Current state of swords
itt: let's give our thoughts on how the different melee weapons currently are and what that could be done to help balance it for the next patch.
Medium Swords:
Good, since I'm using these as "base" to compare with the other weapons. The spin charge-up however is miles better than the slash charge-up. Spin deals more damage, covers 360, knocks enemies back and can hit enemies multiple times. Strategical use of it allows you to hit multiple enemies as well, which more than makes up for the charge-up time. The slash charge-up has way too narrow area of effect, and on top of that there's the short recovery time where enemies can hit you because they magically went behind your character instead of getting knocked away and the element effect doesn't always proc either.
Jagged Swords:
see blades
Blades:
Both jagged swords and blades are better than the medium swords. They kind of fall into the "PSO syndrome" where the *weak but fast attacks* doesn't really do that much less damage than the *powerful but slow attacks* which simply translates into much more DPS dealt compared to their medium & heavy counterparts. As for the charge-up attacks.. what? there are charge up attacks for those? ;) oh and blades have no 5* variants yet.
Heavy Swords:
Pretty much the short end of the stick here. Lowest DPS to single target, have long recovery time after each swing, vs multiple enemies they bump into each other preventing knock back = get hit and lose hp, even vs single enemies they often glitch and somehow magically appear behind your character instead of getting bumped away = get hit and lose hp. The second attack in the combo makes your character spin 360, however the AoE area isn't anywhere near 360 - it's frustrating to see the weapon go through some enemy dealing any damage. The charge up attack is slow, it performs very slowly, it's extremely narrow, it's rock bottom DPS-wise and you'll never catch any enemy which you actually want to stun (gobbin bombers, the blue healy things) - doing it might as well as turn you into a sitting duck for a few seconds. The most dumb part is that heavy swords is awful (as in absolute slowest) at smashing minerals and blocks - "heavy weapon used to smash things" oh the irony.
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As for melee charge-up attacks in general, consider the following: The whole theory is:
"I can charge up a strong hit and don't have to be near the enemy while I charge up. The strong hit makes up for the DPS I lost for not attacking the enemies during charge-up time. I don't have to be near enemies during charge-up which gives me a defensive edge".
The actual performance in-game is:
"I can waste time to charge up and deliver some attack that may miss and in no way makes up for the DPS lost if it actually hits. The only times where it might be useful (when there are many enemies on the screen so a single charge-up can hit multiple targets) is also when it's dumbest to do so because running around doesn't protect vs super range spamming enemies (tier 2 gun puppy), it won't protect you from when enemies block your path(both that could easily be avoided using block but you can't block while charging) and getting hit cancels your charge-up.
That of above which is reflected in-game in how the charge-up attack is a semi redundant combat feature players use once or twice when they obtain that type of weapon for the first time, see the damage it deals and then completely forget about it.
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tldr: heavy swords needs buffs, jagged swords needs nerd, charge-up attacks needs buff. The changes doesn't necessarily have to be changes in attack values you could for example:
-Increase heavy swords damage and range making it useful for killing grouped enemies, while decreasing jagged sword AoE width making it best at dealing high DPS to a single target.
-Remove the taking damage interrupts charge-up would be nice, at least for weak hits (like those not done by huge enemies that stun you) or allow blocking while charging.
Also, since the weapons differ and all - I would suggest adding 0* or 1* variants of everything for players to try out before they invest in getting a 2* or 3* only to find that the weapon doesn't suit their "style" and that they can't get any refunds because the weapon has already been bound to the player after equipping it to try it out. I understand the thought that having different weapons that only are obtainable later in game would act like a motivation for people to keep playing, but with the spur and cutter at only 2* the result is often "damn I wasted a whole day of mist energy to gather materials and craft this weapon, why didn't I pick that other one instead? now I don't feel like playing this anymore."
I've only started playing SK recently and don't have *all* weapons yet. So feel free to add your thoughts.
Just a reply to one specific part of your post: I use the charged strike on my Dread Venom Striker *all the time*. It locks most enemies in their place if I manage to catch them with it and by the time the charged strike ends most enemies caught in it are defeated. I guess this is a point against "charged strikes are obsolete" but also a point for "light swords are overpowered". I find the Striker line to be fairly useless without the charged strike though. When trying to dish out uncharged strikes you usually get interrupted. Sure it's possible to deal a strike or two and then switch to shield, rinse repeat, but releasing a charged strike is so much easier and helps me combat my RSI. :)
to clarify for ynahteb
blades are the things that has a large curved blade
I wrote the wild hunting blade/ vemon strikes as jagged swords, because they are jagged.
On the knockback glitch...
I notice that when you hit an enemy from any direction, the enemy is knocked to the right, every time. I reported this in-game a while back, but as far as I know, it still hasn't been fixed.
It's funny seeing how popular the cutter series is and how hated the troika series is. At this beginning of this preview, it was the exact opposite. What makes it interesting is that the only change was in the damage each one dealt, even though people site countless reasons why the khorovod currently sucks.
That is not the only and not even the major difference. In the rebalancing patch, something (either a direct nerf or adjusted monster speeds or resistances) caused the Khorovod to no longer guarantee an interrupt. And that was the prime reason it was so useful - without it, you can't hit anything on emberlight+ without also taking melee hits, and, well, getting hit is bad.
On a similar vein, that's why - in addition to the awesome damage - vile charger is so popular: The charge attack still is pretty much a guaranteed interrupt even at the high attack speeds on deep depths.
The Khorovod is what I mainly use, the large swords base their power not in the damage they do but the ability to know enemies back. If you plan to use a large sword, as useful as a damage increase could be, it is also based on your playing style, use the knock back strategically.
That's where the problem lies with the heavy swords however. The situations where it's actually useful decreases on the higher tiers. Enemies gets ranged attacks that will hit you while you're stuck in heavy swords slow animation. Some enemies have have knockback resistance, in slime danger rooms where knockback should be really useful all it does is knock slime into the slime behind it doing effectively nothing. Other enemies attack multiple times (goblins, alpha fox things) so knocking them backwards only makes them move attack forward and hit you.
You're kind of stuck with a weapon whose characteristics aren't helpful and deals less DPS than the other weapons.
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"On the knockback glitch...
I notice that when you hit an enemy from any direction, the enemy is knocked to the right, every time. I reported this in-game a while back, but as far as I know, it still hasn't been fixed."
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I'll add to that. Whenever I charge attack with my Volcanic Pepperbox, enemies pull to the left. Maybe this bug has to do with the weapon type?
And yeah, I agree that heavy swords seriously need a buff. And a 5* version.
The "always knocked to the left" problem should probably be bug reported. I can actually confirm this as well, as I always try to shoot enemies from the left with charged autogun variants, else I actually disable auto-aim and aim a bit to the left intentionally, so that when one of the bullets hit the enemy gets "dragged" into the rest of the shots.
"oh and blades have no 5* variants yet."
I don't really follow your classifications all that well but where do Wild Hunting Blade and Dread Venom Striker fall?