Test Feedback: Weapon Adjustments Round 1

The childish replies to my comments show exactly how baseless the accusation is the quirky and cool original dsikguns would have bugs. Their behaviour is clearly intended. They shoot swirly air and gravitational currents and it does special things.

Of course I don't really think Blitz (and all other autoguns) needs to be nerfed, but that's exactly how people sound to me, saying Orbit/Mixy would need to be fixed. People without fantasy trying to ruin a good game. If they succeed, top whales and long term players, pinnacles to the community and funding of SK will leave. All, because someone people have the delusion a mob attacking instead of hopping around is somehow a problem. Games need a variety of things and some should be special. It spices things up.

this does have some merit, but i dont really see how mixer/orbit are supposed to be exclusive for this mechanic. how about it's moved to magnus guns? like the wolvers/devilities are so in awe of the bullets' size that the just stand there in shock and take the hit. and for the metaknights it'd just break through their shield like how mender's barrier pops after a few hits. idm this mechanic existing but i'd say magnus weapons having that would make more sense to me

> Their behaviour is clearly intended
sez who???

> Of course I don't really think Blitz (and all other autoguns) needs to be nerfed, but that's exactly how people sound to me, saying
> Orbit/Mixy would need to be fixed
ahhhhh. a hall of heroes weapon vs. the best weapons in the game locked behind a 10,000,000 crown paywall and in limited supply. apt comparison!

> People without fantasy trying to ruin a good game
your brain is NOT special 🥀🥀🥀

> If they succeed, top whales and long term players, pinnacles to the community and funding of SK will leave
sez who??? no they wont. they'll come running back the moment the next prize box rolls around.

Not a fan of changing Dread Venom Striker to Shadow damage. Obsidian Edge is right there. And Biohazard. And other Obsidian weapons (gun, bomb).

Just in general the answer to Normal damage being generally meh shouldn't be reducing the number of pure Normal damage weapons overall.

I encourage other users to get in touch with game masters about Zosu's conduct. Insulting other players is against the terms of service of Spiral Knights, which includes forum interactions. They've now been calling us delusional repeatedly, along with "childish" for disagreeing with them. Hardly what I would call a "pinnacle to the community".

On a side note, @Worvera, I suspect Zosu will probably repeat a previous claim that Magnus-type guns are already not dodged by enemies. This is untrue, if it gets brought up.

Although, as some of the feedback said, the buff for Wild Hunting Blade and Dread Venom Striker might be overtuned slightly. But if this is what people want. I honestly don't mind that.

• Dread Venom Striker Vs. Shadow mobs with Damage bonus maxed
• Dread Venom Striker Vs. Shadow mobs with No Damage bonus
• Dread Venom Striker Vs. Operation Crimson Hammer

Share the deets of your supplier, you seem to be high on something with the way you're yapping.

DVS and WHB damage does seem quite high after a bit more testing, but I think it's fine given that its aoe potential isn't there unless you combine it with any vortex bomb, or somehow manage to group enemies up without it.

However, I'd like to bring up the point of damage scaling from damage bonuses/reductions. A good chunk of the mono-type weapons currently suffer from receiving half the bonuses of split damage weapons. This doesn't impact weapons such as magnus line because of their sheer damage the charge attacks can output, but things like levi blade, amputator, flourishes etc. suffer from this greatly.

I wouldn't mind if WHB was to be pure piercing in terms of damage and DVS reverted to be pure normal as long as the formula used for calculating total damage with damage bonuses has been fixed.

If I'm not mistaken, the fix should be relatively simple - double the damage increases/decreases as a base and divide them by 2 for split damage weapons. That way split damage weapons remain unchanged.

As always, I could be wrong.

After playing for a bit, so far most of the changes I've tested seem fine, although I have not tested anything outside of the 5star cutter line and Mixmaster weapons thoroughly enough to give meaningful feedback, so I'll mostly just talk about these three weapons:

- The Dread Venom Striker seems generally quite balanced, the added shadow damage and stagger in certain attacks (including the charge attack, which makes it more usable, even if not so much with foes that don't stagger as easily), make the weapon much easier to use and definitely less underwhelming. It seems to be able to rival some of the strongest single-target weapons in the game while sharing their high-risk high-reward design, so I personally find it well-balanced.

- My opinion on the Wild Hunting Blade is quite similar to the Dread Venom Striker, although I do have a couple of gripes. The added stagger and damage are of course also very nice, it turns the weapon into a good single-target damage dealer. It notoriously struggles with a large amount of high-mobility fiends (as it should, of course), so pairing it with a Dark Briar Barrage is a no-brainier.
I am mildly intrigued as to why the slower attack speed was kept, though. Before this test server update, the Dread Venom Striker lacked stagger on its charge attack in exchange of a faster attack speed, while the Wild Hunting Blade had stagger on its charge attack while having a slower attack speed. Now that the Dread Venom Striker has stagger I would find it reasonable to give the Wild Hunting Blade the same attack speed, although I personally wouldn't find it as a massive deal if the attack speed went unchanged, both weapons are now really good regardless of that.

- I've also tested the Mixmaster (a weapon I've never had access to in the past, admittedly), which, despite the changes to modernize the bullets, I find preferable over other elemental guns such as the Arcana or Argent Peacemaker due to it's much higher damage per second and by extension I feel it may be still a bit too strong, but I may be bias in this case. I do gotta say that the projectiles of the Mandolin are much more visually appealing than the Mixmaster or Celestial Orbitgun, if it wasn't for the elemental damage, I would have definitely used the Mandolin over them.

Overall I find most changes correct and agreeable. I have certainly seen people commenting that the new cutters are a bit too strong in the damage department, but considering their high risk, small hitboxes and struggle with large enemy groups when compared to more versatile weapons such as Combuster, Acheron and other blades from the Brandish line, I think it's justified.

Change is great! Thanks for balancing those forgotten weapon!

-- Cutters
I love it. I also agree with some, the normal damage poison cutter line is cool, and I would prefer a new shadow line (with fire for example, would make it great to run ice queen shadow lair). I really love having a piercing and shadow cutter lines.
The alpha claw reskin where not switched to piercing dmg, is that intended? I would highly like them to be switch the piercing, aligned with the wild hunting blade.

-- Disk gun
I agree with aligning the orbit gun and mixmaster on the mandolin, including the increase dmg on return bullet (did not seemed in when testing (06/09)), seems fair, still maintain the guns efficiency and likability (going through monster shield seems like cheating).

-- GF
Thanks for buffing, I also prefer the slower travel time of the charge attack arrow (more dmg) but with the new lower waiting time (when the arrow hover).
Buff on the GF would be nice: I still find it to be an unattractive weapon due to the curse malus. The curse malus is a nice mechanic, but the counter part gain from the weapon should be worse the risk, does not feel like it now. So keep the malus, buff the weapon (please).

-- Triglav and co
So nice too! could be even a bit more buffed (when compared to brandish line, dmg per second is still under). I like the idea I read somewhere of having the charge bringing in monster instead of pushing them out.
I would prefer to have the Triglav to deal shadow damage rather than normal, for more variety (would make it a great weapon to run Compound 42 danger mission).

I cannot resist putting there my hope for catalyser and tortofist balance too!

Thanks for the love you are giving to this game!

--- Cutters ---
The increase in damage is amazing, they're meant to be high damage single target weapons and these changes definitely make them feel like it. The changes to damage types for the Hunting blade and Vile striker to have piercing and shadow respectively is a most welcome change to deal with the more mobile enemies that are usually a pain to deal with, It's great to now have viable weapons with a different playstyle from the usual meta.

There are some things to mention however. It would be nice if you could shield cancel the charge attack at any moment, being one of the most mobile swords there is makes it very detrimental to have a charge that roots you for as long as it does. Even if you were to position yourself to avoid most enemies, anything that comes from the side or the back can easily hit you during the duration of the charge; having a way to cancel the charge at any moment would be great as you can choose to either risk getting hit for more damage or cancel it as a safety net.

Another thing is it's main gimmick, the shadow hits misses almost every time because of the knockback of the main hit, making them an afterthought of just being the occasional extra damage unless you pin whatever you're attacking against the wall. It'd be great if the knockback occurred on the shadow hit rather than the main hit, that way you get to use its main mechanic completely and not miss damage.

--- Troika/Triglav ---
The buff in damage was a much needed change for these 2 lines being pure normal damage, now they can get as close to being the sword equivalent of the Iron Slug which is very much appreciated. The increase in speed animation is also nice, while not as noticeable they get pretty close to the sealed sword line.
Other than that there isn't much to mention, but it would be great if the charge attack had a little more area coverage to make up for the range other weapons get on their charge attacks.

