Spiral Knights - Some considerations for the presumed sword update

Some considerations for the presumed sword update

31 replies [Last post]

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 13:48

Fehzor

GIven the recent influx of handgunosity, it would only feel right to provide players with a sword (and bomb) oriented update. While it is tempting to say that bombs need it most and should therefore get it first, it could also be the case that handguns and swords should be used as a measure of what bombs should be capable of, and should therefore be changed first. If there were to be a sword based update in the works, this thread is essentially what I would hope for on top of the obvious update that I anticipate.

First, the obvious update would be several new swords including 3 specialized leviathan blades, a repeat of the new gunner armor but for swords, and a few variations on existing weapons. All of this would presumably be at Basil, and I think this would be fine compared to the new gunner sets.

Regarding split damage

Currently, there exists an issue with the way swords receive damage bonuses. Divine avenger and acheron receive a lot of damage bonus from damage ups, as they deal damage twice. This is becuase that damage is typically calculated as follows:

Damage dealt = (base damage * damage bonus) - (monster defense)

So if you deal 100 damage to a mob with 100 defense and you buff that 100 damage by 10%, you get 20 extra damage back because you buffed the portion that was subtracted beforehand. However, when weapons deal damage more than once in the cases of cutters and brandish line weapons, they get a LOT more damage back because that enemy's defenses are being counted twice. Instead of getting 20 damage back, they get 30 damage back because they dealt 300 damage overall that was subtracted twice by that 100 defense.

This isn't innately bad. Some swords deserve to build up their damage values faster than other weapons, and it can really be used to influence the way people use swords in general. Here is what I propose:

Divine avenger, gran faust and fang of Vog: 1x specialized damage, split their normal component a second time = ramp up faster than brandishes

Sudaruska and triglav: 3x normal damage = keep pace with divine avenger and gran faust, including on the charge attack

Dread venom striker: 2x normal damage on the main hit = ramp up fast enough to surpass most other swords

Wild hunting blade: split normal and piercing damage on the main hit; more on this later

Leviathan blade: Gets 2x normal or split normal/specialized on variants. Stun leviathans would remain unchanged.

Flourishes: Get a small buff in their initial damage. Not enough to be a big deal in lockdown, enough to overcome acheron against beasts

All of the above would keep their initial damage values. Dread venom striker would still deal 108 damage in T3, but would now deal a lot more than that when given damage bonuses. Finally, this change would optimally be mentioned somewhere to newer and even older knights, possibly during a loading screen- "Some swords with split damage values react particularly well when given damage ups! Use this to your advantage!"

Correcting sword's weaknesses

The key weak points to using handguns prior to the gunner update were close ranged encounters and lack of area damage, and we saw both of these fixed up via the iron slug, tortofists, and buffs to autogun lines. Similarly, the key weakness of swords is range and safety.

Now, we do have a ranged sword, and it is known as the winmillion. It would be a good idea to buff this winmillion, as it would appease people in much the same way buffing the iron slug did. If we are to parallel slug's change to fixing area of effect, winmillion would be given better damage and better range, as well as better mobility and specialized damage.

New winmillion-
General changes: projectile range doubled or just increased, knockback on hits doubled or just increased, all disks generated after lunge/slashing rather than before.

Hit one: sped up by 12% = asi high; the projectile now deals the sword slash's damage * 1.3 and resembles the charge

Hit two: slightly further lunge, 3 projectiles generated at the end of the lunge. Projectles deal current projectile damage, slash deals current slash damage

Hit three: third hit deals 1.3 times current third hit damage, shoots a single current-charge projectile

Charge: Becomes cutter charge, launching energy disks in a straight line on every swing.

With this, winmillion becomes incredibly damaging and offers something new to the table in the form of its now functional ranged attacks. Since it does not deal very good area damage, it does not conflict with many of the other swords. Winmillion should also gain some sort of variations for different damage types, as that would add greatly to the apeal of such a weapon. I would like to see these be pure piercing and shadow + fire, as we are currently lacking shadow and piercing related swords.

Balance to existing swords

The reason that brandishes are NOT the only weapons used is because other weapons can do what they do but better. For instance, warmaster rocket hammer deals more single target damage, faster. But warmaster rocket hammer is a limited DLC weapon, and another line that could be doing this job isn't- the cutter series.

