest strengths in game one, it hit infinite targets (only damaged the first five, I believe), giving it great control.
Responding to your comment from earlier . . .
Saying you can’t bash/cut through armor was talking about REALISM. I was saying “Yes, realistically you can’t do this, but we know the game ignores that and greatswords are considered anti-armor weapons in Warhammer”.
I did not say that greatsowrds had blunt points - I said blunter (than a longsword). Reading comprehension is important, because if you compare your own pictures to pictures of many longswords, you will indeed see that the points of greatswords are not as pointy as those of longswords. Refer to the links I shared.
And as you can see here, there is plenty of grip left below his hands. The only reason his hands are close together is because they happen to be choked up. Which is moot, anyway, since while they tended to have longer grips, the only REQUIREMENT was that they be long enough to easily accommodate two hands (which is to say be about ten inches long; I’d say they are definitely at least that long).
I told you because from what you said you did not seem to understand the differences between a longsword and a greatsword. And yes, many things CAN be used in one hand - so can a Barret .50 cal if you want. That doesn’t mean they were designed with that in mind - longswords were, and were well balanced for one or two-hand use. Greatswords, while one COULD use it in one hand, are designed to be used with two.
How are they used in a longsword manner? Are they versatile cut and thrust weapons with pointed tips specialized in an anti-armor role? Oh no, that’s right - they’re very clearly heavy cleaving weapons, like the later zweihanders. Which we can judge from the fact that every single one of their attacks is a big cleaving strike using both hands.
It was so sexy in VT1. 8) At times I could hold off both ends of a narrow tunnels by keeping my back to a wall and swinging my mouse back and forth with each swing to keep the horde in BOTH directions stun-locked while chipping away at them.
Yeah christ that would be so good. It would make it a really good alternative to halberd. Its viable as it is now, but it’s not nearly as good because of how slow it is, (both to attack and to block.)
