Spiral Knights - Brandishes are overpowered

Brandishes are overpowered

10 replies [Last post]

Sat, 06/10/2017 - 16:09

Horseclaw

I'm sure a lot of people know this. Certainly many people know that Acheron is currently the best sword in the game. Cautery Sword is the only Brandish that is not overpowered, and that's because someone saw it fit to put it on par with the Cold Iron Vanquisher.

Anyway, the point is, if the Combuster and similar are weaker than the Acheron because they have a status, then why are they more or less on par with the Leviathan Blade?

(Note, all damage values are considered at Depth 25, in neutral damage with no bonuses)
According to the calculator I used (linked to at bottom of post), the Combuster does 492 neutral damage on its first two swings, and Levi's first two swings do 335 neutral damage. Acheron does 530 on its first two swings, the same amount of damage the Gran Faust does on its first swing. These values are not very balanced at all. This obviously gives two choices:
1. Buff the Levi. Blade to match Acheron, buff the Amputator, CIV, FoV and any other similar swords to match the elemental brandishes, and adjust the Gran Faust (and D. Avenger as well as anything else that would need changes to be viable) so that they aren't outclassed by faster swords.
2. Nerf the Brandishes to fall in line with Levi. Blade line in terms of base damage.

There are other cases of unbalanced weapons/armour in Spiral Knights which obviously should be also addressed as well. Perfect balance isn't really possible but there are definitely many items in the game that are either incredibly overpowered or incredibly underpowered.

Once again, I know that many people are aware of this issue, but I'd like to bring attention to it. I used this to compile comparison for all damage numbers as measured, and the numbers recorded on the wiki also support this.

Sat, 06/10/2017 - 18:04

Bopp

link broken

Your link "this" is broken. It doesn't seem to point anywhere.

Sat, 06/10/2017 - 20:26

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

I guess I'll humor this conversation.

To be honest, the brandishes are in quite an awkward place, but one that I don't think is necessarily "over powered" when all things are considered.

They are applicable to a handful of hard scenarios, but are often overshadowed by other weapons.
Iron Slug = their charge but better
Blitz Needle = more damaging to single targets than anything they can muster and at a range.
Mixmaster/Orbitgun = better at casually fighting most enemies/situations... though basically off limits to most
Bombs = much safer and stronger crowd control (including trapping) than brandishes can produce

So in a large way, all brandishes are really good at doing is just casually fighting and developing your knight. This is particularly good for finishing up small skirmishes. Short sighted players often use brandishes to accomplish more than this, and many are successful even while gimping themselves.

The real issue with brandishes I would say is twofold-

1.) Players grow attached to their brandishes, and use their generalist capabilities longer than they should.

2.) Players are unwilling to branch out due to MMO fatigue = grinding. Fangle I don't care don't reply to me please.

Personally I would solve these problems by rearranging a large part of the game- gear progression. The original idea behind the sealed sword was that you'd break 7 seals to unseal it and then that gets you faust or avenger. That's to say gameplay is required to unlock it, and while you're doing that gameplay you'd be having fun rather than "grinding" even if it was a bit grindy to unlock the 7 seals or whatnot.

What if we took that concept and blew it up?

1.) Player starts with weapons deemed generalist- leviathan, brandishes, etc.

2.) Player can start to unlock specialist weapons, just like they already can. These are rearranged to fit the weirder weapons.

3.) Generalist weapons require the usual set of rarities or whatever to upgrade.

4.) Each specialist weapon is given a special place in game where it is upgraded, without rarities. These are mandated fights that upgrade the weapon.

It's definitely something I would consider going through with, though it's likely too late for SK to implement something like this.

Sun, 06/11/2017 - 08:08

Horseclaw

derp

Link should be fixed. It just has the calculator displaying numbers for various swords without bonuses that I used for reference.

Anyway, the main point of this thread is just to bring attention to the fact that the brandishes have better neutral damage than the neutral damage sword, which they should be more or less on par with.

(I do like the more unique progression idea though, but that'd probably be for a suggestions thread)

Sun, 06/11/2017 - 08:20

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

I made a thread a while ago about it, where I calculated that all 3 hit normal swords need a 15% buff to be on par with brandishes as a baseline (as nerfing the brandishes would make a lot of players very sad and do nothing for the atrocious gun balance situation), and suggested also applying the buff to troikas and cutters, because those need some rebalancing.