I propose that we make cutters deal TONS of damage at a close range to one enemy. They should just eat through this enemy like they're made of cake... and they already do this, but not well enough as they were nerfed towards the end of the beta period. I already gave them some extra damage when applied to them above, and they really aren't far from doing what they should.

Suggested tweaks to cutter line weapons-

Dread venom striker: higher chance of dealing the poison would make the sword behave much better, as it already works wonders when mobs are poisoned.

Better charge for all: It's simple really. Generate an attack boosting orb for 20 seconds upon connecting with any enemy during the charge, or just at all. This makes charge time reduction valuable with the sword, as making it do crazy damage is really the goal here.

Consider nerfing the sword's range a tiny bit and remove knockback: This would guarantee that the sword only hits one target, and that it does as much damage as possible to that one target. There are a good many people that wouldn't like this for good reason, however. Perhaps a new sword line could also be created to have this kind of a change?

Introduce a shadow variant, based on the one held by certain enemies: This allows the sword to crush gremlin menders, and generally makes it more fruity. It would be a variant of wild hunting blade, and would deal better damage to gremlins

Another sword line that good number of people would want to see upgraded would be the troikas. There exists a certain mythical shock themed variant known on the official spiral knights wiki as "The third troika". This sword would be very appreciated in game, and would potentially add a lot to heavy swords.. but first, it would be fairly poor if it was just divine avenger but with a sudaruska smash.

The third troika:

deals split 1x elemental + 2x normal

Damage up by 30% over current troikas

Attack speed decreased by 20%

Knockback increased by 20%

Movement speed decreased by "med" = 8%, just for wielding

Thunder charge, increased area of effect and grants attack up orb at start, 40% slower than suda/triglav

Shock dealt on charge only

This would be a REALLY heavy sword. It would be incredibly good for hiding and then attacking at the opportune moment, and would more than anything create new opportunities to use heavy swords purely by how different it is. Definitely would be a sword worth looking into if you need a boost to your offenses.

The fourth troika, designed after Maulos' maul:

Same mechanics as the third troika mentioned above

Instead of elemental + shock, deals split piercing normal, with ice on it's charge

The idea here being that one sword alone for this mechanic would be a waste, when we can have another interesting sword choice for piercing. People have long wanted a piercing troika to begin with, and I think they should get one. Another idea would be to make it akin to the new gilded griffin, and behave more like a sealed sword than anything else. I'd be down with this as well.

As the final heavy sword in need of balance, gran faust's charge attack is garbage. Like really garbage, because it takes forever and often messes up, hurting you in the process, getting stuck in walls... really it needs reworking, especially when faust is flat out better than gran faust because of it. Why is this? Becuase you can become immune to faust's charge! I would recomend-

Gran Faust:

Same self inflicted curse chance as faust

Same charge time as faust

Same curse against enemies it currently has, better odds of causing this curse

This brings us to the three hit swords, specifically, cold iron vanquisher. If there is a pure elemental version of leviathan blade introduced, and there should be, then it would only make sense to differentiate cold iron vanquisher. I've seen a ton of ideas that I like backing this up, but the easiest acceptable way would be to make it into the COLD iron vanquisher.

New COLD iron:

Same bad damage with undead buff, and split normal + normal, potentially elemental/normal

Amazing chance of freeze on charge attacks

OK chance of stun on charge attacks

I would also love a stun themed leviathan introduced, on par with the new celestial saber but drastically less fancy and cool. That's why you get the saber anyway- because it looks sweet, not because it stuns.

Lastly-

I want flamberg to be a shadow themed sword, as every single monster it is good against just isn't weak to fire damage, and it ends up making the sword just behave poorly. I'd also like to see rigadoon's stun chance buffed a bit, as it is currently just not very stunning. These are kind of knit picky things, but they make a tangible difference, I swear they do.

Another idea I had for flamberg can be found here- http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/106002

----------------------------

Regardless of whether my ideas are seen/used, I look forward to the great work that will hopefully be put into a sword balancing update at some point. For those of you reading along at home, please note that all numbers given were pulled from a hat, and are subject to change. In fact, I want them to change my numbers here with testing, but to consider the general ideas behind them. These sorts of numbers are purely meant to make a point, and there is no need to have a 5 page argument about whether my post says 20% or 30%.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:04

Jungle-Sword

sry...

