So, since Gray Havens has expressed an interest in doing balance passes, I thought I would post my own thoughts on the matter. Originally, I was going to write a single long, multi-part post about a bunch of things. But since there is so much to cover anyway, I've decided to split by subtopic instead for clarity and organization.
With that in mind, I want to talk about weapon effects (for lack of a better term). By that, I mean anything on a weapon that is not its damage, speed, or charge time. Weapons can have two kinds of effects: status effects and family damage bonuses, and I will address each in turn:
STATUS EFFECTS
Status effects have two issues: the first is that the normal and charge attacks of a weapon can possess different proc rates and strengths of status, and there is really no way to know. Mostly, I would say this is not a significant problem. There's technical details in the strength of status effects and whatnot but mostly I just care to know if the weapon has a status or not.
The problem is a lot of weapons tend to work like this: low probability of status proc on normals, high probability of proc on charges. On paper this sounds fine, because it means that charges are stronger, and that's good charges are supposed to be. But in reality, what it means is the weapon takes a damage penalty in exchange for having a status*, which will never actually see use because of the low proc rate.
Let's say I'm using Triglav, because I like freezing things, and I want it for the heavy knockback to control space with the option to not sc and use the second swing for a chance at freeze to set up into something else. Unfortunately, the proc rate is stupendously low, and most of the time that second hit will not proc freeze. It essentially may as well not exist. I can solve this issue by instead equipping something like Hail Driver, Glacius, or Shivermist Buster, which will very reliably freeze my target and are all safer options in general.
Now, for Triglav this isn't a huge deal, because it has the same damage as Sudaruska. Consider, however, Flamberge: it is not good at damage, because it's a status variant and so has less damage than a standard Flourish, nor is it good at the thing it's supposed to be specialized for because its proc rate for fire is abysmal. A lot of weapons have this behaviour and, in my opinion, for all of them it should go. Weapons like Vile Striker, Flamberge, Rigadoon, Triglav, and Obsidian Carbine (not exhaustive) should enjoy a reasonable status chance on any attacks meant to proc the status, because if I select the weapon for its status, the status is something I should be able to rely upon. The Flourish variants in particular (claim to) have Minor status strength (until five star rating), so it's hilarious that they're so bad at applying status compared to Alchemers and Brandishes which enjoy a "Good" chance at Moderate and Strong status respectively for their entire existence.
*Brandishes are an exception to the status = less damage rule, as Acheron originally had the same damage as other Brandish type weapons despite having no status. Brandishes and Alchemers seem to believe Shadow Damage is a status in its own right, I guess. When Obsidian Edge was introduced and people rightly complained that it was just better Acheron, instead of adjusting the charge attacks of other Brandishes to do less or the charge attack of Acheron to do more, OOO gave Acheron more damage wholesale. This is nonsense because Brandish normals don't proc a status effect and therefore don't have any difference from the non-status version, not to mention that it bumped Acheron's damage to be the same as Gran Faust, a weapon which is not only slower but also can give the user Curse which is the worst status effect in the game. Brandishes are overtuned in general but can mostly stay the way they are because they're already a mainstay and most other swords are wet noodles to begin with. But Acheron's strength is mind-boggling. It's not hard to fix either. Restore its damage to the same as other Brandishes, and then specifically make the charge attack do more damage, or give it a status (Stun?) if you really want to go that way.
FAMILY BONUSES
I turn to the second of my topics. Damage Bonus vs Family modifiers. There is no defending these on weapons that have them innately: they are just bad. Take Cold Iron Vanquisher (using the Wiki's Stratum 6 numbers for simplicity): CIV does about 20 points more damage against Undead and 20 less against not-Undead. Considering how frequently Undead are accompanied by not-Undead this is not ideal, but it works for somewhere like Firestorm Citadel where there's guaranteed hordes of zombies and a backup weapon can be taken.
However, Fang of Vog and Combuster et al. not only have access to a status effect (which considering Obsidian Carbine, Hunting Blade, and Amputator, seems to be considered as equivalent to a vs Family Bonus) but also do about 30 and 60 points more of damage vs Undead (respectively), but also Constructs which have the same Elemental weakness, and do at least as much if not more damage than CIV against enemies neutral to Elemental damage. CIV only pulls ahead against enemies that resist elemental damage, which is complete nonsense because of course Leviathan Blade (or a Shadow or Piercing weapon) are much better options. Cold Iron Vanquisher is not good as a specialist weapon and it is not good as a generalist weapon. Amputator sees a similar story with Obsidian Edge and Acheron, while Shard Bombs and Antiguas are notoriously poor performers, and Wild Hunting Blade is much more known for its charge attack's reliable flinching than being effective against Beasts.
This does not even address the shortcomings of the Damage Bonus effect itself, either. Because it shares the same cap as other damage bonus effects, having a sufficiently high damage bonus from other sources will reduce or entirely negate the weapon's innate bonus. One might argue that damage bonus used to be more rare, as Chaos did not always have +4 total damage and Black Kat with its +6 did not always exist, but that's beside the point. The system is still terrible! Even without any other equipment, a "Damage Bonus vs Undead: Very High" UV on CIV runs into this problem in a way that for an Elemental sword it would not! (yes, that is an incredibly niche situation involving a UV that nobody values on a weapon nobody uses except as a costume piece. nevertheless, the point is the system inherently defeats itself.)
Unlike with the previous issue the solution is less straightforward. Most of these weapons could be fixed by simply giving them split damage values — which Antigua and Shard Bombs even used to have, but were later removed (presumably because split damage works weirdly with damage bonus and defense calculations, but as Brandishes and Sealed Swords retained split damage that point is moot).
Split Piercing damage should work handily for Wild Hunting Blade, Argent Peacemaker and Sentenza, and (most) Shard Bombs, which would then also appreciate the damage bonus they'd deserve for not having a status effect to begin with. (Shard Bombs are partly complicated by being the first of the weapons in the game to receive thoughtless variants for every damage type but I'm sure there's a creative solution.) Gilded Griffon is Piercing already, and could receive split Normal, a status effect, or just a lot more damage to act as the pure Piercing option for Antiguas.
Cold Iron and Amputator are in tougher spots, because there already exist weapons that do the exact thing they would do as Normal/Elemental and Normal/Shadow hybrids respectively. For Cold Iron, I would advocate to give it Freeze status. It can have Elemental if consistency with the flavor is desired, but Freeze would not only give it something unique to offer compared to Fov and Levi, but also would be practical as Freeze's knockback prevention is useful for reliably landing multiple hits of the Calibur-style charge attack.
For Amputator I'm not certain because Brandishes cover so many territory already, especially with Acheron and Obsidian Edge handily cornering the anti-Slime niche. I hear tell that its charge attack, like WHB, is especially good at flinching enemies, but with their damage and knockback that's not something Brandishes struggle with anyway, nor is it something communicated to the player in a tooltip.
That's about what I have to say on this matter. Of course, I am but one knight, so this is based on my personal experience of the game, and balance is a tricky subject. Thank you for reading if you did, and if you did not, here is the TL;DR
- Many weapons with status effects do not feel good to use because they are not reliable, especially when reliable options like Brandishes and Alchemers exist. Status procs should be reliable, even on normal attacks, and if the 'free' application is a concern the normals could have weaker status strength.
- Weapons with innate "Damage Bonus vs" effects are just bad. Weapons with specialized damage types are better at their niche than they are, and generalist weapons are better at everything else. Most of these weapons would be significantly improved by removing the Damage Bonus effect and replacing it with split damage accordingly.