--- Gran Faust ---
The reduced charge time was a long last needed addition. However... This weapon is just not up to snuff and keeps faltering to everything else. Something has to be done about the self curse, either reduce its timer to be as consistent as every other status effect or get rid of it entirely. As it stands, on neutral curse resistance you suffer about 45 seconds of curse where you cannot do ANYTHING if you don't have remedy pills, any new players that don't use extra slots and give GF a try just have to suffer for it being a sitting duck for even trying to use the charge attack. And even if you were to try stacking curse resistance it still lasts for about 20-25 seconds which is STILL far too long, unless you have a countermeasure such as using extra weapon slots or pills, which in addition can also get cursed and therefore FORCE you to take damage if you need to get rid of it. There really isn't any incentive to use it when the new DVS and Acheron just outpace it entirely.

Talking about outpacing, GF is in a dire need of an increase in damage too. Acheron deals as much damage as GF does despite not being a heavy sword, has a much better charge that doesn't punish you for even trying to use it. DVS on current preview being a single target dps easily beats GF, and its charge while requiring more thought to use is far better than cursing yourself...
Which leaves Gran Faust in an odd spot, while being the only weapon with the gimmick of inflicting curse, it loses badly against its competitors in both single AND AoE dps, not being able to use its charge without risking not being able to play the game for almost a minute just hinders this weapon to the point of being unusable when its normal attack just cannot keep up with everything else.

In addition to filtering by minimum star level for materials. It'd be nice to filter by fire crystals, orbs, and sparks as a checkbox option for each, perhaps; the "expected" filter option essentially already does an umbrella filter for radiants and forge/grim/primal sparks, but some user-selected filters would be nice.

In the same way you can block/ignore knights, you can block/ignore specific materials. For example the 4 star fire crystal, I have too much of those to worry about picking every last one from runs so I could "block it out"

On a similar note, it'd be cool to also not see the materials on the floor if they are in a blocked list (with the exception of essentials like book of dark rituals and tokens). Though not necessary, and very niche this could help in speed runs.. really the idea is to introduce the topic of heat orbs, collecting heat and it's use-case end-game. I don't really need to heat as I've a collection of basically every weapon in the game. I skip heat if I see it on the floor. I already like the idea of filtering materials by star level. Adding a no-heat option to the game would be systematically very similar.

This heat issue could be a topic of its own. And how to deal with end-game players' loot stuffs. Heat could also be excluded from runs too, with the introduction of elite+ difficulty levels, for example. Anyways, I'm mainly brainstorming here. This "loot messages" update/option is a great addition as it is already, I just wanted to add some suggestions

(Not sure if this is the right place to post this. I have a bad memory, but I'm pretty sure the materials filter update was included in this weapon buff update.)

A lot of people in here seem to be saying to not change the DVS to shadow because the Obsidian Edge is already Shadow/Poison. But.. why is this an issue? They act totally differently. Now you can choose between using a Shadow/Poison Brandish and Shadow/Poison Cutter. That’s choice, that’s a good thing! Really hoping these changes go live.

Plenty of actual loyal cutter enthusiasts who utilized the Dread Venom Striker are unhappy with the drawback the weapon faces towards Shadow Resistant Monster Families along with the fact that another Poison weapon is becoming a Shadow Damage variant that competes with superior Shadow Damage swords. The change for DVS will do nothing for the weapon other than relegate it to a different competitive latter towards weapons that provide faster kill time and mob clearing without risking player damage. (Acheron, Obsidian Edge)

It loses it's unique status as a Normal Damage weapon that has a status effect to it and the game is starting to look cookie cutter and predictable in game/weapon design as shadow weapons are now aligned with Poison and Freeze (Pulsars, Catalyzer, New Diskguns, Winter Grave, Obsidian Weapons).

There is a loss in variety and enjoyment of different weapon classes if we limit the universal application of normal damage that is applied to these classic weapons that have become obsolete due to past and potential reworks. It would be better to buff the normal damage on DVS over relegating it to a specializing in dispatching a monster family that completely counters it's playstyle, as Gremlins and Slimes are a grouping mob family with fast tracking attacks and quick flinch recovery time. DVS is much better suited for mob families that scatter or have less punishing attacks such as Fiends and Undead, those of which suffer from flinch better. With how Shadow damage is added to DVS, we are seeing a loss of 30-35 dmg per swing amounting to a swing and a half of damage lost and needed after a full combo to dispatch fiends and undead.

It would be much better and more interesting to introduce a Shadow Variant cutter family with Sleep status or even Freeze as every other freeze sword is Elemental or Normal.

Dread Venom Striker is supposed to be a support weapon meant to dispatch and weaken large enemies like Trojans or Lichen Colonies along with quicky defeating turret based enemies quickly.

As an avid and staunch supporter of Dread Venom Striker since 2012, being my first 5* and my main sword for over a decade, I feel it could use a normal damage buff that allows it to excel in all monster families instead of making it a specialty weapon that will never be used if compared to Obsidian Edge or Acheron. There are dozens of normal damage weapons that could use a slight damage buff along with DVS, they do not require a damaga type change to allow them to fit in with the current meta.

GH, I implore you to consider making a normal damage non split damage buff to DVS and put it up for the testing server so that we can compare our data from the split damage change compared to a pure normal damage Dread Venom Striker that me and many players have requested to see. It isn't fair to take into consideration an opinion from players who have never used the weapon up until they were asked to test it on a server, as a grand majority of players use brandish weapon families and never committed to the Cutter family to have a strong enough say so over the few of us actual Cutter sword enjoyers.

Please just create a pure normal damage buff to Dread Venom Striker, it wouldn't be right to not look at other options to compare for player feedback and results, along with this you could always make a Shadow, and Elemental split damage cutter line in the future to fill in the gaps, but please do not make another Poison weapon become Shadow damage, it is a classic weapon that doesn't need to follow a formula of weapon creation that will never provide true variety to the game, from what I can see the game is inching towards a monotonous future of game design where weapons follow a pattern as opposed to providing a unique flavorful experience mixing damage types and statuses.

If we are to change Dread Venom Striker to a split shadow damage weapon, then Plague Needle should become a shadow damage weapon to compete with the Repeater lines, as Plague Needle with Poison proc'd barely meets the same damage output as a regular Blitz Needle.

Please Rework the normal damage of DVS and many other normal dmg weapons instead of deciding to give them split damage.

WHB looks amazing for what it is as a split piercing normal weapon but DVS does not need to be shadow if Plague Needle (Pierce) and Venom Veiler (Elemental) exist. We are losing variety in this game if we relegate status to specific damage types and I hope you understand this plea.

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

Is see a lot of talk about the DVS, here my take, why not increase the range of all the other melee weapons a bit more range, make it easier to hit multiple enemies with them?

After playing with the Triglav some more, I have a few minor suggestions to help make the sword stand out without being too powerful.

* A mild damage boost for the basic attack, about a 2-5% increase, as some enemies on elite difficulty have a tiny sliver of health left over after finishing the combo, and to also to feel more rewarding to execute.

* An increase in the area of damage for the first impact of the charge attack would also be great since it currently feels easy to miss enemies with it.

Dread Venom Striker's on SFC or FSC or CBS... what ever...
As far as I see on the test server it deals Shadow AND Normal Damage... so is even better than Live, the problem is that the number won't be white or orange, it will be Grey? You will still hitting harder than Live server and more consistently since the changes made them quite good... Is it intentional that the ghost strikes are shorter than the base ones?

On the Troika line I have 2 minor request, the explosion from the Charge attack a bit faster.. There is a small pause between the slam and the explosion, can it be slightly reduced?
and the 1° attack from the troika stuck you in place for a small moment before You can move again, perhaps is just lag, but felt weirdly consistent, is it intentional?

Caliburs could be the normal weapon line... they need to hit harder though...

> instead of making it a specialty weapon that will never be used if compared to Obsidian Edge or Acheron
is DVS ever used now instead of those?

using either WHB or DVS over the old normal-only DVS is a strict improvement, there are no nuances about it. if you liked DVS against zombies in the graveyard, you can still do that, the amount of hits you need to kill a zombie is almost the same, just that the numbers are now gray, except now it's better against everyone else. use WHB to cover the weaknesses of DVS.

if we're talking pure gameplay, these changes are almost exclusively buffs for the cutters and makes them actually viable and competitive, you are NOT pigeonholed to the same brandishes every time you're considering a sword to use. the only reasons why i can see people defending the old DVS is the "unique normal+poison combo" and the off-meta niche status of it. neither of which is really relevant to the gameplay aspect. you'll do more service to the "weapon variety" if you actually have a viable alternative when you want to pick up a sword instead of defaulting to a brandish every time. i want to use different weapons, i do not want this to be at a considerable cost of my performance. these changes would help me pick up different weapons without my teammates silently wishing i had picked something else

one thing though, if possible i'd love if cutters had even less knockback on their regular attacks, otherwise some attacks hit lichens out of the range of my next hit which in a perfect world would flinch and keep me safe from a hit

The changes to the diskguns that have been freed of the prize box shackles have been a long time coming. And my silly CTR Very High Gran Faust might see a few more uses as well as more than just a silly little gag I pull out every now and again. But the Troika line and Cutter line changes have me most excited. I would have been happy with just giving Triglav either more attack speed or more damage. But both? Delightful, simply delightful.

