Yep, I’m not saying that Billhook is bad as defensive weapon… but why should it be?
For example Rapier is a defensive weapon, but it has a very good damage too (specially if played by WHC). The important thing is that a weapon must not be the strongest option in every sector (dps, defense, crowd control, stagger, armor piercing)… or in too many of them.
Anyway Rapier hasn’t only a better block… it has more dodge bonus, easier combo, push that consumes only 1 stamina.
Totally agree!
Well, yep, about dodge counts I can agree… I mean, imho A&F and Billhook are balanced each other (A&F has better crowd control and easier combos, while Billhook more range and more mobility)… BUT a nerf to its dodge counts can be reasonable. I’m not against it… but it should be the only nerf.
Billhook has pretty much zero weaknesses though, it’s exceptional at everything. Rapier is the same on WHC (maybe not vs superarmour). You can’t balance a game around weapons that are top tier vs pretty much every single enemy type and in every situation.
It’s just blatant power creep to leave some of these weapons in the state they are now, and to buff everything up to that level.
Not saying some buffs aren’t needed mind you, but the “good balance” point is somewhere in the middle of the awful weapons and the top tier busted ones.
A sensible quote. Saltzpyre’s DLC weapons really reek (read as: stink) of power creep which is definetely problematic. So in order to do some balance the best idea is to minimally increase the values for the not so often used one-hand weapons like the Falchion (although seen occassionally on public Cataclysm games) or the Axe (not sure if seen in the last … um … four weeks?). And vice versa there has to be done a toning down of the overly strong and unbalanced weapons like Axe&Falchion (the most awful designed and dullest weapon in the whole game) and the Billhook.
There has to be a middle ground and not up everything to nuke level like the mentioned weapons. It is okay for weapons to have no weakness. But being clearly above average in every category at the same time? That should be a no-go. The more interesting weapons are those with distinct strengths and weaknesses though.
I think our opinions are just different. I disagree about the fact that “Billhook has zero weaknesses”.
Its stagger is very low. It has a bad crowd control too… and don’t get me wrong: “handle” and “control” have a different meaning. You can handle and kill an horde, no doubts, but you can’t prevent that the horde harms your mates (like, for example through stagger, 2h Sword and Flail can do).
Or I can continue saying how much Rapier increases your survivability.
Then I could add that it’s pretty legit to have a “jack of all trades” weapon and other ones more specialized… Billhook is strong, sure, it’s very versatile too… but it doesn’t reign in every sector.
For example you can play BH + Rapier for a safe playstyle or BH + Billhook for higher risk, higher reward. It’s pretty wrong say that, since Billhook is versatile, it overshadows the other GOOD weapons… I will always say that we must start from some buff… and then see if the current strongest weapons are still “so strong”.
I think people in this thread (and comparable discussions) are a bit too focussed on weapons’ specific characteristics. “This one does more damage per hit than that one.”, “This one has a higher dodge count than that one.”, etc. I think, however, a weapon should be judged based on how it performs in a specific relevant combat situation. How does it fare against a horde mixed with armor & shields? A triggered Chaos Patrol? A situation where you’re cornered? When you need to deal with a horde and disablers lurk about? That sort of things. If a weapon has all the number advantages and the highest theoretical DPS against enemy X, that can still mean very little in practice. For example: Elf 2H Sword has a better DPS vs. hordes than Empire Spear, but that means very little since in a realistic combat scenario with mixed enemies the Empire Spear is just a much more practical weapon, and it has an easier time attacking while evading attacks anyways.
The top tier weapons are top tier not because of specific characteristic X or Y, but because they have a way to handle most difficult combat situations. Whether a weapon does that by dodgedancing while whittling everything down, or massive crowd control cleaves, or whatever, is not the point. The point however is: “Can it handle a situation where yadda yadda yadda?”. It’s fair to say " Weapon X can do this and that well because of characterist Y.", or “Weapon Z would be better able to handle such a situation if characteric X was better.”, but it’s not nescesarily right to argue " Weapon X is better than weapon Y because of its characteristic Z is better." Rather: “Weapon X is better than weapon Y because it can handle situation Z better.”
