the only way to make Wukong's iron staff viable is to give it some absurd range AND hitbox

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

we all know wukong's staff sucks in terms of damage output...far more weapons have better damage and access to riven mods 

the only thing that makes it stand out is having the highest range of all melee weapons, but that's not really a quirk as many weapons have yet again access to riven mods that increase range

you have a weak melee weapon that sucks your energy, has no special ability, and bad all around

we can buff it's damage for sure to be on par with current melee weapons, but we would still have just another boring stick with no special features!

however it would be much more interesting if they DIDN'T buff it's damage and instead made it a consistent dps/cc tool!

here's how it should work:

iron staff neutral block combo increases the staff's hitbox but decreases it's range 

iron staff forward block combo increases it's range up to 12+ meters i think but it has a very narrow hitbox

my idea suggest to preserve it's range and hitbox changes while performing combos for 3 seconds

so the result is having a very thick staff with long range with a minimum of 12 meters all for 3 seconds, a counter that resets when the staff changes length and size again

it's a very simple buff, but it makes huge difference and truly pays homage to the staff's actual capabilities in the lore

 

[DeMonkey]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Hopper_Orouk said:

however it would be much more interesting if they DIDN'T buff it's damage and instead made it a consistent dps/cc tool!

No no, buff it's damage as well. If Excalibur gets to have 550 damage when both the sword and wave hit for half the upkeep of the staff, then Wukong can have a damage buff as well. A 5 energy per second weapon should never perform worse than a basic free weapon, even if it can reach substantially longer (whilst still being limited by line of sight). 

Look at it like this, imagine you have two choices.

1) Buff it's damage or modding capability to be on par with regular melee.

2) Give it a unique feature over regular melee.

Either option would make it a viable alternative to melee, as it would be "on par", except that it wouldn't be "on par" because it has a cost attached to it that regular melee doesn't.

Essentially, as it currently stands, if it's damage were simply increased to a comparable level, I would still vehemently argue that it sucks as an ability, because you'd still be paying 5 energy per second for the same performance you get from your free weapon whilst the frame wastes an ability slot. Giving it a unique mechanic works when the weapon is at a comparable level to regular melee, because you effectively have a relevant melee weapon and then you pay 5 energy per second for the "ability" side of it. There is absolutely no justification for the Staff's damage being less than that of a basic melee weapon.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

6 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

Essentially, as it currently stands, if it's damage were simply increased to a comparable level, I would still vehemently argue that it sucks as an ability, because you'd still be paying 5 energy per second for the same performance you get from your free weapon whilst the frame wastes an ability slot. Giving it a unique mechanic works when the weapon is at a comparable level to regular melee, because you effectively have a relevant melee weapon and then you pay 5 energy per second for the "ability" side of it. There is absolutely no justification for the Staff's damage being less than that of a basic melee weapon.

that's why i wanted to focus first on adding a special ability to the staff, using the new infested weapon keratinos makes me so jealous because it has an ability that should get implemented in the staff.

imagine this: doing large melee damage to enemies within 6 ish meters, or hitting all enemies within more than 12 meters with below average damage

i'd take the latter 

 

[DeMonkey]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Hopper_Orouk said:

imagine this: doing large melee damage to enemies within 6 ish meters, or hitting all enemies within more than 12 meters with below average damage

i'd take the latter 

I disagree, not because I'd choose differently, but because I don't care for subjectivity. 

You neglect energy costs. Instead it's "Doing large melee damage to enemies within 6-8 meters (because Rivens) for free, or hitting enemies at 12-15 meters with below average damage for 5 energy per second with a weapon so fragile that it can get cancelled in a stiff Nullifier wind".

To me, whilst it would be fun to use the longer range, it wouldn't justify the cost at all. Low damage, high range. High damage, low range. These are balancing mechanics I expect to see in normal melee weapons, tradeoffs. The Iron Staff is already balanced by it's cost, the fact that it cuts you off from various sources of energy gain and the ease at which it can be cancelled. It shouldn't abide by basic "Low damage, high range. High damage, low range" balancing. It would be justified for it to be "Average damage, high range. High damage, average range". That's all I'm getting at.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

No, it’s just give it more damage. Adjusting where it hits isn’t going to make up for its complete lack of damage.

[Raikh]

Exalted Melees in general need some touching up.

Primal Fury might stick out the most because its the most normal melee weapon of the bunch, but all of them suffer from being generally inferior in throughput tohigh end melee weapons due to statting and lack of access to acolyte mods.

Exalted Blade isn't really good either what throughput is concerned and it has the energy wave for map coverage.  So making Iron Staff longer won't suddenly make it a great weapon.

For a long time Exlated Melees did actually outperform normal melee wepaons quite considerably but especially since the melee rework they've been left in the dust. They took all the changes just as normal melee weapons but got none of the benefits, such as the massive stat increases most melee weapons saw.

