Zaws - Oh, come on. Do these descriptions mean anything at all? And where's the differentiation?

[OricSharp]

Firstly, because somebody always starts doing this nonsense: Don't start with the abandoned content island crap. I don't care that it's perceived that polishing old content won't make money. This is something that should be rectified.

Moving on.

The descriptions (especially of some of the Strikes) appear to be pretty close to literally meaningless, going by the numbers, which also are rather...samey overall.
This then bleeds into balance, by raising the question of "Why would you choose this over any of the other options, without weirdness like Rivens involved?"
If it's a problem with the way the math is presented - as in, these things don't work the way it looks like they do - then it's a bug. And it needs fixed regardless.

These issues are extremely apparent if you look at the Mewan Strike - as a one-handed Sword-type, it does exactly as much total damage as the Ooltha, which is faster and has a different (less Impact, more Puncture) damage distribution, and those are the only differences between the two Strikes' stats.
As a Polearm, it has significantly more competition, and similarly comes up wanting in nearly every comparison: the Cyath has more damage and speed, Dehtat is faster and has a different (less Impact, more Puncture) damage distribution, Kronsh is more damaging and has a different (more Impact, less Slash, no Puncture) damage distribution, and only the Plague Kripath does less damage (but has Viral innately, and more speed). In all cases, it has identical stats in every way not mentioned or affected by what has been mentioned.

This is despite the Mewan having the description "A Zaw Strike used for sword and polearm style weapons. Its heavy weight increases damage at the cost of Speed." Emphasis mine, though the rest is exactly as in-game. Each of the Strikes I've compared it to does not have this note, yet only one is faster and has less total damage (albeit with the addition of Viral) than the Mewan. Plague Kripath, of course, has "An Infested rapier-like or polearm strike that also deals Viral Damage. Its light weight provides an increase in Speed at the cost of Damage," so at least it appears to be kind of accurate.
So why's the Dehtat got the same "Its light weight increases speed at the cost of damage" line, too? Reminder - It's doing the same total damage, with a different IPS distribution, and better speed.

Among the Staff Strikes, there's a similar issue where Ooltha is slower than the Balla, which is just as damaging, just with a different IPS. This is despite Balla being marked with "Its light weight increaes speed at the cost of damage." Sepfahn's being left out of this, as it doesn't have nearly identical stats - it actually appears to have its own identity as a Zaw Strike. Bravo, Sepfahn! Bravo. Truly an example to us all.

So, what's the point of even having the "weight" line in the descriptions? It's clearly bupkis. Also, inconsistently written. Personally, I think it would make sense to have the Strikes differentiate with Crit Chance, Crit Multiplier, Status Chance, maybe Combo Efficiency, rather than Speed and Damage.

[Nailclipper]

3 hours ago, OricSharp said:

...Personally, I think it would make sense to have the Strikes differentiate with Crit Chance, Crit Multiplier, Status Chance, maybe Combo Efficiency, rather than Speed and Damage.

Speed and damage matters though, because:

More speed + less damage = higher sustained DPS but lower per hit damage*

Less speed + more damage = lower sustained DPS but higher per hit damage*

*based on overframe.gg calculator/builder

Generally I like the former for combo builds and I think the latter could be more suited for heavy attack builds (not sure because faster animation is also nice on heavy attack weapons).

[MasterBurik]

14 hours ago, Nailclipper said:

Speed and damage matters though, because:

More speed + less damage = higher sustained DPS but lower per hit damage*

Less speed + more damage = lower sustained DPS but higher per hit damage*

*based on overframe.gg calculator/builder

Generally I like the former for combo builds and I think the latter could be more suited for heavy attack builds (not sure because faster animation is also nice on heavy attack weapons).

Heavy attack wind up speed is fixed for each Strike+Grip "weapon type" combination. While attack speed seems to affect the post-wind up animation, it is so naturally fast that the additional speed is rather negligible.

 

The latter can also work for Finisher builds. Finisher animation speed is fixed no matter the weapon's listed speed, and can only be increased via attack speed mods (up to +50%). So going for a higher per hit damage can be somewhat beneficial.

 

Sure, you can't perform finishers on every enemy...but most of the more difficult-to-kill mobs can be..._{and Marked for Death now exists...}

 

But even with all that in mind...I can't stand the aesthetics of the Korb and Shtung on 99% of Zaw builds.

 

[MasterBurik]

Duplicate

[OricSharp]

Oh, I don't mean to give the impression that I think Speed and Damage don't matter. They do, obviously. There's far more in-depth examinations of the relationship between them, and burst vs sustained DPS in the context of Warframe itself, than I'm really interested in going into - but I acknowledge entirely that they matter. I just don't think they should be the only real differences in Strike stats. Honestly, I don't know where you got the idea that I thought Damage and Speed didn't matter to begin with. Did you interpret "Total Damage" as "Total Damage Per Second?" That's not what I wrote, and that's not what I meant. I meant "Total Damage, the thing that appears next to Total under the Damage heading."

The reason I think Zaws should use the other characteristics as tuning levers is...well, firstly, the stats are largely the same on every single Strike within a given stance category, aside from Speed and IPS distribution. Among Machetes, Cyath has more speed and range, Kronsh has a larger blocking angle somehow(???) and Rabvee has no advantages over either - so why choose Rabvee, ever? Among Staff weapons, why ever choose Ooltha over Balla or Sepfahn? Polearms - Mewan is worse than any alternative, unless your playstyle revolves around Slam attacks, in which case Cyath is not your jam. Swords, Mewan is no stronger than Ooltha, but it is slower. The current setup is boring, and leaves certain Strikes utterly outclassed. Why not make different Strikes better for different builds in a less narrow way than the IPS distro does? Why not have some have higher Crit Chance, others have higher Crit Damage, some have higher Status Chance, others have higher Combo Efficiency or Wind-Up Speed, or Combo Efficiency, or Initial Combo? There's so much more depth of customization possible than the current system is going into, and this doesn't just go for Strikes - the same is true of Links and Grips.

Secondly, the descriptions of the Strikes are deceptive - Strikes that are listed as being faster but weaker still do exactly as much total damage as Strikes listed as being stronger but slower, with a different IPS distro, but are also faster. Mewan and Dehtat Polearm Strikes are the most obvious pairing for this example, as Mewan is stronger but slower and Dehtat faster but weaker...except it's really not. This is a point I'm really annoyed about because it makes Zaw building into a trap - you can't build your Zaw based on the description of the Strikes, or you'll end up with a crappy Zaw. As a result, the descriptions need rewritten or Strikes rebalanced to actually match them in the first place (in which case they still need rewritten for consistency).

Grips actually don't have this issue with the descriptions, as far as I can tell. So that's good. (They're still boring.)

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

On 2020-08-31 at 9:28 PM, OricSharp said:

The descriptions (especially of some of the Strikes) appear to be pretty close to literally meaningless, going by the numbers, which also are rather...samey overall.

This then bleeds into balance, by raising the question of "Why would you choose this over any of the other options, without weirdness like Rivens involved?"

 

You're forgetting to consider that the different strikes use different Melee Stances

Which offer different combo moves, and have ideosyncrasis like guaranteed status procs, multi hits, etc, that are really important for high level melee builds....

Melee snobs can explain those... I'm not one of them. but its definitely really important to them and influences which parts to choose...