Fang of Vog needs to remain his own line of Weapon, Not a Calibur(althought is clasified as one is different on behaviour), not a Cutter, not a troika, not a sealed, not a Flourish, Not a Brandish, not a Rockethammer, not a Spur...
Fang of Vog must be the Fang of Vog of the Fang of vog line. It's very own thing, if needs a buff well lets buff it. but it's own identity. Not another colour(damage type) of something else.

@Spark-Of-Kill

You are misusing the phrase "I and many others..." to give your personal (singular) opinion false authority, which is a bit dishonest and deceptive. Keep that in mind.

The WHB and DVS changes are excellent, and long overdue to buff the otherwise useless but very unique cutter lines. The attack speed and pattern are enough of a differentiator vs. other shadow swords, regardless of damage parity. Well done.

@Retrofit +1 on the FoV suggestion, elemental fire cutter would be excellent. It could keep the same Leviathan style charge attack which would solve Jcyrano's complaints about uniqueness.

@Retrofit
You're so off course I don't even know where to begin.

Yes, DVS is currently one of the worst weapons in the game. The main reason for this is it's inability to stagger monsters despite being such a close range weapon. This was thoroughly explained in the video you yourself linked. The singular best change in this patch is the flinching mechanics on both the Cutter charge attack and the third swing of the basic attack chain. I literally said this in my first feedback reply if you decide to go and actually read it.

Normal damage is an "inferior" damage type compared to the others, this much is true. However, simply switching weapons off of normal damage does not resolve anything (yes it's split dmg which is the better scenario, but that's besides the point). This change more or less sweeps the problem under the rug.

Even then, you completely missed the point of that first reply. The change to DVS damage removes weapon variety by getting rid of the only normal/poison weapon in the game, and in return, giving us yet another shadow/poison. This sword fills no niche that isn't already occupied by an existing weapon. (Yes it does technically add variety in the sense of giving us a new shadow damage sword, which is needed. But like I said, the best of both worlds would be to have DVS on normal damage, and a new cutter like that covers shadow damage)

Also, "fun" is subjective. Some players enjoy having well rounded weapons that work well against all monster families without having to pay attention to resistances. This is literally the point of normal damage.

@Thats-Rough-Buddy
I can personally attest to at least 5 different people (all with their own playstyles and experiences with the weapon), not including myself, and not including every other player in the game who also shares the same opinion about DVS. (Some of whom have commented on this very forum thread) So "I and many others" is actually an accurate and honest statement. Quit whining just because you disagree with my opinion.

Fang of Vog currently does not need any changes. It's one of the most unique weapons in the game and the self inflicted fire is a strong part of its personality. (I mean a dmg buff on regular attacks would be nice I suppose, but in my opinion brandishes should instead be brought down a few pegs)

If you want a fire cutter, ask for a new cutter type. Just like I said about DVS, such a change would reduce weapon variety by switching a sword which already has a strong identity of its own to: "elemental variant of existing weapon type". It's just a bad suggestion.

The thought of changing back Dread Venom Striker to normal damage just makes zero sense to me. Normal damage has just been the meme for years because of how bad it is since it excels at nothing. In Spark-Of-Kill's ranking videos, he talks about how a normal damage that is mediocre everywhere is just worse than having a weapon that excels something.

Just because the Dread Venom Striker isn't quite up to pace with the Acheron and Obsidian Edge doesn't mean that we have to cut the idea of having another shadow sword, as the options are limited right now, with brandishes and the Gran Faust being the only options. I think the more popular opinion is to nerf Acheron's light attack damage down to be in line with Combuster/Voltedge/Glacius/Obsidian Edge since those swords don't cause statuses on their light attacks either. It would be really fun to have an agile shadow sword to play around with, and people seem to report that it has decent use cases such as against menders and giant lichen colonies.

Yes, this is the only normal/poison weapon in the game, but almost nobody picks normal damage over a special damage type anyway, so the Dread Venom Striker would just sink into irrelevance because it doesn't excel anywhere. 95% of the time, people are using the weapons that dish out the most damage, and only using weapons that deal less damage just to mix it up a little bit. With a shadow Dread Venom Striker, it can both mix it up and put out a ton of damage.

People suggest making another cutter that does shadow damage instead, maybe with a sleep status or something which I think would be really cool, but I don't think it is very likely that Grey Havens will make this sword. I think we have a better chance at at a shadow cutter by just making the Dread Venom Striker shadow than if we just hope that Grey Havens will make a sword that a few people requested.

I think GH should add a flag to knights that limits them to equipping proto gear and everyone in this thread, who suggested nerfing something, should have that flag enabled permanently 😉

Diskguns
-I'm indifferent on the changes, I'm fine with mixers/orbits keeping what they have now and not having the same features as mandolin does, but also if you do apply the changes I'd be ok with it too. However the first option doesn't affect anyone while the other could upset those who grinded/spent a lot of time and money to get those guns.