Some of them are somewhat salvaged by extremely potent augments, but even those do not actually push them ahead in damage. It merely makes it so that they perform good enough in certain environments so that benefitting from their improved map coverage can make sense.

Iron Staff has 1.0 AS 25% CC 2.0x CD, 30% Status. costs energy to maintain and needs to be built around.

Orthos P has  1.17 AS 24% CC 2.2x CD 36% Status, access to Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds and Rivens.

Bo P has 1.08 AS 24% CC, 2.6x CD, 32% Status, access to Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds and Rivens.

Just to add to it. Exalted Blade is even worse off, energy waves and augment simply make it slightly more palpable.

Exalted Blade has 0.833 AS, 15% CC, 2.0x CD, 15% Status, costs energy to maintain and needs to be built around.

Pangolin P has 0.917 AS, 26% CC, 2.2x CD, 30% Status, access to Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds and Rivens.

While, especially with Power Strength, the Exalted Weapons end up with higher base damage, they still get massively outscaled by their lack of crit/status stats in combination with not being able to scale them so insanely high with Blood and Rush and Weeping Wounds in particular.

Baruuks Serene Storm is probably the best one out of the bunch and gets decent sclaing due to incredibly high base CC and an augment that safes the day for Status and damage typing, but ironically also falls behind due to lack of proper access to slash procs against high level armored enemies.

And given that these aren't fancy passives but abilities that do not only compete with a normal melee weapon but a melee weapon + whatever another frame has to offer instead in abilities + less need to mod in a specific way, Exlated Weapons are currently a rather bad deal numerically.

 

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

1 hour ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

just give it more damage.

that's it? no special features? abilities? why would i use it then if it's not mechanically superior than other melee weapons? i mean if you want a tough melee just use kronen prime or gram prime or whatever OP melee weapon people use these days, they're all the same

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

6 hours ago, (PS4)Hopper_Orouk said:

having the highest range of all melee weapons

Does it though, really? Because Exalted Blade shoots out a 40 meter wave with every swing, dealing its full weapon damage. Kinda feels like that means Exalted Blade has a 40 meter range to me...

What is the maximum best case scenario range for Iron Staff (the weapon that is traditionally known for it's global-spanning range)? Lol

[DeMonkey]

4 hours ago, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

Because Exalted Blade shoots out a 40 meter wave with every swing, dealing its full weapon damage.

It does have some falloff, but yeah, it has superior range. I'd say it's most effective a little closer ofc, within Baruuk ranges, coincidentally another Exalted weapon with better range than the staff.

Besides that of course, the Iron Staff does have the highest range (before counting Rivens, which we should ofc count) by 30cm. From what I can see, War is the closest at 3.2m long. A rather insignificant difference, not even 10% longer.

[bibmobello]

the only way to make Wukong's iron staff viable is to remove the 4 with another ability( if you have enough time to farm another useless ability...).

[schilds]

"Unviable" is an exaggeration. Its damage is competitive with regular melee and is viable up to and including Steel Path content. It's main issue is that it's just another weapon, in this case taking up an ability slot. Why pull out Iron Staff when you can just use your regular melee, other than "flavour"?

[Bakaguya-sama]

7 hours ago, schilds said:

"Unviable" is an exaggeration. Its damage is competitive with regular melee and is viable up to and including Steel Path content. It's main issue is that it's just another weapon, in this case taking up an ability slot. Why pull out Iron Staff when you can just use your regular melee, other than "flavour"?

This is pretty much the crux of the issue. Wukong staff compete with the best melee in terms of damage output, only slightly losing out because of rivens. It can comfortably wade through hordes of Steel Path Mot enemies.  Just because its crits arent red  or orange doesnt mean its not doing a lot of damage.  

Its just that... theres nothing special about it. Its just another melee weapon.  Yes its clone can use it at the same time but DE pretty much lobotomized the AI in fear of people afk farming (which can be circumvented in other ways).  

Adding some more flavor to it to distinguish it from normal meles and justify the energy costs would be nice.  

[Kaggelos]

For me the worst offender in Iron Staff is the animation itself. Its clunky, unreliable and its as if Wukong keeps falling down... 

Also the stats really are pretty bad... 

[Alpheus]

14 hours ago, schilds said:

"Unviable" is an exaggeration. Its damage is competitive with regular melee and is viable up to and including Steel Path content. It's main issue is that it's just another weapon, in this case taking up an ability slot. Why pull out Iron Staff when you can just use your regular melee, other than "flavour"?

I mostly use exalted weapons to fill the CO role since they can't have Blood Rush. Blood Rush on the main melee with Naramon, then swap to CO for the bigger enemies. I'm honestly surprised to see this thread because I see Iron Staff as a great weapon.