Heavy Weight Weapons Viability

[Casardis]

Personally I think it was a good move to remove charge attacks, at least what we had before. However, by doing so, there's a big issue that happened to heavy weapons, mostly because of DE's way of balancing.

Weapons like Fragor, Gram and Scindo are particularly slow, regardless of stances they use, and that's okay in theory since they're supposed to be hard hitting weapons with huge arcs. It's also why it would consume more stamina than, say, the Nikana which is a smaller sword made of Oxium (a very light material).

The problem is that all penalties they have are NOT compensated by their strength at all. In fact, many weapons are way stronger or close to be as strong as them. Seriously, just look at the image below, at the two weapons' stats comparison, and tell me there isn't something wrong with it.



Gram and Dual Heat Swords have the exact same base damage, but DHS has way higher spin attack damage, wall attack, and even if it says 0.9 for attack speed, its attack animation type is faster than great swords/axes (therefore the 0.9 doesn't mean anything). On top of that, it uses slightly less stamina (don't even get me started on the Nikana), and its stances like the Tiger one allows for great multihit AoE CC attacks.

My suggestion should be obvious. If a weapon is to be heavy, what they lack in speed should be compensated by their strength greatly. Not a little, not an okay amount; GREATLY, and not bandaid that in stance combos (Crushing Ruin and Rending Crane). Additionally, edit the animations so that each attacks have proper momentum (applies to all weapons but most important on slow hitting weapons).

 

Heavy weapons don't necessarily have better reach so you end up losing momentum, hitting the air, and wasting lots of stamina.

 

Another suggestion would be for DE to be more crazy with how they play with stats instead of using the same formula. For example, currently slash weapons are always super high in slash only; there's no weapon with more equal stats spread, even though ranged weapons have such variants (no matter if it makes sense or not). There's no reason to restrict that, and it would allow further stats differences between similar weapons (Hate, Ether Reaper, Reaper Prime). And what about status? Why are so many melee weapons having 10% status all the time?

 

Going further than stats, there could have been unique charge attack combos. They did it in Okami and it was simple:

E (hold) --> E (hold) --> E (hold) --> E (hold)

 

Each time you can hold, you can decide not to hold to do a quick attack with a similar animation,, and then decide to hold for the next attack (almost like how Channeling works, but still different, and can be combined with Channeling).

 

In fact, all heavy melee weapons could have kept charge attacks. As Chlora said below me, charge attacks could have used utility (like Kestrel and Glaive) as its strong point. Hammers would cause 100% knockbacks, or at least a long stun that can open a finisher opportunity, and so on. These things shouldn't only be at the end of combos that take WAY too much time to execute, with no way to cancel it if you're hitting the air.

 

Melee 2.0 nerfed them really heavily, and there's not that much reason to use them when dual swords, Glaive/Kestrel and Nikana are all much more powerful, useful (maneuvers), are way faster, and uses WAY LESS stamina, all at the same time.

 

The only reason I still use Gram is because Cleaving Whirlwind's Broken Bull combo can actually be decent when used well, and the only reason it feels decent is because it feels just like melee 1.0's charge attacks (ironic, isn't it?).

I'm just throwing things out there, but as it stands, heavy weapons are really lacking and aren't balanced properly as a whole. The problem pretty much just shifted with the removal of charge attacks without compensation.

P.S.: Orthos doesn't count as much. That weapon has always been somewhere between light and heavy, and with its swirling fast, long ranged attacks it has right now, it doesn't suffer like the truly heavy weapons (hammers like Fragor which uses 20 stamina).

 

EDIT: More feedback given in a post below:

 

 

I would say that, for Galatine, its base damage should be lower than Gram (which was the case before, with its normal attacks, IIRC). However, channeling it would give it an innate crit boost (like how its charge attack had 20% crit chance before), with a very high crit damage, so that the way you play with Galatine is different from Gram, with its own weaknesses and advantages (currently, there's not much reason to use Gram over Galatine unless you really, really like Gram's look).

