Longswords; Are They Doomed? A Proposition By Me

[Tetsmeha]

After long observation and extensive use of the different types of melee weapons, are longswords doomed to be low-tier weapons forever? First let's take a look at some of the long swords and their pro's and how they compare to other swords and other weapon types.

 

The various unique properties of the current selection of longswords includes high charge damage, fire damage, huge slam attack, and poison damage. Some swords like the Dark sword and Plasma sword exceptionally outshine any other melee weapon in terms of single target DPS. Because of the high dps of charge attack spamming, the game naturally shifts the meta to choosing charge damage over normal attack damage. The current mod numbers also encourages players to use really good charge weapons. This makes swords like Heat sword or Jaw sword, and pretty much every other long sword to be outclassed by Dark Sword and Plasma Sword.

 

Compared to heavy weapons, the only thing longswords have over any heavy weapon is a faster attack speed and charge time. However, in Warframe you are usually faced with many enemies that should be dispatched as soon as possible. This makes investing into single target DPS an extremely poor choice as some mobs line up or group up often like Grineer and Infected. An AOE charge swing from any heavy weapon will almost always kill any group of mobs. This makes an investment of risk by going into melee range of enemies and taking damage for dealing it. Because AOE is so effective, it's investment by using it outshines longswords where you spend more time in melee range and kill enemies slowly.

 

Compared to twin weapons, the DPS of twin weapons (notably the Twin Zoren) will out dps many longswords just because of their charge speed. Their normal attacks are far inferior, but no one will use it anyways because normal melee damage is so ineffective. All twin weapons also get to deal charge damage to 2-3 enemies, fitting the AOE/charge meta for melee right now. Because of this they also outclass any Longsword.

 

I believe Longswords will suffer from what I call Maplestory Syndrome, where at the beginning of the game, the basic classes (in our case the longswords) are niche classes that fit certain playstyles and are experts in their field. But then as updates progress new classes (or weapon types) are introduced that fufill more than one role, and excel enough at those roles to the point where it would better to pick the new class(weapon) over the old one.

 

On order to fix this, and bring longswords back into the weapon selection, longswords needs to fufill a new purpose, in other words they should be revamped. I propose that longswords gain an extension in both the normal attack combo and create a new charge combo. What should change is that all longswords normal attacks should do the standard 3 hit combo, and on the 4th hit it deals a guaranteed yellow number critical hit, and the charge attack would do two quick consecutive slices that do charge attack damage. This would keep longswords as a great heavy hitter, but only to single targets. The normal damage combo would allow players to specialize in normal combos using attack speed and crit mods as a means to deal a ton of damage. The guaranteed crit lets players specialize their longswords with certain elemental mods as to reach maximum single target DPS. Or players can specialize in the charge attack using the standard charge mods.

 

Although this may seem like it would make longswords OP, the exchange of it all is that they remain single target weapons. Never should a longsword ever hit more than one enemy. This opens up the opportunity to choose longswords over other weapon types depending if it's a certain faction boss, making single target damage melee damage a priority over AOE melee damage.

 

TL;DR -Longswords suck, literally every other weapon type outclasses them, make the normal combo crit and the charge attack swing twice.

 

Also, make pressure point stronger :<

Edited April 28, 2013 by Tetsmeha

[Luxangel7]

I agree, I wish longswords were better. It only makes sense to make them hit stronger than a dual wielding since they have the disadvantage of attacking one enemy at a time. 

[MabsWinterKnight]

I'll point out that the use of "longsword" to refer to one-handed swords is a misuse of the term that originates from DnD. Historically, it applied to two-handed swords carried by men who also carried one-handed swords, since the two-handed swords were longer than the one-handed swords (and hence "long swords"). At the moment, there is only one longsword in the game, the Gram, and as such, any discussion of them as a class of weapons is pointless.

[Mietz]

I think there is a misunderstanding that all weapons/types should be viable in all situations and perform similarly well, making weapons choice nothing more than a flavor.

 

Right now this is largely the case and thats why the LS sticks out.