I think swords du not need a buff/update. they have many armors, shadow, piercing and elemental, and have pretty much the highest DPS in the game (not counitng blitz cuz blitz is only good against vana). What OOO COULD do are some balancing/tweaks to the swords. Maybe that was your idea, but you seem to go more towards an entire update.
In general, bombs need a update. there are hardly any good DPS bombs (only nitro, DBB and DR) and armors we don't even have to talk about. No piercing armor, kat stuff is ridiculous and the other stuff like mad bomber (*facepalm*) and bombastic nobody needs. That leaves us left with volcanic and mercurial demo. Oh, and chaos I guess >.<
we need new kind of bombs, for example bombs where you can control WHEN it detonates or just a better version of cold snap/firecracker/static flash would be good.
I'm kinda going off topic, sry, but i really don't think swords ned an update

what makes me sad is that this thread will go down like every other thread in the suggestions forum without any comment or notice of OOO....it's pretty discouraging

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:13

Vohtarak-Forum

I'm vohtarak, call me by that name

although I dont quite agree with your logic of putting the sword update first
i find all of these ideas to be balanced

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:25

Xveronica

Sword update to buff the normals weapons

If theres a sword update i would like to know that ooo will buff the normal weapons
Like adding more dmg and statuses to them

Levi does stun
CIV freeze

or making that the max dmg they can get would be +8

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:35

Fehzor

@Jungle-sword

I really don't buy that we don't need a sword update. Most of the buffs I suggested are not buffs to good swords like combuster, but subtle buffs to existing swords like sudaruska/dread venom striker that would make their mathematics come out such that they are more capable. The only huge buffs I gave were to winmillion, and it needs it. The other reason we need this is because... well...

Currently, we have:

Swords) 19 easily accessible swords (not celestial sabre)
Guns) 30 easily accessible handguns (not mixmaster)

Swords) 2 kinds of shadow swords
Guns) 4 kinds of shadow guns

Swords) 1 kind of piercing sword
Guns) 4 kinds of piercing guns

Swords) A limited number of defense types and bonuses on swords from armor
Guns) Every possible defense type and bonus on guns

Swords) A lack of power when it comes to attacking at a range and safely
Guns) Almost flawless coverage when it comes to everything, between all guns

Swords) No armor that gives charge time reduction for just swords
Guns) Several GOOD armors that give charge time reduction to just guns

Swords) Several glaring balance flaws
Guns) Almost perfectly balanced; much better than I ever thought I'd see

@Oohnorak

I'd be fine with a bomb update first, though I really just want them to take their time, think this through, and not have to revisit it. Balance is a dirty business, and if they need to do a sword update to gauge the much harder bomb update, I think it would be fine. It's up to them.

@Xveronica

Oooh, good points. I missed those! I'll go back and change it.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:43

Sloveniangirl

If you still can see don't look at me!

The Third Troika won't ever be available for players because it is something that GMs own.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:48

Fehzor

Why shouldn't it be available to players? Game masters own quite a few things that aren't available to players just yet, but are being made available as time goes on. Beyond that, I think that a lot of players, especially myself included, would enjoy such a third troika... yeah, it's a bit selfish, but don't you want to strike lightening everywhere? That's awesome!

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:58

Fangel

It's something

Cutters already have super low range, don't think decreasing their range would be the best idea... Unless we fixed that hitbox thing where attacks register from where you were not where you move when you attack. If that's fixed as a part of the update, great! Cutter range can be decreased.
I would also probably bring acheron down in damage, or bring it down to the same level as other brandishes and give it a status like stun. It's not a heavy sword, dengit.

Piercing troika is a bit off. I'm not one to really think we should smack different damage types onto pre-existing swords and call it good. However if we made a piercing leviathan blade then I guess a piercing troika wouldn't be too far off either. Just seems not that great to trap players into slow swords against enemies that almost require fast weapons.
Split piercing on the hunting blade hits got me thinking... What if the standard hits did normal damage and the phantom wolf bites did piercing?