 

Gram shouldn't only have higher damage, but it should be distributed a bit better than majority in Slashing. Since it's not a regular blade, more puncture could be given in after buffing its overall damage. Attack speed could also be increased, maybe when it's channeling.

 

To me personally, when I say those things, it just shows how much all the new channeling mods all act as band-aids to what could have been interesting stats distribution from DE's part, with expansion on the channeling system to give weapons unique, innate channeling boosts, rather than putting everything as mods.

 

Here are things they can clearly add to weapon channel and stance bonuses (not only stances, but some weapons themselves), whether for all attacks or only a few like they're doing with damage:

 

- Channel Damage and Efficiency (needs to add them to the UI as well)

- Crit Damage and Crit Chance

- Attack speed (highly dependant on the weapon animations though, such as how Decisive Judgment is slower)

- Reach (some stance combo may require channeling to be active, and it will do an energy aura that extends the reach in some attacks)

- Status chance

- More knockdown and ragdoll attacks

- Multihit attacks (not multi-target, but rather hitting mutliple times a single target, which they do with certain stance and can easily add this for other attacks)

--- Multihit attacks will also make faster combo meter build

- Higher combo multiplier damage

- More elemental additions (Heat Swords' flame wave finisher; something like a corrosive/poison finisher could be added to Scoliac for instance, since that weapon had Corrosive charge attack before).

Edited May 14, 2014 by Casardis

[se05239]

With Melee 2,0, the best weapons are those that strike fast. More hits with channeling attacks and higher combo numbers faster.

Slow weapons are gimped. By the time I swing my Jat Kittag once, my friend has already killed three-four enemies with his Kogake.

[NullCurrent]

Another thing that the new Melee 2.0 is lacking which was present in the previous version is Front-ended damage as it is called. That is when something hits very hard initially, then has a longer wind up time for the next hit. Examples of these are all of the old charge charge attacks when you run at an enemy, so you enter the fight with a fully-charged weapon, and the Vectis, charged up Bows/Lanka and so on.

 

Currently you have to do a full combo to reach the full potential damage of all melee weapons, which means that you will have to run up to the enemy, hit it 4-7 times before you actually do a lot of damage. Which is back-ended damage as you need to do several hits before the damage really arrives. The heavy weapons are even more punished through this mechanic, as it will take a long time for them to finish a combo.

 

This problem is compounded by the fact that heavy weapons slow you down to a walk while swinging, making it a lot harder to move around and continue your combo and hitting anything but air once your first target has died. With the previous melee version, the heavy weapons were punished for staying close to an enemy with their long charge-times, but you could run while charging which meant that you could easily charge up and run at an enemy to lead with a really heavy hit, which had the potential to one-shot when modded right.

 

Another benefit which is no longer exclusive to heavy weapons is the swing momentum. Now all melee weapons have that against normal enemies, they can't knock you back while you are swinging, and when channeling you are completely immune to all knockbacks and knockdowns.

 

Here are a few suggestions for making heavy weapons more varied and actually a viable alternative:

 

* Much higher channeling damage

* Higher base-damage

* Bring back some kind of variation of the charge to heavy weapons, with a high stamina cost or something like that to compensate.

* Some parts of their combos should get more movement (especially early parts), currently the heavy weapons keep you pretty much stationary. But that is a general problem with the melee combos, they are too stationary for all weapons.

 

PS. I also agree about all melee weapons needing more diversity in stats. Too many have slash, average crit stats and average status chance.

[Phaeton0]

Here are a few suggestions for making heavy weapons more varied and actually a viable alternative:

 

* Much higher channeling damage

* Higher base-damage

* Bring back some kind of variation of the charge to heavy weapons, with a high stamina cost or something like that to compensate.

* Some parts of their combos should get more movement (especially early parts), currently the heavy weapons keep you pretty much stationary. But that is a general problem with the melee combos, they are too stationary for all weapons.

While I like the other suggestions, the first one (higher channeling damage) would only make them viable when equipping your melee. If you're using them for quick melee attacks while using a gun, fast melee weapons would still be better.

