Test Feedback: Weapon Adjustments Round 2

On a side note, seems like everyone is in support of the WHB improvements. Pretty obvious one there.

For the DVS, adding a 3rd split normal/shadow line may be best. Could make it unique with some other status instead of shadow poison. Then can keep the DVS normal damage, weak, and irrelevant for the 3 people who claim to like it that way.

Would be cool to see that graveyard phantom curse striker make its way into players' hands...

First things first, remove the $5 paywall. I don't see what there is to gain by not letting F2P players in on the testing.

These changes felt good, especially Gran Faust. It was almost like using a whole new weapon by having a charge attack that doesn't put you into timeout every other use.

If DVS is to remain normal damage, I'd like to see it get another bump in damage to at least match Wild Hunting Blade against neutral targets. Damage comparisons show that apparently the "swing" and the "phantom swing" seem to scale inversely? not really sure what's going on there. (this has obviously been a divisive subject, some people prefer normal, others prefer split shadow. I'm not here to argue)

The 3rd swing of the cutter attack chain could use reduced KB. The "phantom swing" of the third attack is what's able to stagger with the new changes, but the 3rd swing tends to push monsters out of range of the "phantom swing."

Please match the charge speeds of both cutter lines. Currently the Hunting Blade and Wild Hunting Blade have a slower base charge speed then the rest of the line (down to 2-star) despite being functionally the same attack, meaning its worse by comparison. Please increase the charge speed of both swords to fall in line with the others.

After doing a duo Tier 3 arcade run with neutral damage bonuses (no BK or Chaos), I had very little issues flinching monsters contrary to what a few people have been saying. Yeah the damage is lower than Round 1, and yeah I'm not completely shredding monsters in 2-3 hits (Round 1 DVS was a little overtuned let's be honest) but the damage is relatively fine, more than enough to meet stagger thresholds on most monsters.

The only other thing I'd like to suggest is to maybe give Gran Faust's charge a damage buff. Divine Avenger effectively deals double damage due to at least 2 of its blades consistently hitting the same target. (its less than double that's not the point) I could also see this not being necessary since the Curse status can pull its weight on more aggressive monsters.

Fast Advancement is appreciated, thank you.

PS. we probably shouldn't be rebalancing weapons around overpowered gear such as Acheron. Thats not how game balancing works

Slicer discs behave abnormally; the Mandolin, in particular shoots the following buggy discs/characteristics:
when shot either close up, far away, or against the wall, the bullets tend to make contact, but no registered damage on punching bags. Made video to show the stuffs
https://youtu.be/quyhJg7b4fw

For some actual input here, I would really like to see DVS go split shadow instead of an alternate line being added. Especially with such a nice reskin of it available, the dread captain cutlass. It would finally make the line relevant. We are pirates after all!

From the other page, I want to bring up that Mandolin is currently better at fighting elemental-strong enemies (beasts and gremlins) than orbitgun/mixer is. In fact, against beasts in particular, the boomerang effect is actually massive in tier 3, since the bonus damage is pretty easy to lead into the wolvers who teleported behind you.

As much as it's a cool unique effect for the Mandolin, the problem I have with mixer/orbitgun isn't that they need the unique extra damage on return, it's the fact that without the bonus damage on the return, mixer/orbitgun have zero reason to interact with their boomerang effect. With no incentive to use the boomerang bullets, the gun just becomes a better version of most other elemental guns that you dump into enemies in their face. Frankly, I feel like mixer/orbitgun should do less damage normally and do boosted damage on the return to really bring home how the weapons are supposed to be used. This would, in theory, make mandolin better against neutral targets unless orbit/mixer are hitting their return hits to equalize the damage.

It is hard to say, my only experience with these two weapons is coming from the test server so I don't have the hours of experience. But compared to the Mandolin line (which I have grown to like a lot on the live server), has made me feel that the Orbit and Mixer lacking such a gimmick makes them less fun. When I use Orbit and Mixer, I tend to just spam and not really think about the return projectile path. Seeing the Mandolin line's glowing return shots land feels rewarding and if a f2p fire and shock Mandolin ever gets made (I assume because why else are we testing the Mixer and Orbit), I would like it to have the same rewarding gimmick.

@Spark-Of-Kill
Why do you consider DVS overtuned with split shadow, but WHB is fine when it completely beats Flourish?

Give us shadow damage DVS so we can finally have something actually entertaining and fresh to use over the 1 weapon meta Acheron sits in.

To beat the dead horse, the change to normal for Dread Venom Striker is not a welcome one by the vast majority, myself included. It seems the loud minority won here but as can be seen by the overwhelming wishes to return to the round 1 version. I believe this should be reverted.

I made a LONG post with some ideas on how to tackle the normal damage weapons, included was Triglav which I think would be worth making Elemental, I would then like to suggest buffing Sudaruska's damage a bit more so that at least it would be stronger versus neutral targets compared to Triglav, leaving with with more usecase.

Please see the thread [here].

@[Players requesting an additional variant]

Right now I think it's safer to presume more weapons aren't at the top of the list, so it would be ideal to revert to round 1 Dread Venom Striker.

