Don't remove the changes to them, the P2W element needs to go for trust and standardization.

You fool. Did you ever use a Mixy before. Mandolin is nothing compared to them. If they turn out like Mandolin, they are immediate trash.

Finally some love for the heavy swords! looking forward to playing around with them.

mixmaster and celestial maybe getting a rerun? maybe even a more deterministic method to acquire them? Getting to play around with them in the preview sounds fun

I didn't mean to post this twice sorry, my chrome is bugging.

Wild Hunting blade reskins didn't receive the same treatment.
Charges of paid orbitguns appear to be using Mandolin vfx.

if you're going to buff the triglav line, could you also consider making it possible to craft in the intended way? No one plays lockdown so there's no way to get krogmo coins for the recipe.

it seems Sudaruska's damage was buffed as well as Triglav's even though this wasn't stated in the OP
Their reskins Mighty Great Cleaver and Frozen Great Cleaver and the Node Slime Crushers, maybe others don't have the damage buff.

I know nobody cares about T2 LD anymore but it's good that Grintovec has the same speed as Sealed Sword now. However it's now vastly superior in damage. I don't know if increasing Sealed Sword's damage would be good when it would just be reduced again when upgraded. Maybe Sealed Sword can have a higher speed to compensate.

Any chance for the fast heating mission to be added? It was in preview before.

Is the paywall being worked on Cronus? This is the fifth Preview some players cannot join, the message definitely states that you need to have purchase something prior to 3 months, so even if I did buy something after the last preview I wouldn't be able to join, supposedly.

Buff the heavy swords more.

I think the damage increase is okay but it still cant beat the acheron normals
Why bother first swinging a heavy slow sword with minimal (21) dmg gain when you can attack faster with acheron.
...and if you start comparing charges it just cant compete to the brandish line.

sundruska vs archeron in training hall t3
382+457 vs 361+361+470 normals

634+677 vs 717+184s wave charges

Like Flow mentioned, don't forget to buff the reskins like the slime crushers and cleavers but also the alpha claw gauntlets

Please buff DA and GF normals and charge too.

I agree with Eyeinsky and Zosu, ultimately changing it might piss off longtime players and whales.

Instead of modifying them, Why not make craftable versions? It would be interesting to have them tied to doing SLs (could we please have a weekly free SL too)

I know normal damage sucks.
However, I feel that if they are commiting to adding special damage to the tier 3 cutters, they should add a pure normal damage cutter variant (like the Amputator for the Brandish family). I know my friend who originally got the Dread Venom Striker as one of many normal sword options with his limited orbs at the time.
I think adding these special damages on the original cutters is a good call to add diversity in gameplay but we should consider players who may have obtained these swords for its pure normal damage properties.

So - I think this is a valid concern going forward with ALL balance changes. Damage Bonuses (Like from Black Kat Cowl) apply TWICE to Split Damage weapons. For example, Acheron gets Damage Bonus to its Normal Damage AND its Shadow Damage. The problem with this is that weapons with only one damage type are getting a lot less of a boost than split damage weapons.

I wanted to know if GH knows about this because it affects whether or not how we judge these weapons. If you DO know about them, then we can judge the current weapons fairly without thinking Damage Bonuses will be changed in some type of way down the line. One-Damage Swords are pretty bad compared to Split Damage so it does feel nice to see Triglav and Sudaruska get their damage buffed.

ALSO: Are you guys gonna fix the damages on Level 10 4 star weapons vs Level 1 5 star weapons? You are debuffing your weapon when upgrading it and you won't get that damage back until Level 7. I think the damage should be split up better throughout the levels.

Mixmaster, Celestial Orbitgun: Modernized disk bullets. Will they Do more damage and status on return? So far they do not become brighter... also when backed to a wall You loose one of the disk, it hits the wall before "getting shot"

Sudaruska, Triglav: They feel good a bit more responsive than live, You still need Attack speed on them to make them as fluid as Gran Faust but not bad. Can we see it a bit more increase to be able to test?
Gran Faust: Reduced charge time. This feels great! thanks!
Dread Venom Striker, Wild Hunting Blade: The damage is good but the ghost strike is shorter than the "main" attack is it intentional?
I like the consistency on the flinch on the 3rd and onwards? does the 4th flinch? the 5th do flinch on the striker line.

I also AGREE on the concern on dual damage that Promethiean points out... So far Sudaruska still out damage Wild Hunting Blade, Acheron and Gran Faust on Neutral objectives on hit per hit which feels great! even when the other weapons feels good Sudaruska still tops them of... albeit the attack speed now is a Bit better... not sure if will remain like that when ported to Live... But also a concern is the amount of attacks per "combo" Wild hunting blade hits up to 5 times(plus ghost strikes) Acheron has 3 strikes... so Sudaruska gets a bit behind overall but is not awefull.

This. Update. Is. AWESOME. As someone whos borderline obsessed with SK's melee combat, seeing sword buffs is like waking up on Christmas morning.

The Troika changes are greatly appreciated. Personally I thought they were "fine" before. (not too good, not too bad) But buffs are a very welcome change.