[krisp]

I'll point out that the use of "longsword" to refer to one-handed swords is a misuse of the term that originates from DnD. Historically, it applied to two-handed swords carried by men who also carried one-handed swords, since the two-handed swords were longer than the one-handed swords (and hence "long swords"). At the moment, there is only one longsword in the game, the Gram, and as such, any discussion of them as a class of weapons is pointless.

Or you could, you know, understand what people are talking about and not make statements that have nothing to do with the discussion at hand and everything to do with you being nitpicky and pedantic.

[Necrio]

they're katanas, tennos are space ninjas and we need a nunchuck

 

on a more serious note I agree with OP, mostly because I'm too cheap to buy a better melee than cronus. On a less serious note, we need a walking stick and a top hat.

[MabsWinterKnight]

Or you could, you know, understand what people are talking about and not make statements that have nothing to do with the discussion at hand and everything to do with you being nitpicky and pedantic.

I know what he's talking about; I was simply correcting his terminology.

[Unchained]

We are talking about warframe, so its obvious that term "longsword" refer to type of weapons in this game. Game describes weapons such as dark sword, mire, plasma sword etc as longswords, so his terminology was ok.

 

oh, and regarding those LONGSWORDS, I agree that something should be done to make them more viable. If devs could improve block mechanics, maybe longswords could be made into more defensive weapon. Without stamina cost of blocking or something like that. Maybe some kind of counter attack option after block?

Edited April 28, 2013 by Unchained

[aliasAnonymous]

Single target dps has its merits though. There are frequent cases of enemies spread out, and thats where swords shine. No stopping, just line up your charges, time things well, and chop chop chop. Also, ancients.

 

What really needs to be looked at is melee damage in general, it is only useful for the slide melee attacks (which, i believe turn any weapon, single target or otherwise, into an 'aoe')

 

actually i take that back, triple damage on the slide attack is pretty sweet

[Caiman]

Longswords are subpar for single-target DPS.

- I can fire shotguns much faster than I can charge up melee weapons, even with max reflex coil, so I can hit and kill more trash mobs in the same amount of time. Multi-hitting melee weapons make up for this by hitting 2-3 enemies per charge. Longsword just doesn't.

- Grineer heavies will use an uninterruptable knockdown if you get in melee range, but shotguns can kill them without triggering the knockdown, even with the damage falloff.

- Toxic Ancients. It's pretty much impossible not to touch the poison cloud with longswords.

 

Single-target melee *might* do more DPS on, say, Phorid, thanks to the x3 infested bonus for bladed weapons / Furax and boss resistance to bullets, but it's hard to measure shotgun DPS since there's no "total" number per shot, no official pellet count and the damage numbers are bugged if you're not hosting.

 

Ash/Loki invis would probably push the melee DPS ahead vs Phorid, but only because you can freeze Phorid, then just walk right up to it and spam charge attacks without fear of getting hit. Many bosses spam knockdown and/or insta-kill AoE attacks at melee range, even if they can't see you, so melee with anyone but Rhino is out of the question. And with the invis-less Rhino, Gram/Scindo/Fragor have comparable DPS and far more utility outside of the boss fight.

 

So Dark Sword / Furax are extremely situational, even as boss-killers - not to mention it takes more work than any other weapon in the game to make them work as boss-killers at all. Didn't start with Loki? Better start farming Tyl or Hyena!

 

As it stands, heavy weapons and dual swords are much, much more versatile, especially as charge-attack focused weapons, due to their wide arc, increased damage per hit, and most importantly, the ability to hit multiple enemies.

 

TLDR: Single target DPS is the domain of long guns, multi-target DPS is the domain of dual and heavy melee, and long swords are left out in the cold.

 

Making all charge attacks multi-hit (within their range) might be fun, but it wouldn't really differentiate longswords (except as an even faster/smaller ranged variant of melee weaps), and multi-hit is the primary motivator for players to try out non-Skana/Cronus melee weapons.

 

I don't think the enemy melee mechanics make block/counter very feasible at all.