@Grandish

I won't harp on about damage types, I think the other responses have made it abundantly clear that it would be preferable as shadow for most players. What I will remind you though is that doing less damage means it is harder to reach stagger thresholds on enemies.

Round 1 DVS did just about as much damage neutrally with damage max as round 2 DVS, but had the added benefit of being able to more easily stagger Gremlins and Slimes, two families that often get paired with healing enemies.

Of course, now it's less effective against fiends who are also often paired with silkwings but Wild Hunting Blade is piercing so if you insist on a striker then this is also available to you.

@Monochr-Observer

> What's the point of Poison, let alone any status, if the weapon that inflicts it is going to kill the target within seconds?

To that I ask you, what's the point of a weapon that is inefficient in killing targets? Why would you want to be less effective in dealing damage? And to not solely answer a question with a question, forcing the value of poison by making the weapon worse is not a good solution.

> I don't think Dread Venom Striker was ever supposed to be an absolute shredder? (idk what the original vision for this weapon was) but maybe a support weapon that was meant to take advantage of mobility and speed to inflict Poison on multiple targets like some kinda rogue/ninja. (keep the current damage buff ofc so it's not painful to use solo)

Dread Venom Striker is a sword, brandishes notwithstanding, swords generally are not used for large groups, ideally this should be bombs. Also, if you are really in need of AoE poison, might I refer you to the Venom Veiler or Obsidian Crusher, and if you insist on a sword for AoE poison, the obsidian edge also exists (and does more damage universally than DVS, a normal weapon).

title

Gran Faust suggestion:
When knights curse themselves using the charge attack, maybe you get some sort of personal buff.
Could be that you now curse enemies on every weapon swing, or that you get increased stats (the weapon itself could enter a cursed state and double its damage or something like that, or your knight absorbs hp through atacking or you become more tanky etc.)

In a similar manner in later weapon adjustment rounds, fang of vog could be buffed in a similar way, when your knight gets set on fire by the charge attack you enter a special buffed state, maybe something similar to drakon's frenzied firestorm buffs but make it personal buffs only.

Think this would be a more unique and cooler way to buff unused weapons rather than just simple number adjustments, or it could be used in combination with those number adjustments. But hey, maybe thats just me, maybe other pirates could chime in and give their opinions regarding this.

Bonus: this could make curse resistant / fire resistant armor sets more relevant too
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Oh, and remove monster family inherent unique variants from every piece of gear in the game, it's useless and noone will build that item while the inherent monster family UV drags the rest of the stats down.
I guess it has a place at Punch to keep the crown sink and annoy people that are rolling UV-s, but outside of that it should be removed.
Or, keep them but buff the items enough to bring them at the same level with popular meta choices, and keep the monster family UV as an EXTRA bonus on top of all that.
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And on the topic of DVS, best option is to give us both a normal variant AND a shadow variant, but if thats too much effort I will vote for shadow variant only.
Furthermore, in future weapon testing rounds I would actively encourage the devs to transform all existing normal damage types into a specialised damage version if that weapon isnt capped on damage types already, normal damage type should NEVER exist or be a priority if a certain weapon is missing a special damage type.
Personally, I would straight up advocate for normal damage to be removed from the game if not for the niche use of turning your brain off and not having to switch your loadout between levels

What's the point of Poison, let alone any status, if the weapon that inflicts it is going to kill the target within seconds?

It's a single target weapon the poison is to kill it in seconds!

I don't think Dread Venom Striker was ever supposed to be an absolute shredder? (idk what the original vision for this weapon was) but maybe a support weapon that was meant to take advantage of mobility and speed to inflict Poison on multiple targets like some kinda rogue/ninja. (keep the current damage buff ofc so it's not painful to use solo)

Yes you think that, "You go throwing punches any applying poison on enemies taking advantage of the speed kinda like a ninja..." Then the main charater syndroms recedes for a moment and You notice that You dealt no damage to anyone and 1 of the 8 targets got poisoned... I know some individuals fall into the main character syndrome, since they never showed up to the server to test the weapons and throw comments 'Zosu's Style'

To make everyone happy, just add a seperate brand new Shadow/Normal STATUSLESS Cutter. There. Gremlin Shredder 9000. Problem solved.

No that solves nothing. Is the same that the Shards bombs... 'ilusion of choice' and wasted memory space... Your "Problem Solved" soved nothing at all is Middle Ground Bias trying to catter to everyone. Options must be equally interesting and usefull. Otherwise we are adding a 'Pile of crap' to a list and pretend other to accept, that among the options: "crap is good and they should choose it", because there is a 'Pile' of it.

Grandish is right, the damage math needs to be checked... otherwise the only solution will be the brandishification of every other weapon in the game... but even then, the outcome will be the same... It cannot be used on SL... and before anyone cryies out. SL damage atenuation works differently, I'm not asking for every weapon to be viable on SL... no, NO. Im asking for every 5* weapon to be viable on SL.

To everyone that are afraid if DVS current state will be permanent, dont worry... the DVS cannot hurt you... Litteraly it can't hurt anything...