The Cutter buffs are genuinely game-changing. The most significant buff from this update isn't even in the patch notes: The third attack from Cutters have the ability to flinch monsters! This is single handedly the best change to the weapon type, everything else is icing on the cake.

my only concerns so far:

• I and many others would prefer Dread Venom Striker to remain a pure normal damage weapon. It kinda sucks to no longer have a normal damage variant for the Cutter line, even if its "not optimal" or whatever, having the option outright removed without anything taking its place is annoying.

  Personally, I'd vastly prefer DVS to remain normal damage, and perhaps a new cutter is added to the crafting line to cover shadow damage. We really don't need more shadow/poison weapons, we already have plenty of those. (oh right, DVS is the only normal/poison weapon in the game as well)

• With both Cutter lines being able to flinch on charge attacks, I feel like it'd be necessary to adjust Wild Hunting Blade's natural charge time. Previously, WHB had slower base charge speed in exchange for its ability to flinch monsters over DVS. But now, both weapons can flinch but the hunting blade is slower for no reason. (please keep the flinching & speed up Wild Hunting Blade)

Please revert the changes made to the projectile speed on Divine Avenger and Gran Faust. At the moment the swords travel through monsters far too fast and it ends up dealing less damage due to registering less hits. The swords from the charge attack lingering for a shorter period of time is nice, but the projectile speed being increased actually hinders the weapon.

Diskguns:

Yes, continue to close the gap between old mixers and the Mandolin. For the minority of players against the idea, I'd like to bring this up: The improved bullet collision on the Mandolin mostly negates the issue with Mecha Knights and Almirian Crusaders blocking the attack, as you can hit them around their shield much more frequently then before. The only real difference would be dealing with Devilites dodging Mixer/Orbit, which honestly seems like non-issues if you ask me.

bug and possible bug:

• Orbitgun currently deals normal damage on its basics
• The charge attack bullets have been completely swapped with the Mandolin projectiles. Visually this just looks off, and the colors also don't line up. please stick the the regular diskgun bullets

I'm glad to see older weapons getting some love to compete with brandishes!

I can suggest some more things:

1) * Increase the base damage of the Divine Avenger and the Grand Faust (for both normal and charged attacks)
* Add Family monsters specific damage, Undead H or VH for DA and Gremlins for GF
* The charged projectiles from the DA and GF could trigger a 2x2-tile explosion upon reaching their limit or hitting a wall—or perhaps a 1x1 explosion for the DA and a 3x3 one for the GF.
* Maybe the knockback could also be reduced a bit.

2) A full Sealed Sword evolution to 5* would be cool in the future, Its charge attack and design make it unique; it's a shame it doesn't have an evolution that follows its original design, it could be a normal damage weapon thant can inflict a random status effect.

3) Remove Fang of Vog self-fire effect, this weapon is very good as it is but the self-inflicted fire limits its full potential

4) Add fiend H to wild hunting blade and slime/gremlin H to Dread Venom Striker and make their swings and charge attacks a chance to cancel enemy attacks; It could act as a weapon of constant pressure.

Obviously, these are suggestions, not orders hehe

You can take them into account or not, as this is feedback I’ve gathered from players over the years.

Testing done in training hall against undead punching bag in T3:

Fully heated mixmaster is doing 212, whereas lvl 01 orbitgun is doing 310 on charge attack.
As others have stated, normal attack for orbitgun seems to be doing normal damage

While I won't be able to try it out until a couple of days, these changes sound great so far. I love most of the swords tweaked here so having a larger selection of powerful weapons to use will be quite interesting to try, specially Grand Faust, since it has similar mechanics to the Fang of Vog, my favourite weapon.

The changes to the Mixmaster and Orbitgun were also necessary, these weapons rather unorthodox properties made them overpowered and since they were tied to prize boxes, were arguably pay 2 win. While we can't still obtain them through more "standard means", this is an excellent change nonetheless that I hope to see in the live servers.

And after you invested so much time to get this superior weapon, it gets nerfed, so it's a useless elemental Mandolin.
Even if someone used IRL money to get it, it's arguably even more evil to switch out their product.

At least leave the old versions that players already have alone.

Don't listen to the trolls. Instead of nerfing them by making them like useless Mandolin, there are two better ootions:
1. Make Mixy/Orbit more easily available, for example, by crafting Thricer Splicer into them with an alternate recipe.
2. Upgrade useless Mandolin by copying the code of old Mixy/Orbit over and just changing damage type (or make an extra craftable version of Mandolin, colored red with the old superior Orbitgun code).

Mandolin shots are inferior to Mixy. They hit switches more reliable, but that is the only and a very very minor thing they do better.

GH can look at my player data on production to see: I know what I'm talking about. I have Mixy/Orbit and Mandolin, all heated to level 10, meaning I used them sufficiently to know them. I've been playing every day for like 9 years. I cannot stress this enough, Mandolin projectiles are a downgrade to Mixy/Orbit. Do not touch them.

Overall I love these major weapons changes so far.
Going from the best to the bug.