Alternatively, we could do what Zeddy said a long time ago and just make all split damage weapons do only specialized damage. Personally I'd like to see normal damage on split damage swords to be reduced and specialized damage increased so that it's as effective against weak enemies, about the same against neutral, but terrible against strong enemies. Combuster shouldn't be that good against gremlins, and acheron wouldn't out-damage my magma driver against zombies. I know it's a sword but seriously...

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 14:58

Sloveniangirl

If you still can see don't look at me!

I know but I honestly think that they don't have time for all this and none of GM weapons were never released for players. I think I will just keep playing with my mountain.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 17:00

Fehzor

@Sloveniangirl

They don't have time to take an existing weapon, change its numbers and test it?

@Fangel

Having split normal does the following-

A) Same effect as a pure damage weapon without damage bonuses- if a mob is weak, it would be the same as if it were all of that damage type.
B) Increases the damage reduced on neutral targets, implying more base damage that increases more with buffs.
C) Increases the weapon's ability to utilize the poison status
D) Effects mobs that resist the weapon better, which is kind of meh when you can just attack them with other specialized damage

So when I say "Give gran faust 1x specialized damage and 2x normal damage" I mean-

A) Increase the damage AND the resistance that gran faust dishes out, such that these things come out equal.

B) Which means increasing the damage it gets from buffs by the new resistance added in- at the end of T3, this increase is (164 * 1.24) - 164 = +40 points of damage per hit with max damage... or with an attack orb and max damage, 164 * 1.24 * 1.3 - 164 = +100 damage per hit. Many good cases have also been made as to why them having the same damage values isn't the end of the world.

Rather than killing the brandishes completely which I think would be particularly cruel to all the players that rely on them so readily, I would like to make heavy swords a better option, especially with damage bonuses applied. Similarly, a stunning acheron would be resisted quite often by a number of enemies, and the poisonous version would be much nicer- I don't want to create a second furious flamberg. If there were more shadow + stun weak enemies, I could see it, but the main ones are weak to poison and resist stun.

Keep in mind that cutters would be getting the buff of a lifetime from this change as well. Some hypothetical damage values calculated using the wiki:

DVS(current, no buffs) = 175
DVS(current, max damage) = 295

DVS(my specialized vs neutral targets, no buffs) = 175
DVS(my specialized vs effective targets, no buffs) = 257
DVS(my specialized, max damage, neutral) = 315
DVS(my specialized, max damage, neutral) = 397

I think giving up a smidgeon of range to deal 397 damage per hit with a 5 hit combo is only fair. Effecting more than one enemy would double or tripple this damage output, when really it should only be applied at close range and high risk.

----------------------

As for the piercing troika/sealed line- it's something that people want, and I don't think it will function so poorly since many devilites etc. have such low health as is, and you can use the existing sudaruska to smash trojans and grievers that are assaulting your team members. The increased damage would just absolutely tear through devilites with this, so every hit you got in would be devastating, and charges would be capable of crushing waves of the things instantly provided you can land them.

Since we already have fast 3 hit swords to deal with these enemies, I thought this new direction would at least prove interesting and at worse enable the player to REALLY kill off beasts, whom already provide pretty nice fodder for heavy swords of this sort.

----------------------

And yes, fixing sword hitboxes would optimally be part of this- in the same manner as fixing the gun charges getting stuck on stuff was for the gunner update. This would also be a huge buff to weapons like divine avenger and gran faust, whose charges get stuck behind the wielder.

The reason I didn't go with what Zeddy said is because of how powerful handguns are. If we nerfed swords down, then handguns would feel far stronger in comparison. The sword has always been the hallmark of the knight, and I'd like to see them feel powerful given their ranged disadvantage over handguns. Like I said in the OP, it isn't necessarily a bad thing that swords ramp up faster in terms of damage like they do.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 19:57

#10

Blandaxt

ups and downs

@Fehzor:

- Things i liked:

Most of your ideas seemed sound and did not in anyway in my opinion feel over powered. There are some i did not like just cause of aesthetic looks which did not match damage types, but overall that does sound like a good update for swords (although i can argue that it is limited and not expanded enough to be a real update).

1. Agreed with the ramp up charge time of the cutter series cause for some reason, the remind me of the shard bomb but in sword version.

2. Agree with divine avenger, fang of vog, and gran faust changes. But also wish that problem where the attack gets stuck is fixed.