But this times will pass and round 3 will deploy and new things will be put to test. Until then focus on the good things of round 2 and give constructive Feedback So we can make the game better for eveyone. Those that could not enter this round perhaps can enter the next one.

Just for some context:

We're up to over 30 people asking for split-shadow DVS back, in this thread.

And a grand smashing total of 3 arguing to keep it normal damage.

Just some perspective. This ratio is unlikely to improve much.

You have your feedback.

If you overrule the majority of your testers just because a couple people said "no," it instantly makes all future testing rounds suspect. Why bother giving feedback if a couple naysayers can just shut it down?

There will be times when your feedback isn't unanimous, but a clear user preference is obvious. This is very plainly one of them.

Do you love democracy?

They are perfect the way they are on production. Every change will be a downgrade.

You can easily make copies and rename the old diskguns. "Vintage Mixmaster" or so. You can make them untradable. Players can then keep their original guns, they invested much time/money getting and you can put the new versions ins the gambling boxes or featured auctions or whatever you have planned. So every new gun appearing in the game would be a new version and old ones would slowly disappear over the years while players delete their accounts or no longer log in again, but until then they can still use them the way they love.

"majority rule" does not work in SK, because several people have multiple accounts. Just yesterday in haven someone mentioned they had 4 copies of SK open on the same PC. (Could have been the same account tho; idk I never tried, but since you can only have 3 knights per account and I assume one knight can't be on twice, that implies they have at least 2 accounts.)

Zosu you are literally contributing nothing, I don't know why you still have posting permissions on the forums. It's just spam from you at this point.

We have stumbled upon a good point actually, Old School RuneScape (OSRS) uses an in-game Poll System that requires a 70% supermajority approval from members for proposed game updates to pass, and that game is incredibly popular because of this.
Just add this to spiral knights and make it so that only vanguards can vote on changes.

A bit off topic but Normal dmg is a tough spot for sure. Buff it to much and why bother using an elemental/shadow/piercing weapon. I think a future solution could be a new level type. With normal being a more gereralist damage doing equal damage to all families why not have levels and rooms that spawn monsters of weak to shadow/piercing/elemental at equal amounts

Right now most levels/rooms spawn two weakness types and at uneven amounts - for example times where theres one gremlin mender + multiple mechas, a trojan + undeads, etc. Obviously people could just switch between weapons, but if there are more challenges that require generalist approach instead of having a majority of mobs having a one type primary weakness I think normal damage weapons could see more use ( although it could just devolve into iron slug charge and mandolin normal spam)

Srory I go offtopic with this post too but I agree with the others I think DVS should go back to shadow. I would still like a normal cutter line though and I think a new curse normal cutter would be interesting. It could look like the cutters used by the Phantoms in graveyards. If its curse shadow it would just compete with GF and why use GF atp if cutters are way faster(its like how acheron normals had same dmg as gf, why bother using a slower sword in pve). Could curse against mobs be buffed? Im thinking like a life drain effect in addition to the current effect with them attacking and getting dmged (which right now doesnt really help much except with silkwings). The lifedrain could increase with the amount of mobs nearby cursed and perhaps heal the player a little? It would give more incentive to use the GF charge and take that risk getting cursed.

While I'm an advocate for reverting the changes back to Round 1 Shadow DVS, I don't want to repeat what has already been said. I want to move to a more impotant topic instead.

I would like for Cutters to have their knockback be relegated to the shadow hits rather than the main hits.
The main issue that still stands with Cutters is that its main mechanic clashes horribly with knockback, often making you miss the shadow hits due the main ones pushing enemies back before it can hit. Not just that, as with each hit you keep pushing more and more to the point you start missing the main hits as well.

If the knockback changed to only happen on the shadow hits it would make hitting the whole string of combos with far more ease without having to play catch up with the enemy you're attacking. As of the current changes, it's great that it can stagger at the 3rd hit, but that means squat if you missed it because of the knockback- something that happens more often than not.

The only way to use the Cutters efficiently right now is to push an enemy against a wall to even be able to hit the whole combo, and that's not how I think it should play honestly. You should be dishing high damage while being constantly on the move, not having to push enemies slowly to wall in order to deal full damage.

Hunting Blade (4*) Has incorrect damage on Charge attacks and its Final Swing damage on basic combo attacks. Dealing 403 Damage with the maxed damage bonus, Higher than the Wild Hunting Blade (5*) counterpart. (360 , 299, 184)

pictures
1. Incorrect Damage on Charge attack: https://postimg.cc/CdNxWhpS
2. Can deal 403 damage on an ineffective target with the final swing from a basic combo: https://postimg.cc/jCdbnymM

Could you investigate?

It's possible to keep few variants of one sword at the same time.
For example, i want to see improved cutter charge, front attack without changes, but bakcside will get knockback, WHB can get cool tail animation for that. IMO, knockback should make charge more safe, knight doesn't move during charge and can be easily attacked by mobs.
Another player says that charge should be reworked, maybe faust charge reskin, but ghost wolver instead of ghost sword.

After testing we will choose the best variant.