-Cutter lines

I absolutely having a good time testing all of them. New change with flinch mechanic every 3rd or 5th swings combo
Make it fast paced high risk, high reward weapon to use. And with damage boost on top from split damage this will helping with keeping up with a party.

-Troika

The damage boosts are nice. The attack speed different is hardly noticable but still better nonetheless.

-Orbitgun, Mixmaster

The mobs now react to the projectiles of these weapons. Nice job!
The orbit gun bullet now bugged and deals only normal damage with charge still retain the elemental damage.
Both bullet on basic attack has no visually change on return shots.
Orbitgun charge attack is using mandolin projectile. Mixer charge has blue mandolin projectile but also no return damage boost visual effect.

I think a lot of players overestimate what’s “fair” to them in regards to the classic discguns. I wasn’t playing back when they came out, but I doubt the company promised they’d be some of the strongest weapons in the game, much less that it’d stay this way.
From what I’ve been told, they aren’t even particularly rare lootbox drops, it’s just that the box containing the Mixmaster hasn’t returned consistently.

My outlook on the situation is that someone who worked to obtain these classic discguns were granted the boon of having such a weapon FAR in advance of any other player. They were objectively overpowered compared to other endgame weapons, otherwise you wouldn’t see them in every optimal loadout. You should be glad you had this opportunity, not upset that it’s over… if you can even call these tweaks “over”. It’s been 12 years since the Mixmaster came out!

The sheer price of these discguns is the playerbase’s decision at the time, and not one manually put in place by the developers. Some players chose to invest a lot of time and money into getting an item people knew to be overpowered. Sometimes nerfs (in this case tradeoffs) happen. If you stand in opposition to these changes, you’re asking for the game to be stagnant in its quality.
The classic discguns are going to remain some of the best weapons in the entire game- in fact, THE best in elemental damage output if the current values remain accurate. Their damage isn’t being taken away (apart from the bug where bullets can disappear early), and I am confident they’re going to remain top picks among meta shadow lair builds, and anything else that’s endgame. I don’t see why the weapons need to be even greater than that.

So, developers, thank you for your work, and please do go on. I am excited to see weapon rebalancing and I strongly encourage the ideas.

After some time with these weapons, I have some feedback to throw into the ring.

Firstly, the Cutter buffs. The Wild Hunting Blade change is perfect - this is how the weapon should have always been. Additionally, it's giving variety in a very stale damage type for swords. This is absolutely a win, and it feels great to use.

The Dread Venom Striker actually surprised me - I was not expecting it to be good, but the extra flinch capabilities from being specialized damage actually had it holding its own against enemies that cutters have long struggled against. Additionally, when testing the damage numbers in the tier 3 training hall, the split damage shadow Dread Venom Striker only lost out on like... 30 damage total against enemies that resist it. Without damage boosts, it only lost out on about 20 damage per swing. Against neutral enemies, the Dread Venom Striker benefits from split damage like a Brandish would, making it deal significantly more damage to neutral and weak enemies, while not losing all that much damage against strong ones.

So as much as I thought I would want the Dread Venom Striker to remain normal damage... I think it would be better as a split damage sword. That being said, Dread Venom Striker is definitely the worst shadow sword in the game, competing with very strong swords like Gran Faust and Acheron. The poison it inflicts is also directly competing with the Obsidian Edge. I believe it might be better to create an entirely new shadow cutter - maybe give it a different status - like sleep. This would give more options for inflicting the sleep status, and sleep as a status would be an excellent boost to its effectiveness VS dangerous enemies like Giant Lichen Colonies and Gremlin Thwackers.

Next, the Orbitgun and Mixmaster. These weapons now act like actual guns, and it's great to see them coming to a more balanced position. Unfortunately it appears that they're both bugged, not dealing additional damage on the return, and the orbitgun in particular is dealing normal damage, not elemental. Once these bugs are squashed, they'll be perfect and ready for the masses.

The Troika line is certainly an interesting buff. They now actually feel like heavy weapons, but without being overbearingly annoying to use. The 5* versions may actually become valid options for many parts of the game - the swing from a Sudaruska dealt comparable damage to a Gran Faust in a brief lockdown test my partner and I tried. I think that the only tweak that may be worthwhile is a very, very small nerf to its base attack speed. I'm talking something like 2% slower. The weapon is competing with sealed swords, but I believe Troikas can be raw power while being a bit more unwieldly, while Sealed Swords can be easier to control and be more targeted with specialized damage.

One last thing that I believe is worth addressing - with the buffs made to lower star weapons (2-3* Cutters and Troikas), these weapons now vastly outperform other weapons in their shared tier. While Sealed Sword still is fine, a Tempered Calibur is looking a bit worse, Cautery Sword trails behind, and strangely Arc Spur is now the worst damaging sword of the bunch. All three of these weapon lines should be given an extra look to make sure they keep up in the early star levels. I'd recommend giving the Spur line a similar treatment that you've given Cutters - a shadow and elemental Spur with split damage would be pretty substantial, and maybe revisiting the Cautery Sword's identity since the bonus damage VS slimes really holds it back.

Very good work, Grey Havens. I'm satisfied with the direction of these balance changes.