3. I totally agree with you about giving the leviathan increase U.V effects and i also wish that any normal damage output weapon or gear that do not inflict or protect against a status effect receives this boost.

4. Agreed to buffing flourishes attack output but, i feel this attack boost should be reserved for the Barbarous Thorn blade and Final Flourish and Deadly candy poker. The other Flourish type like the Fearless Rigadoon, Furious Flamberge and Furious Fork should have a boost in their status ailment infliction and an added effect. Something like for fearless rigadoon to have an effect that gives the target a sort of uncontrollable effect when stunned. This uncontrollable effect can be described as when the target moves to one spot, the targets keeps moving for a couple more steps from the intended coordinates it wanted to stop at. like a sliding on ice effect. Furious Flamberge and Furious Fork can have a searing burn effect where if the player where to strike a target that is on fire, it would get a boost in damage value. These kinds of effect could be hard to program, but i feel these kinds of effects make the game more interesting rather then just boosting the numeric values.

5. Agree with adding third Troika, but disagree with making it slower then triglav and sudaraska. I think this sword should instead have a follow up thunder attack. Most troikas on their charge attack, after the sword smashes on the ground, they emit a geyser like energy ave that knocks-back any enemies near the point of origin. I think This troika should instead of emitting a geyser like energy wave, would instead summon a gigantic Lighting bolt at the point of the blades impact which will of course inflict the shock status. After this attack, upon the knight pulling the sword from the ground, a loud thunder will explode from the player like a 5 star bomb. This bomb will not do push-back nor will it inflict damage but will instead stun all enemies surrounding the player for 1 to 2 seconds. This stun effect though is more described as immobilize effect where the monsters will stand still like statues for 1 to 2 seconds.

6. Agree with the dreaded venom striker having stronger poison, and would also be great if it could do extra damage towards all healing type monsters.

- Things i did not like:

1. Disagree with wild hunting blade having split piercing damage because i think its good that the cutter series do not receive specialized damage and remain a neutral sword with status effects. I would rather have the wild hunting blade have a sort of bleed or wear and tear effect where for each hit that lands on the enemy reduces that enemies over all defense which allows the next hit to take out greater damage. I feel Effects should be the strong points of the cutter series and not damage specialized value.

2. I disagree with splitting the leviathan blade into 3 different parts and giving them specialized damage. I am already against what happen to the valiance where it was split up into 3 parts (piercing, shadow, and elemental) and given specialized value. These weapons already are completed in my point of view and i really am against re-skin weapons with small tweaks in damage output and labeled as updates. I think the leviathan is a great weapon and if ever will be boosted, should instead be given more of a function change. Something like It only doing knock back on it's charge attack only when it's third hit lands allowing the first and second hit to be landed without the knock back throwing the target out of the swords range. Also, increasing the range of the sword by a little only on the charge attack would be a great addition in my opinion.

3. Disagree with the fourth troika. I feel the troika is a smashing type of weapon and i just can't imagine a smashing type weapon doing piercing damage, especially sense the charge attack functions as a smash action rather then a thrust or lunge that indicates action to push through as in pierce. I think having the flourish reserved to piercing melee damage is pretty balanced but would be great if they could expand that line with the spear idea that is being discussed in another thread (http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/106853). So, sense we already have triglav and i cannot see aesthetically the troika doing piercing, i think we should just keep it at 3 types of status troikas (shock, ice and stun).

4. I disagree with having an ice status cold iron vanquisher. I feel this weapon just like the cutter series needs more of a unique effect to the sword rather then giving it a status effect or changing it damage values. I feel this sword needs more of a "I rule the undead, fear me effect". So i was thinking that why not make it that when ever the sword inflicts damage to an undead enemy, that enemy will lose target of that player for a set amount of time. So basically that undead monster will be blind and wander about as if their isn't a player attacking it (like being cloaked by the maskeraith ability). This ability will be similar to a status effect and will have more of a high chance of inflicting sense the sword is suppose to specialize in killing undead enemies. The amount of time this effect is active can be similar to the amount of time it takes for for fire on vanaduke level to wear of on an armor that is weak to the fire status.

