I Feel Like Glaives, Bouncing, And Power Throw Need To Be Re-Examined

[[DE]Momaw]

Been spending some quality time with my Glaive Prime.  And... well, there's some issues.

 

First of all, the random bouncing needs to go. Straight up no questions it needs to die. Maybe there is some physics god out there that can make the thing bounce in a useful fashion where they want it to go, but as far as I am concerned, the bouncing is purely a waste of time that keeps the weapon out of your hand and leaves you without a melee weapon. This then IMO forces the use of Quick Return to make the glaive perform the way it's supposed to. This also means the Rebound mod (+bounces) is completely useless.  If the glaive isn't hitting enemies while it's bouncing, then having it bounce around longer is just compounding the waste of time.

 

Things would probably be better if the glaive, by default, had zero bounces and was simply a dumb projectile that went out and came back.  Then, Quick Return and Rebound could be replaced with Aftertouch from DarkSector;  higher ranks of Aftertouch add more bounces to the glaive's flight, and on each bounce it attempts to track to whatever the player's crosshair is pointing at. A skilled player could then make multiple kills per throw by "painting" targets quickly enough and at the proper moment, or cause the glaive to immediately return by pointing at their feet.

 

Then we come to Power Throw.  Which frustrates me because I really really want my glaive to pierce through enemies so I can throw it into mobs, but then...it explodes. Which, again, pretty much forces the use of Quick Return so that you can have control over when and where it explodes e.g. not in your face. And even with Quick Return it strongly discourages you from throwing the glaive in close quarters because anything that it can't pierce will count as a bounce (the only bounce) and make it explode. So you have to be absolutely paranoid about not only walls and floors, but even some enemy types which are too thick for the glaive to punch through.

 

Life would be improved if the glaive had punch through by default.  Also, quite frankly, being able to make the glaive explode without actually equipping it as your weapon seems a bit cheesy. So my suggestion is to rework Power Throw so that instead of making the glaive explode on its last bounce, it gives the glaive a massive chance to proc elemental status effects of your build. Power Throw then allows performance more similar to what DarkSector showed, where it inflicted elemental effects after being charged up and thrown.

[Lactamid]

Glaive needs some love, same goes for Kestrel. The self damage is a pain when using glaive/ glaive prime and pretty much forces you to take some kind of hp-backup with you (understandable, but still).

 

While off topic, a mods that increased the size of if would be nice. Possibly a corrupted mod with some downside like flight speed. Another mod that would be nice would be a "rapid throw" mod.

Out of the box - a second glaive that you could throw independantly but for 1/2 damage. Off hand weapon (knife, pistolwhipping, baton?) or hand to hand fighting technique when glaive is in flight.

 

 

 

Edit:

Channeling on thrown weapons is a bit odd too. Don't really know when this works or not. Life strike on ranged/multiple hits?

Edited August 26, 2014 by Lactamid

[Egg_Chen]

Some good thoughts there, certainly would not mind a 0 bounce by default!

However I can't say I have ever tried a max bounce build, maybe in confined spaces it has uses.

If default was 0 double Rebounds effect so that was still possible (some may use it).

Proc idea is good as well, would really bring utility to the weapon.

[Ghost_1302]

The glaive and kestral are my favourite melee weapons, and I have put quite alot of time and effort into mastering them. In my opinion the only real problem with them is the randomness of the bounce. Other than that (while I do miss the stagger on enemies in close combat) I have no complaints and completely adore the weapons. 

[[DE]Momaw]

I can't say I have ever tried a max bounce build, maybe in confined spaces it has uses.

 

I have. It wasn't useful.  Hilarious when combined with a maxed Whirlwind mod because it flies so fast that you can't even see it. But not useful.

[Sev7n]

The glaive definitely needs some work but i do not agree that power throw should be changed. The explosion it gives the weapon is very useful for dealing with groups of enemies at a distance and is one of the main reasons i use it but the amount of damage it deals on a player really needs to be fixed. 1 toss of the glaive up close can easilly kill your self and half the time it explodes half way towards an enemy

Also with the punch through on the glaive, it does go through enemies, the only one it is not going through are heavy enemies and all corpus robots now. I am not sure if this is intentional of it or not and have brought it up numerous times trying to get an answer but never succeeded.

 

All in all i'd like to see the glaive's punch through work on all enemies and not just a select few. And  i'd like to see the explosion created by power throw changed so that it either deals a fraction of its total damage on yourself or the explosion does not activate mid flight or on first contact with heavy enemies / robots (which is probably because its punch through is all screwed up though)

 

 

*Also i been playing with a max return / power throw glaive, i never tried a bounce build*

[Psychotoxin]

I once Stealthkilled a dude with my glaive, and then after the bounce, it killed another dude, right around the corner...

 

That happened once... And since i'm a fan of the Glaive and Kestrel, i use it rather often. Bounce is kinda meh in it's current state. But maybe instead of tracking the crosshair, it could bounce towards the nearest enemy. That way you can toss it into a room, and just wait for it to return, with some guarantee that atleast 2-3 dudes will die.

 

The explosion is nice in survival runs, when you can just toss it at the large groups of dudes coming at you, and have most of them go down. But it's a double-edged sword, with the sharper side towards the player...

[[DE]Momaw]

I'm not a fan of glaive bounces automatically tracking toward enemies, because it leads to more autopilot gameplay. You could just throw it around corners completely out of harm's way, throw it into hordes without even looking, etc. I prefer features that give interactive gameplay.

 

And as far as the glaive exploding, you can do that by switching to your glaive then throwing it and activating your channeling while it's in mid flight. I'm not proposing to take the exploding away, only that in order to do it you should have to actually pull out your glaive as your chosen weapon.  Being able to cause a huge explosion dealing thousands of AOE damage as a "quick melee" action is kind of silly.

[Noble_Cactus]

Rebound is good for starting the glaive headphone blowout glitch. That's it.

 

Innate punch through, 0 default rebounds, and that Power Throw status change are things that I fully support.

[BrazilianJoe]

I think that people are describing the two mechanics which should be stances of the glaive.

 

Default Glaive: Instead of rebounds, throwing a glaive should have a number of 'ticks', where it spins shredding the enemy. It keeps spinning on the same enemy ticking until it dies. If it kills the enemy or flight time ends, it comes back to the player's hand. 

 

Mods:

 

Whirlwind: makes damage ticks faster, inflicting more ticks over its flight time. 

Rebound: increases flight time, increasing overall damage. 

 

Both can be combined for long flight + ticking faster, for damage galore.

 

Stances: 

 

Sentient Obliterator: Once the glaive 'ticks' the target to death, if it still has time/ticks to spare, it goes on the way to the closest enemy and proceeds to shred it. Rinse and repeart until it runs out of flight time. 

 

Gleaming Talon: Gives 'paint the target' functionality to the Glaive, letting it hover in mid-air and targeting the enemy on the player's reticule. 

[Archistopheles]

Can we throw the glaive without swinging it once yet? I'd be inclined to make that top priority.

[Rexlars]

Can we throw the glaive without swinging it once yet? I'd be inclined to make that top priority.

 

Just hold E.