After enough testing on the preview server, I swapped back to live server and bought a Wild Hunting Blade in anticipation of these changes. Even against ineffective enemies, the preview Cutters outperform the ones on the live server. It's so beautiful it could make a grown person cry. I love my Brandishes, and nothing will ever top Voltedge as my favorite sword, but it's nice to see the weapons that fell behind get some love. I'm seeing a lot of people opposing the change even though the numbers seem favorable. Maybe another branch for the Cutter cutter that's pure Normal that matches the neutral damage of Dread Venom Striker and Wild Hunting Blade is in order?

Very very interested to see what else is going to get some improvements.

We don't need DVS to be shadow dmg, we just need its normal damage to be buffed and the poison status would make it's effectiveness improve when proc'd.

Yes the weapon in testing is doing better than live server because the base damage has been buffed significantly even if you converted split damage to normal and compared it to the live server weapon, but why can't the neutral values reflect over all monster families? And let the poison be an added bonuses to make the weapon work on every monster encountered?

it would make sense to retain normal damage with no split damage values and make it keep the neutral damage values of current testing server.

why can't there be a new shadow cutter line with a a whole new status effect? It would be even more content to add to the game as opposed to morphing a weapon into something it wasn't meant to be compared to the original arsenal line up.

Everyone is saying that the weapon will work out as a new usable weapon disregarding the current meta but it's still obsolete to the kill time/mob clear ratio that brandishes provide. DVS will still be overlooked heavily and this will change nothing unless the weapon is truly made into a diverse all arounder weapon with normal damage that inflicts poison, you could even give it an average or good change to inflict poison so it is less punishing to get caught in groups when using it, as slight chance is relegated to a minimum of 2-3 combos before inflicting poison on a mob.

Making DVS shadow will do nothing but put it even farther back as a preferred weapon to use when Acheron and Obsidian Edge do the job better, and the niche of having a universal damage weapon that inflicts poison will be gone forever, we will lose a special weapon over a unnecessary suggestion to make it split damage.

I assure you that even after the update, DVS will still be as unusable as it is now when playing the game as its damage values and playstyle is counterintuitive to clearing and getting through levels fast compared to the meta.

Just take the current testing neutral dmg values and apply it to DVS under normal damage, and let poison allow the weapon to deal extra damage over the testing values, making it a true underdog in normal damage weapons surpassing the handicap of neutral damage with occasional poison allowing even better damage being inflicted along with spreading poison to all monster families.

DVS should not be split damage at all, just make a new shadow cutter line with sleep or freeze.

What makes it so unusable? It's perfectly usable. You can equip and use it.

> DVS will still be overlooked heavily and this will change nothing unless the weapon is truly made into a diverse all arounder weapon with normal damage that inflicts poison

are we fr? ok-at-everything is preferable over good-in-favorable-scenarios?

> still obsolete to the kill time/mob clear ratio that brandishes provide
> diverse all arounder weapon with normal damage

are we fr? you either care about kill times or you don't, you can't argue for both. there is no scenario in which you'd rather pick an all-rounder weapon over a brandish that you just yourself argued is 100% better than EVEN the specialized version of the cutter. while the brandishes are strong and if you're metaslaving you might still pick them over anything else but at least you won't be intentionally gimping yourself if you pick DVS because now it's actually viable

you sound lost in the sauce, let me help you with the arguments that would actually make your stance clearer and make more sense:
- "i want this weapon to stay niche and underpowered"
- "i care about the hypothetical clueless new player that makes DVS his first 5* and want them to do OK at all stages before they craft literally anything else"
- "i don't care about viability as much as i care about the amount of pure-normal weapons in the game"
- "i don't want the meta to change, i want it to be more obvious about what weapon is clearly better than the alternatives"

Dread Venom Striker does not need to remain unchanged.

It very much needs a damage buff, it just needs to have a NORMAL DAMAGE buff reflected from the testing server split damage buff, it needs to be effective towards ALL monster families.

Gremlins and slime attacks will track you better than undead, fiend, or constructs.

now the with shadow split, it is encouraged to use against a monster family that will punish you heavily when combating them.
They clump together more often and recover from flinching faster, you will get absolutely wrecked by them regardless of skill.

The small hit box on DVS doesn’t make sense when charging gremlins or slimes, you will receive damage inevitably.
Ainogommon showed test footage that was purely from fiends and constructs
Nothing from gremlin hordes and slimes.

I have used the weapon for over a decade and I know every way to use the weapon to compensate its setbacks even at its weaker state in live server
Yet we have all these Meta sweats who think they know better for a weapon they’ve never utilized regardless of effectiveness.

Having it specialize in shadow damage versus the two monster families that severely counters the play style of cutters is a setback to the weapon's effectiveness. Gremlins and Slimes have punishing attacks that track the player fast and they group up meanwhile DVS and any other cutter has such a small hitbox it cannot effectively flinch multiple enemies to counter this retaliation. You're simply sacrificing player damage for one mob to be killed and attempting to dispatch more while getting comboed by other mobs and eventually needing to spark, run away, or shield bump and escape with a few pips of health left running from Gremlins and Slimes. Making this weapon specialize in these monster families, especially the fact that only one family has a healer meanwhile we neglect Fiend families and silkwings is a huge setback at the point of this weapon being an effect poison spreader for all mob families regardless of damage type. The weapon will be outshined by Obsidian Edge and Acheron as brandish families just have too good of a damage dealing ability regardless of effective, neutral or resisted damage type, the charge attacks and heavy split damage outweighs the resistances and DVS will still be an overlooked and neglected weapon regardless of it's current buff.

It simply needs an even better normal damage buff along with WHB gaining a buff as well but WHB can retain its piercing split damage.

I am for the buff to damage to make it even more effective towards monsters but it needs to stay relevant to all monster families.

Cutters are very effective towards fiend and undead, it needs to have the neutral damage effectiveness it has towards construct and beast families to be the same towards fiends and undead, gremlin and slime are a family that punish the player when forcing yourself to combat them when they naturally swarm and quickly track your knight and attack in punishment.

You all overlook the fact that I want the weapon to be buffed and think I wish for the weapon to be unchanged when I welcome a damage buff, I just want Grey Havens to focus on Normal Damage and give it the respect and nurturing it needs to make it effective and usable over Elemental and Shadow weapons.

if DVS became buffed as a normal damage weapon it would become even more favorable as opposed to it's current testing server buff as it would become an effective universal weapon that inflict poison and it would retain it's niche as a special poison normal damage weapon that would work in EVERY scenario instead of specifically gremlin and slime levels.

Just buff normal damage and make poison give it a debuff that imitates as if it is inflicting effective damage temporarily as if you're using an effective damage type towards all monster families.

Dread Venom Striker needs to stay normal and the split damage would do nothing but give it a slight damage bump but still keep it as an obsolete and weaker weapon than Acheron and Obsidian Edge.

None of you have used the weapon for years like me and other Cutter enthusiasts to actually provide an in-depth feedback that reflects a real user experience that shows the need for a real change, none of you probably have a reskin weapon to compare the weapon other than me and Ainogommon who have a way to compare damage values and see that the current DVS neutral damage is worse compared to the live testing, if we translated the testing damage buff to make DVS normal damage the same for all families and gave it a Good Chance to inflict Poison, it would be an incredible universal all arounder debuff support weapon as opposed to making it split damage and having it become a frowned upon weapon comapred to Acheron and Obsidian Edge.

IF we change DVS to split shadow/normal, then Plague Needle needs to change to Shadow damage piercing to reflect the mindset that is pushed to "Improve the game" as adding shadow to poison seems to be the stereotype.

I find it surprising to hear from people who value individuality and diversity are lumping stereotypes and bigoted thought processes to making a weapon fit a category that is already filled in, leaving LESS DIVERSITY for knights to choose from and to have fun from.

Normal damage needs love and care, and we are slowly phasing out Normal Damage instead of nourishing it to improve the damage type, right now there is a heavy difference in dealing damage when it comes to swords such as brandishes which has double to triple the damage values towards normal damage swords when it comes to it. brandishes have heavy split damage values that make every sword obsolete even the "new" Turbillion which was meant to be a new and exciting weapon but got overshadowed by brandishes yet again in a landslide.