 

 

Off topic:

 

I'll point out that the use of "longsword" to refer to one-handed swords is a misuse of the term that originates from DnD. Historically, it applied to two-handed swords carried by men who also carried one-handed swords, since the two-handed swords were longer than the one-handed swords (and hence "long swords"). At the moment, there is only one longsword in the game, the Gram, and as such, any discussion of them as a class of weapons is pointless.

 

If you want to get nitpicky, the term "longsword" (and the Western concept of classifying different kinds of swords, in general) was invented by 17th/18th century sword collectors, centuries after the swords that are now "officially" called "longswords" were wielded by anyone.

The people who actually used "longswords" just called them..."swords."

So "longsword" is, and always was, a relative term, made up only so it's easier to discuss different kinds of swords. It's correct as long as it kinda makes sense in context. Warframe Spathology is comprised of "dual-short", "long" and "heavy" swords, so it's fine, really.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Caiman

[Earl.Grey]

I've always loved the idea of having some additions to the combo system such as a new charge attack at the end of the combo - or even using charge attacks mid combo and chaining into various moves, so for example.

 

Standard combo - strike, strike strike

Combo 2 - strike strike strike charge

Combo 3 - strike charge strike strike

Combo 4 - charge charge strike charge

 

Something like this, of course it would require a lot more animations but it'd add a lot more variety for melee users.

[Dexxa-]

I've once seen a longsword user 3shotting a ancient in a defense mission lvl40+

...?

[Venarge]

Dark Sword. Nuff said.

Awesome power. Awesome design. Everything awesome.

[Earl.Grey]

Dark Sword. Nuff said.

Awesome power. Awesome design. Everything awesome.

Right, and all the other longswords? Yeah there needs to be some changes.

[BoogieMan82]

I want dual longswords!!!

[Tetsmeha]

Single target dps has its merits though. There are frequent cases of enemies spread out, and thats where swords shine. No stopping, just line up your charges, time things well, and chop chop chop. Also, ancients.

 

What really needs to be looked at is melee damage in general, it is only useful for the slide melee attacks (which, i believe turn any weapon, single target or otherwise, into an 'aoe')

 

actually i take that back, triple damage on the slide attack is pretty sweet

Heavy weapons have enough single target burst to destroy trash mobs more effeciently than long swords. My proposal is a change in the damage mechanics to set them up as boss killers since the other weapons are great trash mob killers and still have better single target dps

[Argoms]

Seems like it would work well. Longswords are just a pain to use right now.

 

I'll point out that the use of "longsword" to refer to one-handed swords is a misuse of the term that originates from DnD. Historically, it applied to two-handed swords carried by men who also carried one-handed swords, since the two-handed swords were longer than the one-handed swords (and hence "long swords"). At the moment, there is only one longsword in the game, the Gram, and as such, any discussion of them as a class of weapons is pointless.

If you're going to try and argue commonly accepted terms, could you please help out with the clips vs mags thing? D:

[Xevious]

Definitely agree with this. Damage output is much more efficient from heavy or multiple-target hitting weapons.

[Tetsmeha]

I'll point out that the use of "longsword" to refer to one-handed swords is a misuse of the term that originates from DnD. Historically, it applied to two-handed swords carried by men who also carried one-handed swords, since the two-handed swords were longer than the one-handed swords (and hence "long swords"). At the moment, there is only one longsword in the game, the Gram, and as such, any discussion of them as a class of weapons is pointless.

 

You know we're on the Warframe forums right? A forum where we talk about the game?

[CY13ERPUNK]

+1 OP and this thread

 

yes the long swords need a buff or the whole melee system needs a redesign

 

 

i personally do NOT like the idea of armor ignoring weapons of any kind, i would much prefer weapons that say had innate armor penetration values, like 25-75% (bolt-family of weapons could have varying amounts, ie paris 70% boltor 40% and bolto 30%, for example)

 

so current weapons that are all about AP would have a high rating (fragor gets 60+% or something, maybe fangs get 50% AP) this allows for more room to tweak instead of the all-or-nothing approach we currently have