Those guns, loved by many loyal players, must remain unaffected by updates.
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Also, it's suspicious how childish some posters reacted, when I mentioned it is possible multiple accounts may have been used to make some feedback seem more common 🤨

Who's being childish? Every time someone calls you out for ruthlessly spamming, you call them a child, and then go right back to spamming, every time new posts are added.

And if people were using alts on the forum, it would be very easy to check and shut down (MAC ID/IP Address).

Any sympathy I had for your position is gone. I was willing to play devil's advocate for a minute but now you're just burning bridges out of desperation. You're not giving feedback, you're just kicking your feet and crying because you're about to lose a P2W advantage over other players. Boohoo, get over it.

The concept of a thousand dollar weapon skin which gives a direct gameplay advantage over its craftable counterparts is insane, and a bad look for the game if it's about to relaunch. You'll survive mechaknights being able to shield your bullets properly. Or, well, maybe you won't. In that case, skill issue.

And if you're upset about the weapons losing value, you should just sell now, before the next spike storm arrives.

Clock's ticking. 😉

I agree with knockback being a bit too much on Cutters. A change in general would be nice. Either lowering it slightly or going with the afterimage/ghost hits being the main knockback attacks.

I agree with Retrofit that Zosu should be banned from the forums.
I'm all for sharing ideas, but this guy just keeps spamming about how Mixmaster/Orbitgun shouldn't be touched and calling names others who disagree.
This is becoming redundant, exhaustive, annoying and contributes absolutely nothing.

If the Normal DVS isn't doing enough damage that's just pointing towards how dual types have issues with damage scaling which needs to be addressed.

Then you gotta ask do you want a shadow DVS, or is it a shadow cutter that you really want? If it's the damage that you like from the dual type scaling then the argument has nothing to do with the DVS, but rather wanting a dual type cutter because of how that calculation is mismanaged. If that's your goal you can accept any new shadow cutter which is going to do the same job and arguably could perform even better with the right status.

Next you gotta ask is does it perform as well at hunting shadow weak enemies as the WHB does with pierce ones? Simply put it won't, since beasts and fiends are dodgy and mobile enemies, while slimes and gremlins bunch together and will get you simply with the fact that there's too many.

The question shouldn't be the binary choice of DVS being Normal or Normal/Shadow.... it should be testing the cutter line with various types as well as potential future sidegrades... I'm still for the DVS being Normal but I want to see the damage scaling fixed, I want cutters in general to cut down on the knockback, and I want additions to the line to be tested... not just being stuck with Poison, and a boost to Beast damage. We have 6 Brandish lines but only 2 Cutter lines... we should stop arguing about the 2 and shoot for more.

what issues with damage scaling specifically? there are numbers of the shadow DVS damage in the feedback post of the other round, can you point out specifically what the problem is?

> wanting a dual type cutter because of how that calculation is mismanaged
again, what exactly is mismanaged? current DVS (round 2) is very similar to the damage of DVS (round 1) against neutral mobs, people still prefer the ability to deal more damage against specific families, that's just the weaknesses system

> while slimes and gremlins bunch together and will get you simply with the fact that there's too many
i don't really see this as an argument, people managed to have fun with shadow DVS despite this. we don't necessarily have to pigeonhole a weapon into a certain type just because it'd fit where the mechanics of that weapon would be more useful in. i'm sure people can live with these drawbacks against certain families and still have fun with a viable alternative to acheron

> it should be testing the cutter line with various types as well as potential future sidegrades [...] we should stop arguing about the 2 and shoot for more
this is what we get. you can ask for more, sure, and maybe we'll get to it later, but for now we are rebalancing EXISTING weapons, not yet adding any new ones. again, let me be very clear, you can ASK for more, but currently what we are considering is "are THESE changes good", aye or nay. anything more than that is a bit on the wishful thinking side.

I want to give a brief bit of context - the split damage DVS on the first test was as good as the piercing cutter against fiends/beasts, but for slimes and gremlins. I feel like this is an important distinction since you mentioned on another platform that you didn't test these yourself as you didn't have access to the testing server.

While I myself want a unique Shadow Cutter, if my choice is between "normal DVS, but never see a shadow cutter" and "Shadow DVS", I'm choosing Shadow DVS every time. You could legitimately tear through swarms of thwackers with that with relative safety, which you simply cannot do with the current iteration. Additionally, you still get generally the same experience as before when using it against enemies that resist shadow, so if you enjoyed that experience you don't have to change anything, but at least you can actually use a cutter to great success against monsters that normally would shut down the attack style.

Shadow DVS is a net boon, even though the best option would be a new shadow cutter.

The issue is the damage scaling when comparing pure normal weapons to their split damage counterparts with the Amputator being the biggest and clearest example when compared to the Combuster... the only difference between Combuster vs Amputator and WHB vs DVS (current version not the test) is that the Combuster is split damage.... WHB and DVS show that a Strong Status is equal to a High family damage boost since they both currently have the same damage values.... but Amputator and Combuster do not simply because of that split damage.

