Do Heavy Weapons Deserve A Buff?

[Goodking]

He probably meant S#&$ like Quickening and Warrior's Grip. Those negative channeling efficiency mods.

Yes, I did mean those. Spot on. 

I love Killing Blow, btw. It's on most of my best weapons, including my Dragon Nikana. 

 

Yeah, Channeling mods either should get a rebalance, or probably a reduction or removal of the penalties. They aren't corrupted mods, and it shouldn't cost us 8+ energy just to get a benefit we used up a mod slot for.  Pretty easy fix there.

 

For heavies, the idea to increase the damage multiplier is good, actually.. but then deep in a T4, or any high leveled or difficut situation when getting killed is easier than hitting an enemy, reaching the hits to increase the multiplier on those sub-par stats safely isn't too easy.

[DoomsDayDan]

They should definitely be doing more damage than weapons that attack much faster than them

[HAYABU5A]

this is long overdue ! 

 

its high time heavy weapons get the buff they need to be relevant

 

a unique heavy weapon multiplier would be sweet, % chance to rend (massive damage spike in ratio to enemy hp so higher hp=more dmg) 

[dragonboss]

Yes, heavy weapons need a serious buff, especially the OG weapons like Gram, Fragor and Scindo.

 

They need a base damage increase to a minimum of 80 and a max of 120, and a a much higher crit chance and maybe crit damage as well, which would balance out the extremely slow attack speed, so Dragon Nikana users will still have the higher DPS anyway since they would be able to attack faster.

 

Every time I look at my Gram that I've had and used since closed beta, I think it is odd that a the crit is so low. Heavy weapons are supposed to crit, that's the point, lol. NG2 Eclipse Scythe is an example of a very slow attack speed, tricky to master combos, but massive damage pay-off. DE needs to take note of games like that.

 

If you ask me, the heavy weapons should be mastery locked to 6 or 7 and the current ones replaced with new beginner heavy weapons or MK1 variants(If you already own one you still keep it but it will be locked if you are below MR6/7).

 

It's annoying that most newer players have just put the notion in their heads that the above weapons just suck, instead of thinking "Huh, strange that a giant plasma sword/axe/hammer does less damage than a regular sword or katana, must be a bug. I should call for a buff on the forums".

Edited August 29, 2014 by dragonboss

[Seanjuju]

I don't have any problems with the heavy weapons I'm using.

[Cat_Jam]

Dear OP,

 

               Yes.

 

Yours sincerely,

                         Cat

[Niryco]

I've been using heavy weapons since I first started Warframe in Update 6, and they felt much less balanced after Melee 2.0. 

There's no way a huge skull splitter like the Gram should have the same slash damage as a Kama. I'm pretty sure many other players also felt how inadequate some heavy weapons are without a catalyst, loads of forma and maxed mods.

 

I think that heavy weapons like the Gram, Scindo and Galatine should not be on such equal terms with their longsword and machete counterparts, and should be improved, probably by increasing some stats.

I don't know if many of you guys kind of realised that the heavy weapons are built around AOE types of combos in general. Also compared to the single strike weapons (light weapons) the combos on stance cards tend to grant a 3x damage within the combo + impact(knockdown). As such they don't actually need a buff, you just need the right stance card for them.

 

so the actuality of it is that the gram when performing its role of crowd control does 3 times more damage than Kama does, which is only one of its specific combo. This applies to mostly all heavy weapons and i mean you can see where DE is making this go, it is simply to force the two weapon categories apart without having them seem too similar.

 

Also another in reality yes a Kama can have the same slash damage of a Gram. Technically all weapons would have the same slash damage except for thinner blades since the degree of its edge is more serrated/sharp than a gram which is similar to a broadsword. A broad sword has its weight to compensate for the lack of a serrated edge in most cases that should be reflected in impact and a stab of a broadsword is more devastating than a sharper weapon because with the weight and strength of the blade it can have a good deal of penetration which should be reflected by puncture.

 

Thus if you wanted gram to fight enemies one on one it would feature high impact and puncture damage and moderate slash damage, however it would most of its ability to fight groups of enemies which would make it suck. Therefore it is really about the focus of how a weapon is supposed to be used and what items you need to play to its strengths.

 

Buffs would not cut it simply because those faster weapons can increase speed mid battle and again it won't make any difference even if you had infinite damage or damage 10,000 because those faster weapons will beat you on one to one targets. What you should be focusing on is fighting groups of enemies with your heavy weapons, they benefit from damage buffs and tend to do better in separating the groups into mish and mash.