[Casardis]

While I like the other suggestions, the first one (higher channeling damage) would only make them viable when equipping your melee. If you're using them for quick melee attacks while using a gun, fast melee weapons would still be better.

True, which is why I think ALL of the suggestion should be applied so they are buffed in general, and if you take the risk of using it equipped, you'll have the benefit of crazy channel damage too. I keep bringing back these examples, but Ninja Gaiden and DMC have heavy weapons in them which doesn't slow you down in this way, and still feels heavier and stronger because of the movesets, momentum and animations.

[Casardis]

Bump.

[FlameG102]

this so much. removing charge attacks, basically rendered most if not all heavy weapons totally useless, since a lot of them initially had low DPS to compensate for high charge damage.

 

heavy weapons were made to be hard hitting with their strong charge attacks and low speed/dps, while light weapons are supposed to be fast hitting with high speed/dps

I'm VERY surprised DE didn't think about that and just pushed this through without balancing it. this Melee 2.0 is really feeling more like 1.5

 

DE pls. I want to be able to use my Galantine again.

Edited April 17, 2014 by FlameG102

[Archistopheles]

DE pls. I want to be able to use my Galantine again.

 

Please.... The Galatine can still clear Pluto just fine, it's just not as sparkly as other weapons.

 

I agree that weapons need tweaks, but you don't need to make yourself sound like the Galatine is the new Bo.

[Dalu__Ka]

A buff would be nice for the heavy weapons.

Currently they have about 1/2 or 2/3 the damage of bladed types, which makes heavy melee far less interesting especially when you consider the swing speed.

[Casardis]

A buff would be nice for the heavy weapons.

Currently they have about 1/2 or 2/3 the damage of bladed types, which makes heavy melee far less interesting especially when you consider the swing speed.

 

Yeah it's just a question of balance and direction. DE doesn't have a good direction with melee weapons in my opinion, and the new crossbow as well is stuck in that (same for Tigris shotgun).

[Serialkillerwhale]

I'd say 125-100 for Galatine, 110-90 for Scindo and Fragor, 100-75 for Magistar and Gram, would be logical given the weapon's old stats.
.

Edited April 18, 2014 by Serialkillerwhale

[Casardis]

I'd say 125-100 for Galatine, 110-90 for Scindo and Fragor, 100-75 for Magistar and Gram, would be logical given the weapon's old stats.

.

 

I would say that, for Galatine, its base damage should be lower than Gram (which was the case before, with its normal attacks, IIRC). However, channeling it would give it an innate crit boost (like how its charge attack had 20% crit chance before), with a very high crit damage, so that the way you play with Galatine is different from Gram, with its own weaknesses and advantages (currently, there's not much reason to use Gram over Galatine unless you really, really like Gram's look).

 

Gram shouldn't only have higher damage, but it should be distributed a bit better than majority in Slashing. Since it's not a regular blade, more puncture could be given in after buffing its overall damage. Attack speed could also be increased, maybe when it's channeling.

 

To me personally, when I say those things, it just shows how much all the new channeling mods all act as band-aids to what could have been interesting stats distribution from DE's part, with expansion on the channeling system to give weapons unique, innate channeling boosts, rather than putting everything as mods.

 

Here are things they can clearly add to weapon channel and stance bonuses (not only stances, but some weapons themselves), whether for all attacks or only a few like they're doing with damage:

 

- Channel Damage and Efficiency (needs to add them to the UI as well)

- Crit Damage and Crit Chance

- Attack speed (highly dependant on the weapon animations though, such as how Decisive Judgment is slower)

- Reach (some stance combo may require channeling to be active, and it will do an energy aura that extends the reach in some attacks)

- Status chance

- More knockdown and ragdoll attacks

- Multihit attacks (not multi-target, but rather hitting mutliple times a single target, which they do with certain stance and can easily add this for other attacks)

--- Multihit attacks will also make faster combo meter build

- Higher combo multiplier damage

- More elemental additions (Heat Swords' flame wave finisher; something like a corrosive/poison finisher could be added to Scoliac for instance, since that weapon had Corrosive charge attack before).

Edited May 14, 2014 by Casardis