With whatever current calculation is being used a Pure Normal DVS would fall short of the neutral damage of the Pierce/Normal WHB... but it shouldn't be like this. "Similar damage" isn't good enough, it should be identical... but it isn't is it?

I don't think we should settle for just 2 cutters, and while you can argue that we have to balance the ones we have now, you also have to understand that any choices we make now will likely limit what we can get in the future... If DVS is made Shadow then it's less likely we'll get another Shadow cutter in the future...

I'm also still of the opinion that Shadow just isn't a good type for it, but if it was Pierce then it would just outclass the WHB similar to the Sentenza/Obsidian Carbine deal. If the Normal damage isn't fixed then the only other type is Elemental but I get the feeling that it would fare better against Howlitzers and Gun Pups, Kats, and Scuttlebots while being able to lay into Lumbers and retrodes very well... especially compared to the common enemies for Slime and Gremlin being Cubes, Lichens, and Thwackers (which the Brandish style just deals with better)... the safer prey of Polyps and Scorchers aren't that common.

And it still at least makes allowances for my other complaint... Shadow/Poison taking away it's unique damage/status combo... going from Normal/Poison to Elemental/Poison would still let it stay unique.

People are getting starry eyed because they're seeing stuff do more damage, but the root of the issue isn't being addressed...

As long as the dual type weapons deal more damage than their monotype counterparts then this is only a backend fix

I'm also just getting a bit sick of seeing certain status effects almost always being on certain damage types... We have 4 existing Shadow/Poison weapons

There's 0 Elemental/Poison weapons, 1 Normal/Poison, 1 Pierce/Poison... but sure lets just add another to the pile of Shadow/Poison and kill off a unique weapon instead of considering making something that's never been made before.

Got back access to the preview after the bug fix - appreciate the fixes. Just got done testing as soon as it closed down for the next round

DVS change - I dont agree with it being normal damage. For one it removes it's viability being used in Shadow Lairs over other melee options (primarily Obsidian Edge, Acheron but you can argue this for 80% of other existing weapons instead too).
Two - there isn't really a point in keeping it normal damage? Overall Round 1 Normal/Shadow DVS and WHB together cover all enemy types pretty effectively as is, all thats being done is effectively making the weapon type weaker. The extra poison chance is a welcome change for a more consistent poison coverage though.

In regard to cutter line in general - I could agree on the point on making the knockback moved on ghost hits for more consistency in hitting enemies in combos, though it doesn't feel too awful as it currently is as you could be punished for overcommitting on the swings themselves, so having this risk factor keeps the weapon interesting. If i'd propose something for it, perhaps the range of ghost swings could be slightly increased instead? - it would help with the consistency issue but also retain the feel of the weapon being the high-risk-blender type of weapon

Appreciate the Orbitgun line changes - you can shoot enemies while holding yourself up against a wall just fine. Projectiles do still get deleted if you put yourself back up against a corner, though it's less severe of an issue

Gran Faust change is good, compared to before it adds a lot more room for charge usage, though charge itself still feels a little underwhelming for the risk you are putting yourself in.

There is some concern with the Troika line being the better option than the Sealed Sword line - the 3* versions outperform Sealed Sword just a bit with their higher damage potential. Troika line is in a really good place currently, but it would be nice to see some small bumps for the Sealed Sword line as well - they have their quirk of being the faster 2-hit sword line, emphasising that a little more could help it overall with additional small damage buffs for the 4* and 5* versions respectively. They need to pull ahead on being that bit more effective against their effective damage family types, but stay a bit below Troika line on anything else

In regards to bugs, 4* Hunting Blade is currently bugged - the last non-ghost hit swing and the non-ghost charge swings currently deal incorrect damage values and type.

Overcharged Mixmaster in similar vein bugged as well - its charge currently deals the same damage as it's regular shots.

> As long as the dual type weapons deal more damage than their monotype counterparts then this is only a backend fix

In my opinion, split damage weapons are not the problem here. You do not see people opting for normal damage guns instead of their special damage variants because they do not deal split damage. Specialized damage is just better vast majority of situations. I think that split damage is actually a good incentive for swords as they are trading off their range to deal extra damage.

> I don't think we should settle for just 2 cutters, and while you can argue that we have to balance the ones we have now, you also have to understand that any choices we make now will likely limit what we can get in the future... If DVS is made Shadow then it's less likely we'll get another Shadow cutter in the future...

I know you really want more cutters, but Grey Havens wants to test these changes, not design new weapons. If we make DVS normal, the chances of actually getting a shadow cutter at some point are very slim, and I would way rather have a new shadow weapon instead of yet another normal weapon that does not see use. I think you expect Grey Havens to do a lot more for us than what most of the community expects, because I do not think years of no updates makes people expect Grey Havens to answer perfectly to all of our demands. We have to work with what we got, and our best chances is to just have a shadow DVS.

I would also still be a little disappointed if we did get this new hypothetical shadow cutter, as it would still mean DVS would be an irrelevant weapon that almost nobody would put in their loadout.