Normal damage needs a buff where they can fit at least 3/4 of the damage compared to brandishes who already have very strong and heavy split damage values compared to weapons like DVS which seems to have way less and peter out with no effective use other than being even more niche and lackluster to weapons that do a better job.

Just buff normal damage it's that simple, making DVS effective towards gremlin and slime doesn't make sense when those monster families are heavy counters to the playstyle that cutters represent, give it buff damaged but retain neutral damage.

Current live server dmg values are severely outdated and pale in comparison to the neutral damage of the split damage cutter, but we can incorporate the split damage of testing cutter or even improve it slightly so that it becomes a noticed and usable weapon over brandish charge spamming.

I feel detractors are severely neglecting to read my explanations assuming i wish to retain the current live server damage values, when I want the weapon to have buffed damage but to have the damage values neutral and reflect all monster families and become usable in every situation and providing toolbox use case.

Give DVS buff neutral damage, give it Good chance to inflict poison, and let poisoned enemies have damage inflicted upon them as if they are receiving effective damage value when using a damage type that is effective towards them.

That way we can keep a very unique and special normal damage weapon and allow normal damage weapons to be represented in a positive light instead of having them constantly shunned and looked down upon.

Any sort of normal buffs would be futile and would still condemn DVS to remaining dead content.

Normal, as a damage type, only really works when it inflicts unique nuke damage (Iron Slug charge, new Triglav/Suga, etc). Any sort of normal standard weapon will always be inherently bad because you can't allow normal to outperform specialized damage.

Detractors are fond of pointing to brandish charges as a reason not to change DVS, but if you keep DVS normal then... brandish charges will just continue to outperform it even harder? It's a nonsensical argument. The weapon on live already gets utterly bodied by brandish spam, most things do, keeping it normal wouldn't change that.

On Preview, DVS is basically the king of single-target DPS right now in the shadow slot. It's not meant to deal AoE, the weapon line as a whole isn't built for that. But for rushing down and shredding one specific target, it outshines everything. These changes pull the weapon out of a dead niche and turn it into a viable playstyle choice. At this point, I have actually tested the new DVS in appropriate settings (OCH, C42, JK), and it works very well, perhaps even a little too well in some cases. You have to think a bit more and pay more attention when using it. And for those who, for whatever reason, liked old DVS for fiends/undead (? lmao)... the new WHB is right there, man. Give it a whirl, it's insane.

It's possible to middleground this issue by just making an entirely new sword line for a shadow cutter - but that seems like futile appeasement, as the whole point of a balance patch is to make dead weapons viable in the meta, not just clutter the arsenal with even more stuff.

I would also be wary of any feedback which is just reactionary kneejerking to written patch notes. Infamously, certain users here have left feedback without even bothering to log into the preview server to try these changes at all. Arguing in circles over abstract hypotheticals isn't productive. We're here to test, not just talk.

- Triglav: (I'll mostly talk about the Triglav because that's the variant of the Troika I use the most currently) As someone who has used Triglav and Sudaruska in the past for considerable amounts, I would find it quite hard to go back to how they were before this preview update because of how much smoother it feels to fight with them with it's attack speed now being closer to Gran Faust and Divine Avenger, definitely a very appreciated change.
The increased damage is also amazing, and it makes the weapon comparable to the Brandish line (specifically the most used variants, like Combuster, Acheron and Obsidian Edge), which made me think was a bit overturned for a normal weapon at first, but after realizing how much faster the Brandish line is, felt extremely reasonable. Triglav's description says using this weapon is like hitting someone with a mountain, and it certainly feels that way now!
The only problems I've found with the current version of the Triglav for the time being is that the final attack of its combo still has an extremely small chance to freeze enemies, which tends to lead to some unlucky moments were you freeze an enemy that you expected to knock back, causing that enemy to hurt you.
There's also the fact that generally Triglav's charge attack doesn't benefit of freeze nearly as often as Sudaruska benefits from stun because of how these weapons don't inflict their status effect particularly consistently, and freeze prevents enemies from being pushed from the charge attack's shockwave, which feels somewhat necessary to compensate for the attack's big recovery time (when compared to faster weapons such as Brandishes, anyways).
Despite my complaints I do believe the Triglav is in a very good spot, I honestly just would like for the second attack of it's combo to never ever freeze enemies because of how it tends to be more detrimental than beneficial in most cases. I already loved this weapon before but never had much of a reason to use it, even in casual Arcade runs, and I do believe with these buffs that's about to change real soon

- Gran Faust: The faster charge attack and the projectile firing off faster the before are definitely appreciate it, it's a massive boost for a weapon that not many people wanted to touch because of how utterly slow it was to use it's most unique aspect, which is it's capability to inflict curse to both enemies and its user (I know the final attack of its combo can also cause curse, but that's so rare it was almost not much of a factor for this weapon before). I personally find the charge attack to be a bit underwhelming when compared to weapons like Acheron or Obsidian Edge, since the projectile doesn't seem to hit enemies particularly often (1 to 3 hits per enemy) and the hitbox of the projectile also seems a bit smaller than it appears to be (seeing how the bug with Divine Avenger and Gran Faust hitting walls behind player was fixed, I can see why making it any bigger could cause problems, although I do wonder what prevents the team from making two different hitboxes that check for obstacle and enemy collision separately), but generally the charge attack is still quite strong nonetheless. The curse status effect is also a bit strange, it can deal a good amount of damage to slimes and gremlins since they use attacks and other special moves quite often, but, like many other weapons in the game, it's more like an extra thing than something that defines the weapon.
The self-curse is also a bit weirdly designed, since having weapon slots minigates it's effects due to curse always targetting a certain amount of weapons depending on your resistance/weakness to it. I'm unfortunately not sure how one could go about fixing this without making a full-on rework (I guess lowering the duration of the status could help?), but generally the way self-curse works right now seems to incentivise more using weapon slots than actually using armors resistant to curse (which are few and far between without counting UVs, although I am sure the team knows how much of a can of worms that is in its own right).
My general thoughts of Gran Faust currently is that it feels much more powerful and fun to use, but is still a bit underwhelming and, in a similar way to the Fang of Vog, would benefit heavily from armors resistant to its status being buffed.

Generally the heavy swords seem to feel quite good but some of them could use some tweaking with some of their more miscellaneous aspects for them to feel just right.

We have had a Flourish nerf in the past because a minute few Lockdown players complained about it - an already very small and niche playerbase, and it resulted in the sword getting nerfed; a balance change that was made for a PvP gamemode despite the main game primarily revolving around PvE.

While thats not the exact same argument in here, the point still stands - please do these changes for the majority of the playerbases benefit.

We do not need orbitgun/mixmaster to be potentially breaking/griefing the game and/or be accounted for in potential future content due to unintended interactions, as well as having P2W elements by having the edge against certain mobs, and if we want the cutter line to be the viable alternative to the current meta and not a noob trap, this is currently about the right step forward.

Many others here who agree, including myself, have stated reasons why as well, I do not need to elaborate further.

> you will get absolutely wrecked by them regardless of skill
umm

> I have used the weapon for over a decade and I know every way
appeal to authority, everyone gets the same weapons to use on the test servers

> Yet we have all these Meta sweats who think they know better
you are arguing that this weapon needs even more buffs despite knowing the way around the weapon's weaknesses and we're arguing that what we're already getting is awesome

> it would become an effective universal weapon
not with your argumentation where you always find the better weapons to use for gremlins/slimes, there will always be better weapons to use instead of normal-only cutter in every scenario, that's how the weaknesses system works

> IF we change DVS to split shadow/normal, then Plague Needle needs to change to Shadow damage
slippery slope fallacy

> to making a weapon fit a category that is already filled in
you yourself are bringing up scenarios which favor a certain damage type, that's just the way the game works. specialized weapons are just plain better. the niche of a "debuff support weapon" is already also filled and you know it. yet you still want an alternative. i want an alternative too, but to brandishes, not to venom veiler.

i also tested the numbers to see precisely how DVS is doing (it's doing good):

tested in guild training hall T3
format: `effectiveness *first_hit*/*second_hit* [same but with STRONG poison from DVS]`

LIVE SERVER

DVS level 10 / DMG bonus none
neutral 107/61 [136/71]

DVS level 10 / DMG MAX
neutral 169/86 [192/112]

TEST SERVER

DVS level 1 / DMG bonus none
ineffective 70/47 [80/52]
neutral 103/68 [118/74]
effective 143/82 [162/96]

DVS level 1 / DMG MAX
ineffective 94/60 [114/68]
neutral 141/88 [174/98]
effective 198/117 [227/134]

DVS level 10 / DMG bonus none
ineffective 95/61 [116/68] (-11% [-15%])
neutral 143/89 [177/99] (+34% [+30%])
effective 201/119 [230/136] (+87% [+69%])

DVS level 10 / DMG MAX
ineffective 139/80 [172/93] (-18% [-10%])
neutral 219/118 [274/138] (+30% [+43%])
effective 284/166 [324/188] (+68% [+68%])

conclusion: the only scenarios where you're losing with the new cutters are constructs and vanaduke mask phase. bring something better for the job. otherwise the changes are very welcome and against slimes/gremlins this is now a very viable alternative to brandishes, if you're not afraid to get close and personal with those

Honestly I never believed we'd get adjustments in Spiral Knights, it's incredible it's even happening in today's age. Really glad the team decided to come back and be confident enough to give meaningful changes to the underdog swords in the game. I've always had an issue with the performance of other, non-brandish type of weapons as they always suffer from one or two things that make them terribly inferior to brandishes, like not doing enough damage, not having a specialized damage type crafting path to deal with certain enemies, being slow, clunky, buggy or sometimes not even working at all (looks at Turbillion's charged attack). Not going to delay any further, so I'll get to it...