5. I disagree with the shadow furious flamberge. I think the flamberge aesthetically, is a weapon designated to piercing sense it was modeled after the flourish. I cannot imagine the flamberge doing shadow damage because it attack pattern function signifies it does more thrusting actions which in my point of view is piercing type weapon. I think the idea i proposed at the top plus the status buff will give this weapon a good edge in terms of balance.

Your ideas are great, but in terms of a big update for swords: i feel there should be new swords, new swords that have different functions or combos and and all of these weapons should not just be recolored and damage specialized tweaked re-skins.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 20:05

#11

Fehzor

I would rather they give out unique effects to weapons as well, actually. Of course, the thought here is to preserve all of what we already have, and add more options onto it that way because that's basically what they did with the handguns. It only makes sense to do to the same for swords, as the purpose of a swordsman update would be to balance the current sword situation with that of handguns, and eventually to balance the bomb situation as well.

Wed, 12/17/2014 - 20:30

#12

Blandaxt

WEll..

@Fehzor:

Well i agree to your point. If purely for balancing and not introducing anything new, then balancing out the current gear to give them the actual intended effect of being a fully functional 5 star gear program that allow players to be versatile in combat without any bug issues and low weapon functionality, then your post to the tweaks in attack values are right on. But to part about changing damage values of existing gear and introducing new gear of lines that have a function that do not relate too much to that specific damage value change i do not agree with. Balancing the gear in sk definitely needs attention and your post towards that point is an excellent change to sk.

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 06:24

#13

Sloveniangirl

If you still can see don't look at me!

@Fehzor Did they ever took time to support any ideas made by players? Ofc not if they were/are too busy with promos... Sorry but that's true.

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 08:05

#14

Gunnerific

Hurk

So much info, So little grey matter.

1)Split damage: mmm Didn't knew splite damage is calculated such, kinda wish other weapons have split damage now. That or remove the concept/fix split damage overall.

2)Building damage: should reduce the use of sheild canceling and proper practice of the sword's full combo, great idea.

3) Correcting weakness: everything should have it's cons -1

4)Balancing: im not Keen on the melee weapon to comment on the improvement but they seem rational.

Cupcake for you!

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 08:57

#15

Avihr

Void

I am only concerned about the messed up hitbox thingy in swords and brandishes being the master sword of epic destruction....or winmillion's lack of a 5* upgrade... or cutters charge attack. However I have no real expectations for there to ever be a bomber or a sword update honestly.

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 16:46

#16

Fehzor

"Everything should have it is

"Everything should have it is cons"

Lol, swords would still be swords after this.. they'd just have a safer, ranged option in winmillion. I kind of agree that they should still have weaknesses, this is just on par with how handgun weaknesses were "patched"- yes, handguns are still weak in general to the same things, they just have options that give them some kind of coverage in the form of tortofists and now magnus line weapons.

@Slovenian

Yes, they do take the time to read and implement suggestions here. Even if they disagree with everything people post, they do read some of it unless it's about shard bombs or the lack of ultra poison barriers. Like how can they not? It's their game.

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 21:05

#17

Xxpapaya

The papaya has a request

Could someone give me a link to the presumed sword update? If there is one that is. The lack of search engines and the abundance of horrible internet isn't exactly helping my search.

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 21:54

#18

Avihr

Void

It is "presumed" because there is no official statement about it papaya...

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 22:54

#19

Xxpapaya

The papaya is appalled by his idiocy

@Aviri
*Laughs nervously* Pffff, I knew that XD

@OP
The only two swords I happen to use on a regular basis are the WHB and DVS, Vog knows why I bought them instead of bombs, but never mind that. I mostly agree with the proposed changes: There've been too many times in which I launched myself into the fray with my DVS and ended up with

-5 health bars lost
-A status of some sort
-No monsters dead (with most of them receiving only up to 2 hits at the most due to knockback)
-No monsters poisoned
-A damaged ego

Part of the reason for this is probably due to my incompetence with swords, but if I can pull off the same stunt, but with much better results, with my Leviathan, then yeah, it probably means something is woefully wrong with the current existing cutter line.

That being said, I have a few concerns:

-Won't the reduction of range from the cutter line result in users being more vulnerable? I mean, the cutter line largely relies on consecutive hits to rack up damage. While the reduction of range and removal of a knock back certainly will make it much easier to kill one target, doesn't that mean that the other monsters around you will be free to attack while you are freestyle butchering one mob?