> There's 0 Elemental/Poison weapons, 1 Normal/Poison, 1 Pierce/Poison... but sure lets just add another to the pile of Shadow/Poison and kill off a unique weapon instead of considering making something that's never been made before.

And there are three shadow swords, with two of them being in the same family. Yet somehow having a normal/poison weapon is more important than getting a little variety for shadow swords. I personally really love playing swords-only, but the variety of options makes it rare for me to actually play that way. It would be great to have a fast shadow sword to switch it up sometimes.

On the other hand, if DVS was still a normal damage sword, I would probably never put it in my loadout. People advocating for normal DVS are expecting Grey Havens to come up with a miraculous solution to make normal damage equally as viable as special damages. Yet nobody has actually suggested a single solution to bring normal damages up to pace except for supposed sweet spot where it is better than neutral damage but worse than specialized damage. I do not believe this midpoint exists, as either the weapon will be too weak that you will just want to use a special damage weapon instead, or it will have an unfair advantage compared to other weapons because it is good against everything.

I just really do not think that preventing us from having another viable shadow weapon is worth protecting the unviable normal/poison combination.

@Holy-Nightmare, I have a question for you now. Would you actually be frequently using a normal damage DVS, or are you just trying to preserve a normal/poison weapon that would not see hardly any use?

DVS is my sidearm on various gunner sets as well as a combo option for sword sets. Using it's combo to chase down jumpy enemies or ones that move around too much for the slower weapons or responding to gunfire.

The fact that it's normal means I use it on a species by species basis, rather than any direct damage boost from a type weakness. You can chase down devilites, flinch greaver hordes that rush you, push kats or gremlins into a corner and them switch to another sword mid-combo when you deal that poison status. People are judging it on a standalone basis, but ignoring it's potential for combo-ing into other weapons... a few swings to deal the poison then swapping to your other sword to finish it off.

Turning it Shadow would make it worse as a general purpose poison weapon... and honestly I really like the choice to improve the odds of dealing poison and the extra damage doesn't hurt. In my eyes a Normal DVS isn't the star of your set, it's support to it and a universally useful option.

Another status would better suit a shadow cutter anyways... as I mentioned its big struggle is hordes of enemies, and a status like Stun, Shock, Sleep, or Freeze would help it far better than Poison. Whether it's slowing or stopping enemies or having a status to further negate knockback it is better than Poison and gives you a new option for Shadow swords.

you just said that you use it as a sidearm to inflict poison on an enemy and then switch to another weapon to kill said enemy, you can still do this even if the DVS gets changed back to its shadow + normal typing that was shown to us in round 1, you can do it even better if they keep the 10% chance to proc poison.

Also to mention as others have pointed out, the knockback on DVS and WHB (all cutters lines) is so strong that you can't get every single hit on an enemy unless they are against a wall, they will just be pushed out of the range of the ghost hits, please lower the knockback on the basic attacks and charge attack so that every hit will connect, this will make it much better to use.

Decided to log in to the forum for the first time in probably almost 15 years to express that split Normal/Shadow DVS was a complete dream and I don't understand why it was changed. I get that the quirk with how damage is calculated can be seen as a game design issue, but swords are the only weapons that can deal split damage so it just seems like part of the weapon type's identity. The split Shadow damage fits DVS incredibly well thematically and it's always felt like a miss that it and WHB were relegated to pure Normal damage. I could see the thematic issue if we were talking about Elemental Cold Iron Vanquisher (and even then I don't think it would be a serious issue), but that's not a problem here.

> With whatever current calculation is being used a Pure Normal DVS would fall short of the neutral damage of the Pierce/Normal WHB... but it shouldn't be like this. "Similar damage" isn't good enough, it should be identical... but it isn't is it?

since you don't want to do the numbers yourself, i'll guide you through it, don't worry.

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square brackets means damage with strong poison from DVS itself btw
LIVE SERVER

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

DVS level 10 / DMG MAX
neutral 169/86 [192/112] (+51% from dmg max [+47%]) (look here, this is important, this is the damage bonus scaling)

TEST SERVER (ROUND 1)

DVS level 10 / DMG bonus none
ineffective 95/61 [116/68]
neutral 143/89 [177/99]
effective 201/119 [230/136]

DVS level 10 / DMG MAX
ineffective 139/80 [172/93] (+40% from dmg max [+44%])
neutral 219/118 [274/138] (+45% from dmg max [+49%]) (also here)
effective 284/166 [324/188] (+41% from dmg max [+40%])

TEST SERVER (ROUND 2)

DVS level 10 / DMG bonus none
neutral 149/77 [172/100]

DVS level 10 / DMG MAX
neutral 214/124 [237/148] (+50% from dmg max [+42%]) (and here)
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so the important points out of these that you should know:
- normal typed DVS scale better than split damage DVS. is "split damage scaling" an actual problem or just a community-driven correlation between a few outliers? what we're actually seeing is that the damage calculations are unpredictable and inconsistent. and to address the amputator point, it's undertuned, thats not something thats unfixable without a bit of config tweaking, it's not some secret evil split damage scaling.
- at dmg max, round 2 DVS (pure normal) deals 214+124 (338) against neutral enemies, round 1 (split shadow) deals 219+118 (337). round 2 normal deals a single point of damage more than the shadow split. it's not identical, yes, but is that the problem? btw yes WHB deals the same amount of damage against neutral targets if you want to compare round 2 DVS to WHB instead, genuinely kinda doesn't matter.

i'm not addressing the other points because i agree with what @Mr-Poop-Poop and @Aaty had to say.

also yeah, i want lower knockback for cutters too, count me in

Why do players igrore heavy swords?