Cutters
Starting off with Cutters, I think the changes are amazing. The weapon type got the drastic changes it deserved so it becomes a legitimate competitor. Previously the Cutters had too much risk involved for a very bad reward, the weapon type had no specialized damage to have scenarios where it excells at thus making it a really weak choice no matter where you brought it. The increase in damage output is what the weapon needed in order to reward said risk, while retaining its identity on top of it! Not only that, but having more weapons with powerful basic attacks is really good as it makes Charge Time Reduction less desireable for it, meaning you don't always have to chase the stat through armor bonuses, trinkets, or unique variants, saving you some headache!
-Wild Hunting Blade (WHB) in particular is a very welcome change, as the game lacks Swords that deal Piercing damage and the pre-existing selection of Swords that deal Piercing damage was relatively weak themselves, which is why a lot of people relied on Acheron, a Normal/Shadow damage Sword to do the job when it came to Piercing weak enemies such as Beasts. Thanks to the normal/piercing damage conversion of the weapon, it now benefits a lot more from Damage bonuses and has a place where it's strong at which is against Pierce weak enemies. There's still some risk in using them, but you're finally rewarded for taking this risk with incredible DPS.
-Dread Venom Striker (DVS) was unexpected. It was funny to imagine it as a Shadow weapon at first, until it actually became a reality. The weapon like-wise, gained a specialized damage type and expanded the sword arsenal. Though not as impactful as WHB, it's great to have another addition on the Shadow Sword arsenal (which previously consisted of just Acheron, Obsidian Edge and Gran Faust) and gives the player more options to pick from when choosing Swords in general.

Gran Faust, Sealed Swords
I'll continue with Gran Faust and the Sealed Sword changes. The charged attack's projectile speed up (though not mentioned on changelog) is immensely helpful, especially when dealing with Mecha Knights and Almirian Crusaders, as previously they were way too slow to follow up with the sword projectiles, resulting in them being blocked by them right after said Mecha Knight or Almirian Crusader recovered from their flinch caused by the initial charged attack's slash. The charge time reduction on Gran Faust was not only helpful, but mandatory. The swords are still very cumbersome though, and still don't make up for their slower speed as Combuster (when compared to Divine Avenger) or Acheron (when compared to Gran Faust) are still faster, safer and more reliable to use compared to our Sealed Swords. Not only that, but Acheron does not inflict Curse on you for what is basically a worse reward!

Honestly the most simple fix would be to slightly increase the base attack of Sealed Swords (not as much as Cutters), increase the damage dealt by the charged attack and for Gran Faust specifically, increase its damage further (to make up for the Curse penalty), double its charged attack damage instead and make the self Curse unique, lasting a base of 10 seconds instead of 30. Additionally, increase its odds of inflicting curse to enemies with both basic attacks and charged attack, while decreasing the odds of receiving Curse from its charged attack. This will greatly increase the reward as well as retain the risk, however you will not be punished as cruely for receiving Curse.

Sudaruska, Triglav
As for Sudaruska and Triglav, they're nice changes to have to our large slabs of stone. They are not going to be outstanding weapons as they lack specialization, however they will be strong weapons that are able to stand on their own feet thanks to their slightly increased speed and higher damage output. To be real, I expected Triglav to convert to Normal/Elemental while reading the changes to the Cutters which would've been cool (pun not intended), but I understand why it did not happen.

Addressing the Powercreep
Closing off, I want to mention some things that need to be addressed. With the changes to WHB, we essentially have a king for piercing damage. Its damage output against Beasts and Fiends is incredible and the weapon's speed helps it tremendously on top to deal with these already agile enemies. It genuinely sweeps them if you commit to it, really!
But in advance, there's an elephant in the room to address: the weapons left behind. Flourishes in particular. Their performance when compared to WHB is night and day, WHB mops the floor with Piercing weak enemies while Flourishes dream of ever doing something even remotely similar. Especially Flourishes that inflict Status Effects (Furious Flamberge, Daring Rigadoon) are left behind because of how puny their damage is compared to the new WHB. Flourishes should be the weapon type that is more reliable and risk free to use (when compared to WHB) but the gap in offense between them and WHB is simply too big, making WHB the dominant pick.

To solve this, I'd suggest to convert Flourish-type weapons (including Barbarous Thorn Blade) into Normal/Piercing too, so they scale better with Damage bonuses and deal higher damage. On top of that, reduce the charge time required for their charged attacks to match DVS and reduce knockback on the first basic attack (horizontal sweep) so you may land subsequent hits on enemies easier and more consistent, as its knockback serves not much purpose. For Status Flourishes, increase the odds of inflicting said Status Effect with basic attacks and increase it even further for their charged attacks so they don't occur once in a blue moon and allow them to contribute more in practice.

Alright, that about wraps it up!
All things considered, this has been a great patch and a great start to the series of Weapon Adjustments. I can't wait to see those weapons added in the Live server for everyone to enjoy as well as the next round of Weapon Adjustments. Personally speaking here, I hope to see Turbillion get some more options (crafting paths such as Normal/Elemental/Shock as mentioned above for example, though dubious considering this is an Adjustment update, not one that adds new content), Amputator/Leviathan Blade to get very desired power-ups, Cold Iron Vanquisher to get a similar conversion so it has a separate identity to Leviathan Blade and of course adjustments to other underdog weapons such as Tortofists, Antiguas as well as Bombs.

(...and Flourishes to be addressed too. Seriously.)

It's crucial to disregard all previous input regarding diskguns like mixer/mixmaster/orbitgun and strongly emphasize original diskguns must remain untouched to secure future funding. There are already quitting sales happening and players are getting rid of orbitguns (eg. via auction hause), hoping to sell to those who didn't get the news, as they expect heavy drops in value.

I might be an outlier here, but I do honestly feel for the mixmaster/orbit users - the guns are a very significant real-money investment and throttling their performance by adding enemy reactions is a considerable sting for anyone who shelled out the big bucks to grab one. I get the P2W argument but... it's just a couple guns you don't really need for anything. If someone slams down 400 or 1000 USD for a weapon in your game, maybe you just leave it alone and let them keep their toy. It's not like it's really breaking anything important catastrophically, it just makes certain PvE encounters easier.

Users who aren't willing to shell out that kind of dough will be able to make do with the slightly worse free diskgun variants entering the game soon. It's an odd situation and maybe there's a bit of sunk-cost fallacy going on, but I dunno. Personally I wouldn't object if Orbit/Mixmaster kept their unique "bypass enemy reactions" functionality. It's not like it hurts me personally. At the end of the day, it's just a very expensive toy in a game.

Obviously I wouldn't add MORE P2W weapons like this, but I see the case for leaving the existing ones alone.

For crying out loud you've made enough of a fool of yourself and it's still not enough?
Saying "ignore everyone else my opinion best" and throwing tantrums using "economy" arguments like "I will lose value" with the promise of "there's many players doing this right now i swear"...
While at the same time having the audacity of claiming everyone who disagrees with you should be (basically) permanently banned/silenced (roughly translated from you, and quote: "GH should add a flag to knights that limits them to equipping proto gear and everyone in this thread, who suggested nerfing something, should have that flag enabled permanently")

At this point I strongly recommend that you start listening to constructive criticism and respond in kind, stop your delusional behaviour and go visit a psychiatrist, this is already embarrassing enough. Or at least stop posting.

This again? As a user I really don't like how much of this thread goes through insults & the routine of either ignoring others' points about these guns or putting words in their mouth.

Well, the funny thing is, if we all listen to Zosu and "disregard all previous input" that means we're chill with the changes in the test server, so the discgun projectiles will be fixed! Thanks, I appreciate it. I'm also glad to hear people are trading them for smaller prices, that's great for newer players!