Fri, 12/19/2014 - 02:19

#20

Fehzor

I'd be incredibly concerned and confused if there was no sword or bomb update to parallel the handgun update- there isn't any reason for the combat system to revolve entirely around handguns.

The reason I said to remove the knockback was because doing so would ramp up the damage by always having the secondary strike hit. I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing to keep it, if people would prefer. The reason for the range was to keep the cutter series grounded somehow, so that we don't end up in cutterknights. I don't know that it would be so necessary either, honestly. Perhaps I'll cut that part out of the OP.

Fri, 12/19/2014 - 05:52

#21

Xxpapaya

The papaya giggles

Now I want a Bomb Update D: Did they change the fact that Knights pose with their bombs in the exact same way as they do with handguns and swords? I haven't checked in a while, but it looked ruddy ridiculous.

Fri, 12/19/2014 - 05:52

#22

Xxpapaya

The papaya giggles

Sat, 12/20/2014 - 16:45

#23

Sonosuke

I'm done being serious. Time to revel in insanity.

This is a bit off topic, but how do you suppose they design the new Sword Update armors? We've already got two rather well-known designs of sword users in-game, them being a Medieval Knight (Cobalt Line) and a Japanese Samurai (Shogun Helmet + Weather Warrior Helms (then again they could design something different for this one)).

Then again, the Sentinel and Shade lines don't necessarily match with Guns. The Shade Line seems based around Shinobi and Kunoichi, who are known more for bladed weapons that, although can be used at a range, are primarily used in close quarters. And the Sentinel Armor just seems... off, since they're advertised as Gunner Armor.

Coming back on-topic-ish-sorta-kinda-not-really. You do realize what Cold Iron is, right?

Sat, 12/20/2014 - 23:08

#24

Fehzor

I do know what cold iron is. This would make cold iron vanquisher much more punny, and people have in the past wanted ice on the weapon anyway.

Sat, 06/24/2017 - 05:41

#25

Neekkoth

Bump/Necro

Interesting. Could this still apply?

Sat, 06/24/2017 - 11:55

#26

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

No-More-Starlight = my alt, or rather, a name I used to use

These ideas ought to still apply, but I've since moved towards just buffing normal sword damage rather than correcting the way they'd function. I'd rather them get corrected, but fear that it would be work.

Mon, 06/26/2017 - 09:38

#27

Neekkoth

I see

Yes, I guess fine-tuning numbers is somthing GH either has no time for or is afraid of... sadly.

I was also considering halving the brandish's line normal damage (excuding cautery) and boosting their special damage, so they are less all-round-ish.
But thats just my gut-feeling.

I think Fangel's suggestion to balance damage around the number of hits needed to kill a mob is the most efficient in this case, where numbers are all over the place anyway.
Take the Leviathan, fix a sensible amount of hits against every enemy in every tier and reduce or increase that number for the other swords accordingly.

The feeling of the sword is most important imo - if I use a heavy sword, I want a heavy knock back, hit few times, but the few times I hit should be devastating.

Mon, 06/26/2017 - 09:47

#28

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

The problem with Mr. Fangel's idea of "by hits needed" is at what depth and damage amount it applies- in one situation it would be the same hits, in another it would completely change, yes under the same circumstances. Otherwise I'd be fine with Mr. Fangel. Spiral Knights is convoluted in how its dual typed weapons work.

Tue, 06/27/2017 - 09:26

#29

Neekkoth

Mmmh

So I guess it's tampering with core mechanics either way.

Seeing how the only weapons to deal Split-Normal damge are the brandish line, FoV, and the sealed sword line, I'd rather see it removed, if that means we can make more weapons usable/fun again.

Wed, 06/19/2019 - 10:12

#30

Kenpachi-Espada

Sword Update Yes

This would be great.

Wed, 06/19/2019 - 20:42

#31

Tpen-Five-Fun

Nice necro'd thread but...

I think swords do not need a buff/update. they have many armors, shadow, piercing and elemental, and have pretty much the highest DPS in the game

Lmao it's just brandishes and toothpicks, sealed swords and wmrh are a second.... The rest are gimmicky or garbage crap.

Nice forum topic but.... are the devs gonna see this??? O_O

Search

Some considerations for the presumed sword update