FoV is my favorite sword to use. It's a really comfortable weapon. I love its charge attack and feel like it consistently hits harder than brandish charges on account of just more of the hitboxes landing consistently (both charges are otherwise about the same in power). I ESPECIALLY love that it has like a half tile of extra range on its swings. But WHY is its base attack damage lower than brandish?
I think FoV damage should at least be on par with brandishes for its normal swings. I'll quickly go over the pros and cons of this thing in comparison to a brandish.
Pros:
- Fire proc chance on normal swings
- Slight amount of extra range
Cons:
- Much lower base damage
- Significantly lowered attack speed
- Charge attack made extremely risky from self inflicted fire chance whose self damage grows with your own damage boosts
As much as I love this thing, its cons MASSIVELY outweigh its pros in my opinion. Fire proc on normal swings is nice but realistically it doesn't achieve a lot. The extra range is a lot more meaningful but brandishes are still incredible without it. I didn't list the charge as a pro because not only do I think it's really just about as strong as brandish charges, but it's also very risky to use. The FoV trades off a TON of power just to have access to some pretty small boons and I don't think it's very fair. I would love to see the FoV's base damage boosted to be on par with brandishes. I honestly think that's all it needs to contend with brandishes.
In a perfect world the charge attack's self fire damage would be weaker so that I don't need to fully spec fire res just to use it at all, but realistically I think the base damage boost would be enough to make people much more willing to use this thing. Although having brandish base damage would be good, I think this thing deserves to be a little bit higher if anything. The attack speed nerf is pretty massive all things considered, but in all honesty I find its slow speed oddly comfortable and would like to buff other things to make up for it.
[EDIT]
P.S: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE if you do buff the damage make sure it doesn't do any extra self damage. Damage bonuses from things like the Chaos Set or a pet's sword damage boost seem to increase the self-fire's damage. PLEASE don't make this mistake it will just make it even worse.
Having seen the Neutralizer buff today, I feel motivated to plead this thing's case once again. I get Neutralizer was a unique case in that it wasn't working as designed. Despite what some notable quotes may have tried to imply, I don't think anyone would really believe that a specialized variant of a weapon dealing more damage in its neutral matchups than the variant meant to be the all-rounder is really intended behavior. Still, I love this weapon enough that I'll be damned if I can't find a way to use this as an excuse to ask for more.
My thoughts haven't really changed much so I won't be saying anything particularly new (honestly, it's no more than a very verbose bump). Allow me to reiterate and emphasize some key points.
The slow swing speed is something I like. I would like the FoV to keep that, because I think it results in a more relaxed pace. It gives me more time between my swings to calculate in my head the best angle to swing at to follow up my attack, etc. It gives the weapon a more tactical feeling than playing with brandishes.
What I think this weapon needs are just 2 main buffs: Higher damage and lower fire recoil. The higher base damage is extremely necessary. The fire DoT doesn't deal enough damage on its own to make up for both the massive damage penalty and attack speed penalty compared to brandishes. The charge attack has respectable damage, but I do think it could also use a buff. I have actually changed my mind on the claim that the charge is as good as brandishes if one puts aside the self damage.
As for the self damage, I do understand this thing was likely designed to be used with armors using fire resistance. The issue, to me, is that not only is this thing's base damage much lower, but the fact that the fire becomes so oppressive when combined with the Chaos set means that I sacrifice the option to benefit from that huge universal damage bonus. This results in an even more drastic gap between the damage of FoV and brandishes simply because it can't be used with one of the best armor sets in the game.
I don't think the self fire in and of itself is an entirely bad mechanic. If anything, because of how charging attacks and damage interact, it can be used to my benefit at times to get a faster charge (admittedly an edge case). I just think it's too oppressive at the moment and it should be reigned in somewhat. The below average damage of this weapon simply doesn't justify taking on such an enormous burden most of the time. Imo, the charge attack should be an absolute NUKE almost guaranteed to instantly kill anything short of a lumber while having the self fire be a limiting factor in how often it can be used. If we're to justify a detriment to go along with this, then the charge needs to be better than most other weapons' charges who DON'T suffer such a burden, if any.
So again, I think FoV just needs to have a (much) higher base damage (preferably above brandish base damage to compensate for the lower speed) as well as having its self fire damage be reduced (but not necessarily removed outright although I don't think many would complain). Just please make sure that a higher base damage won't accidentally increase the self fire. Lord knows this game's probably made of mountains of pasta so please be careful.