Anyway, to Retrofit, I think there's value in making these changes to the old P2W discguns not just to dampen the P2W element, but because of the engagement the player has with the game. These are very meta guns, found in basically every endgame loadout as long as the player can afford one, but in doing so you end up with much less input required to deal with the game's challenges due to the enemy reaction issue.
I'm not trying to make a 1:1 comparison here, but think about the way it feels to play a game with cheats enabled: It's probably a blast at first, but if you spend every single play session doing it, it's going to get stale eventually. Engaging with the ordinary mechanics of the game helps get your brain jogging and keeps you engaged with the challenges, even just passively.

Edit: Now, some people never get burnt out by these problems, but it still says a lot that we have players who insist on never wanting to go back from this mechanic. That isn't a healthy way to engage with the game, and actively works against the idea of having a diverse arsenal available to the player, so I think it's best for everyone involved to make this change (which, again, would still let these old discguns remain some of the strongest weapons in the game...)

I am against the DVS being made Shadow, it's a fine generalist cutter.

I'd honestly rather have a new weapon added to the line that way you have a similar number of choices as the Brandish lines.

Pierce, Shadow, and the reliable Normal type

If you're worried about damage lagging behind I have suggested a solution to this
https://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/125642

Swords with one damage bar lag behind the half normal ones, so the easiest solution is to just make them all the same equation for the game to calculate. Instead of swords having their damage calculated for X going into the equation or X+Y going into the equation, just make them all X+Y, even if X and Y are the same damage type.

"It feels to play a game with cheats enabled:"

That's very true and it's the other side of the coin which justifies finally bringing these weapons in line. They do just trivialize a lot of content.

It's kind of an awkward and rough situation. These aren't 10 dollar chicken nugget meals - people have spent very significant real money on these things, and I don't know if it's actually worth it to spit in their faces by removing the one thing which made the weapons worth pursuing at all. There's arguments for both sides and you could go either way, but I could see a fair few people stepping away from the game permanently if their monetary commitment gets axed like this.

Ultimately I think the devs will have to decide whether reigning in a couple outlier guns is worth provoking the big spenders who've provided significant financial support to the game in the past. Again, very awkward situation.

I understand people paid a lot of money for the discguns as they currently are, but I don't think they got nothing out of it.

First of all, with the preface that I don't think those market prices were good or fair, I need to remind everyone they were not set in stone by Grey Havens, or Three Rings, and I think we shouldn't be so negative to the idea of them making a difference. If the players had to pay 600-1000$ worth of currency, that was due to the player market's value of those items. I'd rather make a future where those prices are lower and more accessible.

Second of all, and actually relevant to what those players go out of it: The Overcharged Mixmaster has been in the game since 2014. The players who got their hands on these weapons have been able to coast along with all their benefits for a very, very long amount of time.
Whenever a game changes its monetization and players get access to things that are now cheaper or even free, people often overlook the fact that those who paid money earlier were effectively granted exclusive early access to the product. I still don't think those guns were fairly priced, but they're going to remain quite valuable in spite of these changes, and the extra cost players paid gave them some highly unique and devastating firepower for a game they are evidently willing to invest that much money into.

Going forward, I think chances are high that Grey Havens will consider making more discguns, distributing older discguns, or both. There are probably people who will complain about this due to technically reducing the value of their old prize box discguns, but that would be kind of silly to complain about, wouldn't it? We want a player-friendly game economy that encourages users to enter the market and contribute.

apparently there's some change into the icon configs

This now causes most of the prismatic item icons in the inventory UI turn blue (the prismatic area)

Could you investigate?

I would like to propose making the 3 swords that DA summoned with a charge attack to have hitboxes too. that way, you wouldn't get screwed by its slow start up animation, and the lack of range from the sword swing that comes from the charge attack as well. the swords' projectile speed doesn't need changed, it's fine as it is now in the live server.

Having had a few more days to play with and think about it, I have more thoughts on the state of Gran Faust after the Preview buffs, and some thoughts on possible courses to improve it. I haven't changed my mind about any of the feedback I posted on Friday, but I have additions.

For one, I got so concentrated on the buffed Charge Time, I didn't pay attention to the sped-up Charge Attack animation on the GF and DA. I have mixed feelings on this change. The reduced delay between the sword-projectiles appearing and moving forward feels very good. However, I have mixed feelings about the projectiles moving at a faster speed once they launch. Having compared the Preview and Live versions, the Preview's higher speed causes it to sometimes pass through enemies with smaller hitboxes, and hit them fewer times, resulting in less knockback, fewer damage instances, and fewer Curse procs for GF. The Preview DA and GF Charge Attacks look snappier, but they feel worse than a well-placed Live attack. I don't think it's a matter of unfamiliarity and looking for a new sweet spot; I think the sweet spot which allowed DA and GF charges to consistently hit multiple times is much faster but much weaker.

I think the best combination would be for the DA and GF Charge Attacks to use the current Preview animation speed for the swipe/'summon', but for the summoned sword projectiles to move at the Live speed. Make the attack snappy to come out, but let the projectiles move slowly to score more hits and knockback.

I also have some ideas for possible solutions for my first round of feedback. I don't think all of these buffs should happen at once, but I think one, or a mix of them, could get the Gran Faust to a fair point of balance. Starting with numbers tweaks, then more unlikely or hard to implement suggestions.

Live Problem 1: The Gran Faust, especially its Charge Attack, is too slow to feel good.
Preview changes: The GF's base Charge Time has been brought in line with DA and other weapons, and the Charge Attack animation for GF and DA has been sped up.
Preview problem: Shorter base Charge Time means more self-procs for Curse when used repeatedly, and faster Charge Attack animations mean the charge hits fewer times, doing less consistent and overall less damage, knockback, and enemy Curse procs.
Solutions: Keep the Preview's shorter base Charge Time, address the Curse issue (Problem 3). Keep the sped-up period before Charge projectile launch that's on Preview, reduce the projectile travel speed back to Live. ...or, if they're linked and cannot be separated, return the period before projectiles to Live speed, too. If that snappy speed fits your image for the weapon more than the slow multi-hit wave of the Live Charge, a more difficult to implement change could be making the charge *only* hit once, but guarantee the enemy Curse and up the damage of its single hit significantly. Fast and reliable.

Live Problem 2: The Gran Faust, despite being a Heavy Weapon, does too little damage, especially compared with Acheron- which has much faster attack animations and does roughly identical damage with its first basic attack as GF.
Preview changes: None Applicable.
Preview problem: It's now also weaker compared to Preview DVS, which has much faster attack animations, *more* damage with its first basic attack than GF or Acheron, and also has a Status. Further, the Charge Attack does less damage due to the faster projectile.
Solutions: A damage buff, somewhere. It would be nice if its basic attacks did more than its faster Normal/Shadow counterparts in a single hit to make up for its slower speed. Alternatively, it could have a smaller basic attack buff, and a proportionally larger Charge Attack buff, to interact with its 'unique mechanic' (Problem 3) more.

Live Problem 3: The Gran Faust Curses the user. ...that's not the problem, it's that the Curse can *never* be negated, and the reward for that punishment is negligible.
Preview changes: None applicable.
Preview problem: You actually Curse yourself even more often, and trigger the damage faster, with the buffed Charge Time. Also, each Charge Attack deals less consistent damage and fewer enemy procs due to passing through faster and hitting fewer times overall.
Solutions: There are several number-tweak solutions for this. Making the chance to self-Curse smaller is an easy option. Making the duration and strength of the self-Curse lower would make it less punishing overall and possible to fully negate with a dedicated build. Make the Charge Attack do higher, more consistent damage, and more consistent enemy Curse. I find it much more in theme with the weapon to keep the self-Curse (ideally, still tweaked to be shorter/weaker) and up the damage, up the reward, rather than eliminate the drawback.
The more difficult to implement solution would be, rather than tweaking the numbers on the Gran Faust, to rework Curse itself, for monsters if not for players. As it stands, the Curse - the unique benefit of using Gran Faust, one of the rarest Statuses for players to wield, which can only be equipped if you put up with all of the above baggage of an otherwise underpowered weapon and self-inflicted Curse - doesn't do much to monsters. It's far more debilitating to a player. Numbers tweaks can help the GF a lot, but in the end, I think the state of Curse as it applies to enemies is bound to be underwhelming. Maybe Curse could spread between enemies when it expires like Shock. Maybe it could damage surrounding enemies for a higher amount instead of the Cursed target itself. Maybe it could cause monsters to be able to deal friendly-fire and attack each other. Maybe it could prevent monsters from attacking, leaving them only able to flee.