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/117927

It was met with good peer-reviews from most, but the truth is that GH probably won't even consider it. I'm speaking from experience- nothing I've written about balance has happened, no matter how well researched or anything. They aren't going to buff it or implement our ideas, so there's no point in even bringing it up. That and I didn't want to put up with Fangel's attitude of "i think i found the problem here" as if they need to disprove me. Fangel can just win and be king of the suggestions forum. I don't even care.

Sun, 06/11/2017 - 16:01

Thats-Rough-Buddy

LOL salty Fehzor is salty

Sun, 06/11/2017 - 17:22

Jedwell

Eh...

Not really salty. I guess it's more like a mixture of valid frustration and sadness. Understandibly.

It is really just bizzare how just balancing the damage values is such a federal issue, despite players repeatedly making threads about it. There would be next to no effort on the developer's part; the math has already been done for them.

Mon, 06/12/2017 - 04:19

Skepticraven

↑↑↓↓←→←→ba

Relevant. There's a link to all of the results from each thread at the top.

There's no issue with Brandishes. Acheron got 4.79 average (which excluded my vote of 1 for all swords). DBB got 4.92, Blitz Needle and Iron Slug got 5.0s.
It's not an issue of maths, it's an issue of ease of use - which is an insanely difficult thing to balance for... I can easily out-damage novice brandish users with a neutralizer. Does that make the neutralizer OP? Good luck with that argument.

Iron slug is really OP in the right hands, but it is super difficult to line up shots perfectly. Invite me to a tortodrone run, and I'll kill one drone solo before the rest of the party kills the other (unless there's another OP slug-slinger in the party).
Brandishes are pretty good in novice hands. That's why most players think it's OP.

Mon, 06/12/2017 - 07:44

Mayaura

nerf the buff?

Some of you might recall that they buffed the brandish line for some reason a long time ago, making the combuster charge attack much more spectacular looking as well. I assume they had reasons for doing that. And that those same reasons still hold true, meaning it's balanced the way they want it balanced now.

BTW, i got a VH slime dmg brandish after reading this thread so I can make war on slimes with an Acheron. ty ♥♥♥OOO♥♥♥

There are some fun 1-shot-ish charged weapons like the Iron Slug gun and Triglav sword if, as Skepticraven noted, you can get them lined up to hit your target.

At the end of the day, my CTR VH Combuster (with an ASI Low tagged on for good measure) is my security blanket of a weapon that I lovingly overuse.

For hanging out in Haven, though, nothing beats that 5-star Lionheart Honor Blade!!! ۩

Mon, 06/12/2017 - 10:16

Neekkoth

Yes they are

Imagine a heavier hitting Arcana with a perforating charge, less charge time than a magnus, and a GOOD chance of causing STRONG status, pretty outrageous, isnt it?

@Fehzor People grow attached to this thing because its a low effort - high reward weapon and sadly there is no way of talking them out of that, unless it gets fixed... I think giving them a harder time to unlock them would not really solve anything, just postpone the problem

One solution: If my knight is facing north/upwards the charge should be changed from a vertical to a horizontal one (akin to a straight wall of explosions, trailing the path of the sword) - making me actually expose myself to the hordes of mobs, instead of sending shocking/burning/freezing magnus charges from a safe distance.

Secondly, change the status ability to either slight chance to cause strong or good chance to cause weak.

I really dont know about dmg-values other than the Acheron is beyond broken, dealing more dmg to constructs than a combuster, but I feel that the above mentioned versatility - NOT the dmg numbers is what makes brandishes overused.

EDIT:made some things clearer

Mon, 06/12/2017 - 12:52

#10

Horseclaw

stuff

Generally, buffs are better than nerfs. In light of this it's probably a lot better to leave the (non-cautery) Brandishes as is.

Instead, changing swords to reflect the Brandishes would be the better option. This should put Levi. Blade as about the same as Acheron, since they're both damage non-status swords, then just adjust other swords accordingly (heavy swords should be doing more damage than Levi. in neutral damage, FoV should have similar damage to Combuster and not inflict/inflict weaker self fire since Brandish charge is mostly better anyway, things like CIV and Amutator also move to be similar to Combuster in base damage).

Acheron, though, is not the only Brandish that is too strong just in stats. If only Acheron was not adjusted (or only Acheron was nerfed) it would need to gain some kind of bonus or status since it would be quickly outclassed by Obsidian Edge in every way, since Obsidian Edge currently does slightly less damage (same as Combuster) in exchange for inflicting Poison with its charge.

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Brandishes are overpowered