Most of discussion was about cutters, that's why we have to understand why not heavy swords.

For me it's too dangerous to use. Slow attacks are fine until you need shield, you can't activate it and cancel attack animation. Even extreme buff will not provoke me to use heavy swords.

We need more messages like "I don't use heavy swords because..." for real improvements, not just number changes.
Actually the same question should be asked about bombs.

@Ogygus Heavy swords are meant to punish low skilled players who don't time and position their attacks properly. Similar for bombs. If you want easy mindless gameplay you can charge spam brandishes like everyone else.

Or play like Holy-Nightmare, who spends 25 minutes clearing fiend levels with his normal damage DVS and Valiance as the heavy hitter once the mobs are poisoned. Changing to split normal/shadow would slow him from this blistering pace to over a half hour, which is unacceptable.

Also, +1 for reducing (or eliminating?) cutter line knockback, good idea that bubbled up from this thread.

I play Dark Souls games very often, so... every time I think about this I keep reaching for the "not quite heavy" weapon feel that GF and DA are supposed to have.

SK has a meta built around killing everything quickly while running through levels fast (that's exactly why BK is so popular, you can get DMG bonuses or CTR from other sources but not MSI). Heavy weapons are so slow that, in a grinding game, you end up wasting more time swinging than you would with another option (Acheron vs GF is the classic example). On normal runs you can live with that, but on events like Spikes, why bother with GF swings instead of Acheron swings + charges?

That said, SK is kind of fast-paced and that's fine. S-Tier weapons are in that place for two reasons: accessibility and usability. Blitz and Brandishes come from the Hall of Heroes, their behavior is consistent, you can completely rely on them.

On the other hand, you can use other gear for "playing the actual content of the game" lol but you'll figure out sooner rather than later that you're just making the game harder to play by getting slower and hitting less.

MY PERSONAL OPINION is that weapons that rely completely on UVs just to be usable (Sealed Swords needing ASI to feel functional, and still not being better than some cheaper entry weapons) are a whole problem.

It's like investing: you can invest in a Brandish line or a Sealed Sword line. One gives immediate value straight out of crafting: consistent swings with split damage, charges with DPS, AoE and CC. The other needs at least ASI +3 on UV just to feel usable, and until you get the Swiftstrike buckler and some CTR you're stuck with a purely melee sword or gambling on a mediocre charge (GF).

Troikas, on the other hand, are one of the most destructive thing in the game but YOU NEED TO SET UP, and that "setup" costs time. Yeah, you can play around them, but when you're running arcade with randoms or even some friends, asking them to "play around" your weapon and hold back is quite complicated. If a random told you "hey, can you unequip your MSI +5/+6 because I'm too slow to keep up?", would you? Probably not.

I love SK, but when you have access to all the buffs at once, it gets really hard to give that up.

IMO, offensive bonuses should work differently for specific vs. general usage:

Dmg with Swords +6 = 30% damage with swords
Dmg +6 = 20% damage for all weapons
Not real values, just for example purpose.

For defensive bonuses: maybe all 5-star armors (not helmets) should give MSI +1, so at least you don't get too punished for not running BK.

P.S.: Tortodrone gear and Ancient gear exist, so the MSI penalization is kind of... yeah lol. IMO GH should focus on fixing the clearly broken bad stuff first, then the broken good stuff, and only after that tackle the spectrum in between because, come on, they are working, I'm so much hyped for the "relaunch" and the weapons balance update but we are running circles with the cutters and mix discussion..

Preview will open again today for the final changes. Most of the items will match what you see above. However, based on feedback we received in the feedback thread, we've made the following changes:

• Vile Striker and Dread Venom Striker damage is reverted back to the original change where it splits it's damage with shadow.
• Skins of the guns changed will now match the changes that were made.

thank you so much for giving DVS its shadow split damage back! bringing WHB in line with DVS's animation values is also greatly appreciated! i dont think there's anything more i could request now!

Very glad to see DVS returning to split shadow. With nearly a 40 to 4 ratio for/against in this thread, it would have been frankly insane if the weapon had stayed normal damage.

Overall this batch of changes feels sufficiently built out to push to live. While there is potentially room for further improvements (Divine Avenger, Gran Faust especially), on the whole this is still a strong set of net upgrades, and the main game will benefit from having them implemented.

I still think the faust is underpowered compared to DVS and acheron. The faust strikes do the same damage as acheron and are slower. But I am glad for the cutter changes.

Hunting Blade still bugged
Clip: https://youtu.be/AYdvUZ33oSY

Just a note that we're looking into the skins not matching their counterpart. They're stubborn.