Frankly, I'm more invested in Gran Faust being usable than Curse itself being updated, because the playstyle and lore design of the weapon are cool to me. I'd be happy with a few more numbers tweaks to make it more usable. But, the only way to really make it usable is to clear the stumbling blocks of the self-Curse being a little too punishing to players, and the resultant enemy Curse being underwhelming for the cost.

Generally, I think all of the changes are extremely healthy though I have a couple of concerns (at least as far as Swords are concerned, Bombs deserve their own post IMO and I hope they get tackled soon if not in their own dedicated update like guns.)

> on mixer bullets
Genuinely, the only people who care about this change are people that feel guilty that they spent $1000+ on a silly in-game item. Almost every player agrees that bugfixes to weapons are important, even if they negatively affect the weapons performance (e.g, DA/GF, I'll talk about these two in a bit). Guns shouldn't be able to freely circumvent checks to their performance (even if those are easy, like baiting Mecha Knight shields or dodges)

> DVS damage change
Even against neutral targets, DVS becoming split damage is a net positive since it now double dips from damage boosts (lets be real everyone is running at least +4 if not +6) so having an option between DVS and WHB means you can (if you want to) run Striker anywhere and be at least OK (unlike now where DVS is actively a bad choice)

Shadow and poison as a combination aren't actually that common. The only shadow + poison items are the apocrea items and Biohazard (lmao). Shadow/freeze is far more common (just strictly due to the gunner update), as an example. While I would have personally preferred normal/elemental for DVS, there's nothing problematic about getting a 3rd option for playstyle with shadow damage swords (GF for slow, Acheron/Obby for med, and DVS for fast), despite how flawed ONE of those options is.

> Gran Faust is still turbo weak
Even with the charge buff, Gran Faust is tantamount unusable. Doing less damage per swing compared to a medium sword is remarkably dumb, and the charge is incredibly risky since self-curse essentially turns the game off for 40-60 seconds depending on status resists. Its' normal swings are usable, though ASI reducing swing length often means you miss hits you should hit even when sword stepping (compared at least to Troika) which can get you punished in situations you'd want to knock things away with GF 2nd Swing (e.g, Decon Zones against a clump of Darkfang Thwackers)

Gran Faust absolutely needs changes. I'd probably boost Gran Faust (and DA while you are at it) damage by around 12% (which is the difference between Divine Avenger swings and Combuster swings), and buff GF charge. If possible, reducing the duration of Curse down by at least half would be awesome.

> Flourishes are kind of bad
Currently Wild Hunting Blade on preview does around 250 damage per swing to Fiends. This directly out damages Final Flourish, and the difference is worse the more damage boosts one has on their gear (since split damage double dips on damage boosts). I'd love to see Flourishes become a little bit faster, as a safer alternative to WHB. Also GH please release slow piercing sword thanks

also the status Flourishes have a tiny change to apply status (less than 5%) and lose almost 10% damage. This is unacceptable. Maybe buff the chance to apply status up to something more reasonable like 25%?

> where turbillion/levi
turbillion and leviathan blade are both remarkably bad even as all-rounder swords compared to brandish. They need the same level of buffs that Troika is getting this update if there's ever to be a reason to consider them over brandishes (or better yet, gives the brandish lines slight nerfs so that they don't just completely dominate every suggestion for balance)

Big props to GH for actually doing this. Weapon changes are always welcome. I have a bunch of thoughts split across three posts, bear with me.

ON THE GENERAL META

The current meta runs on Bonus + UVs + "Split" damage + certain weapon behaviors (Chaos/BK, Blitz Needle or Brandishes). That's not inherently a problem since those synergies are intentional, almost all weapons benefit from ASI, raw DMG or CTR. Those weapons are fine. But any new buff needs to be measured against that baseline, or we'll end up stuck with "new but still less efficient" weapons instead of actually fixing the imbalance.

MIXMASTER / CELESTIAL ORBITGUN

I'm on board with the standardization. Having an advantage that no equivalent weapon in the same category shares is, by definition, a balance problem.

One thing worth flagging: if these weapons eventually get the "Blaster treatment" (split into elemental/shadow/piercing variants), the return damage bonus should stay exclusive to the Normal version. An Elemental Mandolin + Shadow Mandolin with that mechanic would be one of the most busted combos in the game. The Normal version only stays unique because it carries that bonus without the elemental coverage. Take that away and you have the Valiance problem all over again (a weapon with no reason to exist). Just something to keep in mind before the design space gets locked in.

CUTTERS (WHB + DVS)

The split damage feels great. But the flinch on the charge and 3rd basic swing was the real fix here. A close-range weapon that couldn't interrupt enemy attacks was fundamentally broken regardless of damage type.

The shadow DVS and piercing WHB round out the options for that weapon line. I like that WHB is kinda broken because now we have another option to melt Devilites or Beast apart of Blitz.
Also: Flourishes. With WHB now having piercing, Flourishes are getting squeezed out of their niche. They probably need a look at some point.

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HEAVY SWORDS

The Troika and GF buffs are good but they don't touch the core problem.

Heavy swords should hit like a truck AND have the range to match. They're slow, they lock you into a long animation, and that risk should come with overwhelming payoff by default -- not only after you've rolled the right UV or built around a specific armor set. Having a weapon's power be RNG-gated is a design problem, not a balance problem.

Classic example: Why use Gran Faust over Acheron?

- Acheron swings faster with more damage on basics.
- Acheron's charge is a brandish charge (multiple hit instances, reliable, AoE).
- Gran Faust's charge is slow, Curse almost never procs before the target dies, and the targets you'd most want to curse (Fiends, Undead) are immune to it.

Gran Faust is one of the most visually iconic weapons in the game and has an "UNIQUE GIMMICK" It should feel that way to play.
On reach: a slow heavy swing should cover more ground than a fast medium swing. More range rewards the commitment to the animation without making the weapon faster (which would kill its identity).

On Curse (rework idea): right now Curse is basically cosmetic. What if it became a composite moderate debuff applied all at once?

- Reduced movement and attack speed (Stun)
- Reduced outgoing damage and incoming damage resistance (Poison)
- Retribution?: the cursed target takes a bit of damage each time it attacks
No single component at full strength, but together they make a Cursed enemy actually threatening for mobs and not only the player, it stays relevant on tanky high-health enemies where the duration has time to matter (and before you vanish it with the 2nd swing)

THE DIVINE AVENGER AND BOSS REWARDS

On the Fang of Vog becoming an elemental cutter: I disagree. Boss weapons should have their own identity, not get repositioned as a color variant of an existing line.

If we're buffing Gran Faust, Divine Avenger deserves the same love -- specifically it should get back the Sealed Sword's signature gimmick: random status effects. Here's what I think would be fun: the DA's 2nd swing can hit multiple targets. What if it applied different random statuses independently per target? Three enemies hit by the same swing, one gets Poisoned, one Frozen, one Burned -- all from a single attack. It creates interesting gameplay without just pushing numbers around.

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SPLIT DAMAGE IS ACTUALLY HYBRID DAMAGE

UV bonuses and set bonuses apply to each damage type independently, so relevant UVs effectively give double the multiplicative benefit compared to a single-type weapon. Split damage is functionally hybrid damage. That's a big part of why Brandishes (split + AoE charge + UV synergy) are so dominant.

The implication: any buff needs to account for how it interacts with UV stacking, or it'll disproportionately help already-strong weapons while the changes underperform elsewhere.

The "Aetherbrand" thought experiment: imagine a Brandish with split (normal/elemental) damage but no status effect. It would likely be the best sword in the game -- it keeps AoE + high DPS on charge, hybrid UV scaling on basics, and has no status damage penalty (the Acheron situation is already a preview of this).

This reveals an implicit contract: weapons with a status are supposed to deal less raw damage than equivalent weapons without one. Pulsars follow this. Most Brandishes follow this. But it's not consistently applied across all families.

Reported example from the Antigua line: the Sentenza and the Obsidian Carbine apparently deal comparable base damage, but the Carbine inflicts Poison and the Sentenza doesn't. Under the contract, the Carbine should deal less raw damage to offset the status. If the numbers are equal, the Carbine is getting Poison for free. (Haven't personally verified this -- if anyone has numbers I'd love the correction or confirmation.)

ACHERON VS. OBSIDIAN EDGE

The obvious fix of "make Acheron like Obsidian Edge" has a problem: Obsidian Edge is event gear and should be better than a normal craftable weapon. Flattening them defeats the point of event rewards.

What I'd actually do:

Obsidian Edge: bump shadow damage + upgrade the poison. Clear upside that justifies event-tier status.
Acheron: slightly reduce shadow damage, slightly bump normal damage. The goal is fixing a specific benchmark: Acheron should not outperform elemental Brandishes against Constructs. Constructs are supposed to be weak to elemental, yet a shadow/normal sword beats dedicated elemental weapons in that matchup.