Edited August 29, 2014 by Jacate

[Goodking]

I don't have any problems with the heavy weapons I'm using.

Are they forma'd? Catalysted? 

Still. The stats on most heavy weapons are almost a direct downgrade in almost every way from the weapons that hit much faster than them. 

Do they have an advantage? No good crit chance, no big damage, slow swing speed.. Nothing much, except the bigger jump attack/ground slam radius. Sure, they can be made useful with good mods, forma and a catalyst.. but that's too much just to make them useable, or good at best.

 

I don't know if many of you guys kind of realised that the heavy weapons are built around AOE types of combos in general. Also compared to the single strike weapons (light weapons) the combos on stance cards tend to grant a 3x damage within the combo + impact(knockdown). As such they don't actually need a buff, you just need the right stance card for them.

 

so the actuality of it is that the gram when performing its role of crowd control does 3 times more damage than Kama does, which is only one of its specific combo. This applies to mostly all heavy weapons and i mean you can see where DE is making this go, it is simply to force the two weapon categories apart without having them seem too similar.

 

Also another in reality yes a Kama can have the same slash damage of a Gram. Technically all weapons would have the same slash damage except for thinner blades since the degree of its edge is more serrated/sharp than a gram which is similar to a broadsword. A broad sword has its weight to compensate for the lack of a serrated edge in most cases that should be reflected in impact and a stab of a broadsword is more devastating than a sharper weapon because with the weight and strength of the blade it can have a good deal of penetration which should be reflected by puncture.

 

Thus if you wanted gram to fight enemies one on one it would feature high impact and puncture damage and moderate slash damage, however it would most of its ability to fight groups of enemies which would make it suck. Therefore it is really about the focus of how a weapon is supposed to be used and what items you need to play to its strengths.

 

Buffs would not cut it simply because those faster weapons can increase speed mid battle and again it won't make any difference even if you had infinite damage or damage 10,000 because those faster weapons will beat you on one to one targets. What you should be focusing on is fighting groups of enemies with your heavy weapons, they benefit from damage buffs and tend to do better in separating the groups into mish and mash.

Yes. I've always been using my heavies to slam into groups.. and sometimes one-on-one. But group or not, it's a disadvantage if the weapon takes far, far too much effort to get a few kills. The advantages of a heavy weapon are almost completely drowned out by their disadvantages.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Goodking

[Jahadaya]

Yes they really need one. 

[manzotin]

Hi everyone.

 

I play wf from 4 month now, and i've always been a big melee fan. Here's my 2 cents on heavy weapons:

 

Heavies are intended to have larger attack radius than "small" weapons, so they can strike multiple foes at time. 

With this thought in mind you can easily understand why they have general lowest damage than fast weapons: if they had same or higher damage of small weapons, then small weapons would lose their role of single target damage focuser.

 

That being said, i do agree the gap between small and heavies is too wide. There's no meaning i can crit 3-4k several times with the 3rd swing -the multiple one- of my dual zoren\swirling tiger (no cat or forma) while the hardest avarage hit of my catalized Jat Kittag\crushing ruin never hits 2k. This starts to be a problem when enemies levels are beginning to raise up (~40-45), where armor levels are so high you barely deal some decent damage, bar for slide or jump attacks. And High levels is where melee really shines. With zorens, at that level i still simply walk trough normal foes due to the exceptional dmg output.

 

This, plus the more important fact small weapons have more mobility. And mobility in wf, especially for melee, is everything.

 

What i feel is that heavies are a bit tuned down for fear of breaking the game mechanics.

My personal thought for fixing it is:

- double or triple their base swing damage, half their crit%, leave the slide\jump\wall attacks as they are now.  This will lead to slow, non-spiky hard hitting weapons, which i think it's the concept of this category.

- vertical swings, intended to headshot foes, simply doesn't work this way 90% of time. I think this swings are a great idea, involving player's skill and not just swinging around mindlessy, and DE really should try make them work as intended. If not possible, just double their damage modifier and remove headshot chance, or make them auto-trigger an headshot.

- stances could use a wider selection of options. In a single stance i'd like to have one AOE combo and one "utility" combo wich could be a cone stun\knockdown\ragdoll, or movement maybe by jump or charge, and should be fastly accessible. Rare stances could include a 3rd, single target focused option (like Cleaving whirlwind Sundered Tusk.. wich btw is now useless because of Broken Bull exceptionally high damage). Make so that every combo has its role, and it's not just a different form of dealing damage.

- again regarding stances: having longer and/or more difficult combos is also something i'd like. And Heavy maces really need more combos.

 

Hope this feedback can help in bringing on this great game.

Cheers!