Very glad to see the Shadow and Normal split damage return to the Dread Venom Striker, the weapon feels very good to use again and I hope to see this stay as an aspect.

I still hold the previous feedback so I do want to highlight that once more; I still wish the Orbit and Mixer guns had the extra damage gimmick on returning shots.

The Gran Faust needs to have a bit more damage so that it can compete with the Acheron, the Sealed Swords use the 2 swing moveset but do not have the damage to keep up with the 3 swing Brandish line. The charge attack does leave a bit to be desired, while having curse resist does mitigate the penalty, the charge still falls short of the Acheron and Obsidian Edge, I feel that the hitbox of the laser sword needs to have a higher detection rate as it tends to pass through enemies with only 1 hit detection most of the time.

Troika And Triglav still feel great, I don't see changes that need to be done at the moment. This feels like a good standard to hold the other normal swords to.

Lastly, the Cutter knockback does still feel a bit over tuned, the player mechanic "Sword Stepping" does help to remedy this, but that may be unintuitive to newer players.

I do hope such can still be in consideration, but as of now the balances do feel ready for a release state.
I look forward to these being pushed to live and future rebalances to the other weapons and items.

I feel like there's a fundamental problem with the existence of Normal damage in general and instead of dealing with that you'd rather revert back to the easiest formula of making a weapon strong. Just make them deal dual damage, ez. Not pure shadow, not pure piercing, just dual.

And yet, people'd rather use Iron Slug over Callahan. "Oh, Callahan sucks against Fiends/Beasts". If DVS was pure Shadow it would be a similar case and you would understand my perspective more: that I'm not a fan of using cutters against Gremlins/Slimes. "Then use Obsidian Edge, lmao" exactly, again, what's the point of having two normal+shadow/poison swords. Just to have this playstyle choice? Alrighty then, but I'll still see it as redundant, as opposed to the middle ground I proposed earlier, which was to make a third statusless Shadow Cutter.

Everyone enjoys Hunting Blade change, but now you will have to think how to save Flourishes from not becoming overshadowed (they already kind of are except in PvP; I definitely hardly ever used them).

inb4 people call me a ragebaiter. whatever

After doing some testing on Preview, I do think most of the changes are cool, but with one big exception: Sealed Swords.

For both DA and GF, the extra range might sound useful on paper, but in practice it honestly feels almost identical to live. The charge very rarely hits the same enemy more than twice. When it comes to DA, in an entire Vana run, it only managed to get 3 hits from the projectile on 2 slags, and both times they were basically right next to a wall so the projectile could reach its maximum range on top of them. Most of the time u get 2 tics per enemy. Not only that but there's also a pretty awkward interaction with slags: if the slag jumps into you while you're launching the charged attack, it can basically avoid the damage from the projectile altogether. That makes the charge feel even less reliable in actual combat (More reasons to let them still gather dust in our inventory).

Because of that, I don't think increasing the damage alone really fixes the problem with sealed swords. Their swings definitely should hit harder, especially when we're comparing them to something like Acheron, but the charge attack itself is still pretty mediocre if you can't consistently get those additional damage ticks. Maybe making the projectile slower/less knockback, or something similar to magnus's charged attack.

When it comes to GF, we should look at Acheron as the baseline. Then, i think GF's basic swings should probably be somewhere around 25-35% stronger. But even with that kind of increase, its charge is still going to feel mediocre if enemies are normally only taking two ticks from it at most.

I haven't really seen the frequency of those charge hits discussed much, and I think that's just as important as the raw damage numbers. If these weapons are balanced around the idea that the charge can hit an enemy 3 times, then that needs to actually happen consistently in normal gameplay. Right now, at least from my testing, it doesn't.

Meanwhile, Troika feels insanely strong with Vortex. We'll have to see how that translates to a full squad, but so far it performs noticeably better than DA in Vana. Im not saying Troika should be weaker, dont get me wrong. Im really pleased with how Troika performs now, but it just feels wrong that the specialized option heavy sword, DA, performs so much worse than a normal type heavy sword.

So overall, I'm happy with most of the changes. I just think sealed swords are still mediocre, or at best considerably worse than the alternatives. If the goal is to make them genuinely competitive, I'd look at both their damage and how consistently the charge projectile can actually deal multiple ticks, rather than only increasing the numbers.

Thanks for the DVS and gun topic, but the Troika changes were a good deal. Could we have more iteration on GF, and a chance to revisit DA too?

I'd love to see some swing damage value adjustments. :C

Also, I think having an official Discord server for this would help so much! With a role permission system and internal polls, it could become a whole new feedback pipeline for preview server reviews.

Hi, i want to ask, were cutter damages buffed? The 5* cutters do more than round 1 and I already think round 1 had some good damage. Just curious.

Also I also want Divine Avenger and Gran Faust to be in Round 3. They feels super underpowered.

And I have a question: Do damage values always have to be equal? Why do the split damage weapons always have equal damage values? Can we have a weapon (Divine Avenger and Gran Faust) that have much more of the Specialized damage (Elemental, Shadow) than the Normal damage?