THE UV STACKING DEAD ZONE

Monster-type category UVs don't stack with other bonuses like the Black Kat set's +6 Damage. Any UV investment in monster-type bonuses is wasted in the most common endgame loadout. No weapon buff fixes this.

The Sentenza is a perfect case study: its Gremlin bonus gets nullified the moment you run BK. No status, no functional bonus, same base damage to a gun that does have a status. No upside in any real scenario. That's a systems problem, not a weapon balance problem.

Bonus (armor, controversial): if we ever get an armor update -- universal sets (BK, Chaos) give broad coverage, but specialized sets like Skolver should compensate with a higher bonus limited to their weapon type. BK gives +6 to everything, a sword-focused set could give +6 but better only for swords. BK stays relevant for flexibility, but dedicated builds become genuinely worthwhile. No need to touch the dominant sets directly.
For example BK gives you +20% for swords, handguns and bombs, Skolver + Shield = +30% for swords.
ASI could affect the fuse time for bombs too...

Leviathan, CIV and Turbillion needs buffs, the Slime Brandish too, because Acheron exists.
Great start overall, looking forward to the next rounds and sorry for my bible

These changes are great and represent a solid step forward to modernise the game.
Personally, I do not believe in making things too balanced. There are classes of weapons that are the meta, and it is fine. Most good "meta" weapons are cheap to make and easy to use. Other weapons should be fun to use, amusing, or require a lot of skill to use well.
However, certain weapons are simply bad. They are also not fun to use. This update fixes some of the weapons.

- Cutter line
The shadow and piercing change is great. They are so fun to use now! The 3rd and last swings can flinch the enemy; it makes the weapon a lot more intuitive. I used to pair my DVS with callahan/iron slug. This allows me to flinch the enemy while using DVS via shield switching. I would attack once, shield, switch to the second weapon and back, and attack again. I will only use the full combo if it is safe to do so (typically not!). This is no longer necessary.
The buff turned a frustrating weapon to A-tier. The Acheron still win in terms of raw output, however, these two weapons are no longer far behind. Most importantly, they are more fun to use than the boring purple stick!
The charge is still mediocre. It still works well on stationary enemies such as battle pods. That is about it.

- Fang of Vog: Did you forget about me? Why am I the skin of a cutter sword with the attack speed of a heavy sword? Vogs are wolvers, right? Why is this sword as slow as a Lumber?
1. Can we make the FOV an elemental cutter?
2. The Vanaduke token weapon can be a 3* version or a 4* version, like the Blackened Crest. I do not mind if you downgrade mine.
3. Have the 5* recipe be a token exchange. 50 tokens for the 5*!
4. The charge area needs to be boosted. Ours is smaller than a Mecha's hot edge.
5. Self-inflicted fire is still fine.

- Gran Faust
The charge is still useless. It still takes way too long and releases way too slowly. Acheron's charge releases in about 3 seconds. By the time I finish charging my GF and releasing the attack, the enemy either kills me or has been killed by other team members. This is a weapon where your team must go out of their way not to kill stuff for you to use it properly.
Curse is nice, but menders and silkwings are hard to hit with it unless they have been rendered immobile. If the mender's shield is up, the attack will probably fail.
The Gran Faust still does the same damage as the purple stick.
This weapon should be "high risk and high reward".
Proposition:
1. Make the charge the same as Divine Avenger.
2. Decrease the charge release speed of both weapons.
3. The curse duration you inflict on yourself should be decreased too.
4. Make the shards spread out further, or add two additional shards. DA used to be OP because the shards were spread out so far.
The curse needs to be reworked. The simplest way to get rid of it is to die or pop a remedy. It is just not a fun mechanic.

- Triglev and Sudaruska
The changes are solid!
1. The charge release time needs to be decreased.
2. The AoE size should be increased.
3. For the Sudaruska specifically, it still does not stun. The Triglev can freeze enemies.
With good timing, the charge attack is amazing. I was able to obliterate a large group of furries with a barely heated Sudaruska.
Is there not a shock one that summons thunder or something? I want it.

Please add the heating stations.

Being primarily a gun player, I don't have much experience with the swords and don't think I could give much input on them, however I finally found the time to sit down and test the discguns. They work very well and seem properly consistent with the Mandolin/Slicer line now: hitting objects with both projectiles (so nice for clearing out breakables), triggering enemy reactions, etc.

The only problem, which I'm not sure whether I might have missed someone else mentioning in this thread, is there's currently a bug with the modernized projectiles which I previously reported when I observed it on the Mandolin. As stated in the thread below, having your back against a solid wall/object will cause one of the normal attack's bullets to impact behind you and disappear prematurely.
https://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/125628

Hey

I really love to see weapons changes. It's been wanted for so long. I definitely appreciate WHB/DVS being split damage and not fully specialized.
I also love that GF/Troikas are getting some love. I would appreciate Caliburs, bombs, antiguas and catalyzers getting some love as well, they deserve it. Armors also desperately need to be tweaked and become viable.

On the topic of Mixmaster/Orbitgun, I think it's amazing to finally free them from their P2W status and make them work as intended.
It just made no sense to lock an entire broken weapon line behind a paywall, massive one that is. I'm very excited for any upcoming variant of the Mandolin too and appreciative that enemies react normally to Diskgun pellets. Now it would be great to remove the ability to hit ghost blocks through other solid blocks as it sometimes breaks the game and is clearly not intended.
I don't get why anyone would be upset at Mixmaster/Orbitgun prices crashing.
Yes, people owning one most likely spent a few hundred USD on them. If anything, it's on them for spending such a ridiculous amount of money for an in-game item.
They had the privilege of owning one for long periods of time when F2P players needed years to get one, I think that's good enough.

Most Orbitgun/Mixmaster users agree with this. Zosu, your little scheme of agitating the money carrot in front of GH just so your items don't tank is pathetic.

apparently there's some change into the icon configs

This now causes most of the prismatic item icons in the inventory UI turn blue (the prismatic area)

Could you investigate?

This is an experimental change. Icons for many prismatic armors and helms were updated to match the color scheme that prismatic accessory icons have always had.

What do you think?

I think the change to the "Prismatic" item icon makes more sense if the icon were in the same format as the old UI. The current 3D rendering doesn't suit the colour scheme.

This is simply because accessories still follow the same format as the old UI icon design (simplified icon, only 3 colour palettes).

The rendered icon (Armor, Costumes) uses a different format: a 3D-rendered icon of the items. This introduces the item's prismatic area, coloured in grey or white spots. Therefore, lacks in accessory icons.

Players like myself read these grey/white spots as a "Prismatic" area. So seeing these new Prismatic icons has a bright blue and grey/white area in them, likely causes the player to mistake the item for the Tech Azure colour scheme. And causes confusion about which area is supposed to be prismatic (because the icon is being colored by its colour index, which is not truly accurate for prismatic items). And this doesn't line up with how other armor icons with prismatic areas work in-game.

Several people I asked on Discord either hate it or don't care.

This might be a bit much, but I would almost consider just removing the self-curse from Gran Faust's charge attack entirely (or at least significantly reducing the chance and potency). Self-curse is the single most punishing effect possible (short of just killing the player outright), and the charge attack isn't anywhere near strong enough to justify it, even after the improvements. It sounds cool on paper but just doesn't work in practice.

This potentially opens up cheesy strategies where players could kite in circles inflicting curse on everything and letting them self-destruct - but, even then, that would be a very slow way to kill things, and you'd be better off just killing enemies outright with direct attacks. I dunno. Just a thought.

Very nice updates to these swords. Wild hunting blade not dealing pierce damage has always been weird to me.

Something I do wonder is why the wild hunting blade charge attack deals less damage than blitz needle charge attack.
Currently:
- Blitz needle has a faster charge release (so less self stun time)
- Blitz does not knockback enemies out of hit range
- Blitz charge has long range in general
- Blitz deals more damage
- Blitz charge does not allow trojans to turn around mid charge and hit you in the face

I feel the charge attacks of these two swords should deal more damage given that they are so risky to use. Or, alternatively, the aoe of the attacks should build up with every hit during the charge, so that you can hit enemies in a wide arc in front of the player on the last strikes.

One last idea that I have might be controversial, but please turn Fang of Vog into a cutter style weapon so that we also have an elemental cutter. Since it already looks like a cutter, it might as well behave like a cutter.

Guns make specific noises that startle enemies and make them behave differently, but discguns don't shoot projectiles like other guns and make different sounds. It mkes sense the monster reacts different, just like a person would react different to being attacked with a boomerang instead of gun.
Also, depending on how it was aimed, the mecha knight would have to turn around and deploy a shield behind it to block the shot. This would obviously be too powerful and complex. It makes sense for it to just ignore the shot instead and keep on hunting and attacking players.