Those are good points, but the Billhook can handle the same situations as the Rapier. It just clears hordes more quickly and has better monster damage.
I still think the rapier becomes better than the Billhook though when enough of the enemies in a match are elites for whatever reason (deed, modded etc). That’s at a pretty high % though.
Billhook has one of the strongest single target staggers in the game, and does absolutely fine with crowd control? It’s not a shield, but it’s better than most weapons.
How do you make a weapon like falchion or 1h axe useful in comparison to billhook (or rapier, which is too strong on certain builds too) without just getting rid of their weaknesses?
This is exactly how I feel. A weapon can be without notable weak areas, but it needs to not really excel at stuff if that’s the case. A weapon that has strong options for every single situation is OP, and not really possible to balance weaker weapons around without just killing variety.
Single target. You said it. There is no need to talk about shields… a simple Flail or 2H Sword already has a better control.
Anyway, dunno friend, if you think that Rapier is op too… I guess we have complete opposite view of the game. Just happens, it’s fine, but I don’t think it’s very useful to continue.
I’m not sure about this. The combo Sleezy posted above with pushattack > light > light > light is honestly quite decent at CC. It’s maybe not as AGILE as rapier (I’d rapier is on the side of more “balanced” weapons), but it certainly brings more to the table than rapier in sheer versatility (can do it all). As someone said above: Swiss army knife of weapons.
If I had to pin down a weakness, it would be handling large groups of multiple elites, but because ideally you’ll have four people up at a time, that’s hardly a weakness, and can be said for a lot of weapons (and becomes less of a problem on zealot and whc).
I’d honestly say a lot of strengths and weaknesses become apparent in either solo situations (clutches or true solos) and/or on characters that aren’t that strong in melee (in this instance, bounty hunter).
Love it on BH autocrit crossbow and ult easily thin out elite packs for crowbill to hand rest with hunter boost and resets on their way. It’s the perfect weapon in the right hands. Not highest dps but doesn’t need or should be.
Guaranteed zerker or CW stun just too good for deflating big group threats.
Its third attack the hooking attack can even stagger any enemy out of running attacks, Yes ANY enemy (except bosses) even on Deathwish Cataclysm 3 difficulty which is abit ridiculous honestly.
Most people in here have no connection with Deathwish Cataclysm 3, let me explain quickly
Cataclysm 3 has higher stagger resistant enemies than Cata 1, add Deathwish ontop you get even more stagger resistance ontop with tougher enemies.
Now if I can stagger an enemy , for example a Chaos Warrior out of running attacks at this difficulty level something doesn’t feel right.
As for the inifite dodge, that doesn’t bother me as much as the ridiculous stagger of the third attack.
Yea, I don’t know where the silly notion of “No good crowd control” comes from. If you use the push attack combo, the Billhook’s crowd control is not only okay, it is clearly above average. The Billhook is an overly strong weapon which can do everything above average and is therefore unbalanced. At least the weapon needs different approaches for different scenarios and is therefore at least slightly interesting as you don’t have an one-button solution.
What do you mean with handling here? And how large is large? Because the special attack button for the Billhook lets you stagger every enemy in the game with high frequency, repeatedly (like no stamina cost for example). It can be spammed indefinetely. So you can stagger multiple enemies quite safely. Depending on the numbers, it might become difficult to damage them at the same time. Yet, I wouldn’t call the handling of multiple enemies a weakness.
Hero Power 600 or 900? Because for the Weaves I would argue that the increase in stagger for Cataclysm 3 is at least partially eaten by the increased Hero Power. Not sure what Cataclysm 3 mods use as basis. But yea, being able to stagger anything in any situation is ridiculous.
With Heropower 650 ofc why would I play 900 HP?
The goal of a higher difficulty is well making it harder, that would have the exact opposite effect.
Cataclysm 3 usese modified values over Cata 1 and 2 but that would get into a lengthy discussion off the main topic so let me just leave this link to the different values here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fDbDkNnY7PfY8LpEFVAU3dK-1rQfCS2C2q3PFMlzUGc/edit?usp=sharing
all good, I was trying to pack it into as dense sentence as possible to not digress from the main topic to much.
I edited my previous post and posted a link with the different values from C1 to C3