Troikas
- I'm liking the buffs to them and I could see myself using it in certain levels. I do think they feel a little underwhelming still, but I'm not sure giving it even more damage is the play as that would make it way too strong. One big issue i have is the knockback on the charge and had a suggestion of instead of the charge knocking enemies away it would suction them into the spot of the slam. If the charge can't one shot the mob it should allow for follow ups instead of us having to chase around the enemies that got sent to Narnia.

Cutters
- Very good, almost too good. I'm a big fan of seeing cutters get split damage and having shadow and piercing variants for them as normal only just doesn't feel great. They excel at single target which I think is their intended roles and still retain the risk factors of combo-ing into mobs. Honestly, they do feel a bit overtuned in damage (they are shredding everything) and i could see them getting a very slight nerf to their damage. If it's possible, I'd also like to see the lunge forward from the normal attacks have a shorter distance.

Overall good changes so far, excited to see more balancing for swords and other weapons. WHB seems to be the best pierce sword now by far and I'm curious to see if flourish receives any buffs/changes, especially with how big the gap between it and WHB is now.

Hello, apparently this is a brand new account in terms of the forums. Hey hi hello. You've likely seen me on various discords and the subreddit as Blitz342. Anyway, I'm gonna dig into this because I have a strange passion for game balance and an advocate for options.

Here are my thoughts, going down the list of changes.

• Mixmaster, Celestial Orbitgun: Modernized disk bullets.
Having never owned an Orbitgun or a Mixer, I have no say in this.

• Troika, Kamarin, Grintovec: Swing speed and damage increased.
• Khorovod, Sudaruska, Jalovec, and Triglav: Slight increase to speed.
It appears that Sudaruska and Triglav (and presumably the 4*s as well) received a damage bonus just like the Troika and the 3* versions. This was observed by comparing them to the unchanged reskins, the slime crushers. Was this intentional? It is certainly a welcome change and allows them to do more damage against neutral targets than the Sealed Sword lines, which imo is a good standard for normal damage. Doing slightly better against neutral targets than their specialized counterparts. Good changes overall.

• Gran Faust: Reduced charge time.
On one hand, it's a good change that the abnormally long charge time for Gran Faust was brought in line with its DA counterpart. It never really made sense why it was so long.
On the other hand, it still inflicts self-curse, and unless you're running armor/sprite perk/trinkets with curse resistance, there is no reason to use the charge attack. The opportunity cost of equipping curse resistant equipment is too great to justify bringing it just to use the Gran Faust's charge attack.

• Cutter, Striker: Damage increased.
• Hunting Blade, Wild Hunting Blade: Added piercing damage.
From what I've seen, wild hunting blade has become an absolute monster, especially in solo play. Having the first normal/pierce split damage weapon in the game is neat. The problem is that it now outclasses Flourishes in damage in just about every scenario. Perhaps if the ratio of normal:piercing damage was adjusted, reallocating some of that damage to normal damage? Or maybe only the phantom wolvers dealt piercing (pure? split? Not sure how the math would work out)?

Another issue is that the dmg bonus vs. Beasts will often be minimized to low or completely negated due to the use of BK/Chaos (which shouldn't have their buffs adjusted, but that's an issue for another day). In general, I believe monster-specific buffs should apply beyond the standard +6 (Maximum!) effect cap.

• Vile Striker, Dread Venom Striker: Added shadow damage.
*The phantom/minor swings still have less range than the regular swings*
I'm conflicted because I both love this change because of how it can rival Acheron in terms of single-target damage when using the main combo, but also mourn the loss of the only normal damage poison sword, as Spark-of-Kill said. It's now yet another shadow poison weapon. It has more total damage from its combo against neutral targets than Acheron, but it takes longer to get that combo out. One problem is that Acheron needs to be reigned in, as it still has Gran Faust damage values despite it being a faster 3-hit combo sword.

While the DVS change does not put another weapon type into the corner, as WHB does to Flourishes, the loss of a normal damage poison sword is sad to see.

Proposals for additional misc. tweaks to the weapons changed in this round of adjustments:
-Sudaruska, Triglav: Let the rocks deal some damage again, like they used to when Khorovod was the final sword in the troika line. If that's too much damage, then perhaps give them the ability to stun/freeze, respectively. The goal being to make them more than simply cosmetic/noise.

- DVS's range should be raised to equal WHB's
- The entire cutter line of swords still suffer from vulnerability. I suggest giving the 3rd, 4th, and 5th main swings increasingly higher stagger/flinch capability. To reward committing to a whole combo. Perhaps decrease the delay before the final swing of the charge attack as well.

I look forward to further rounds of rebalancing, and hope for the opportunity to have discussions with the GH team about said adjustments. Keep it up, everyone :)

I like most if not all the changes made here. Wild Hunting Blade feels incredible to use now. Suda damage is a little harder to gauge since the difference is smaller but I hear it's good.

Dread Venom Striker seems pretty divisive here. I personally like how it feels a lot now. I like having another weapon that actually deals somewhat reliable status on normal hits unlike other status weapons which tuck their status away behind their charge attacks. I do, however, agree with the notion that a normal variant of this deserved to exist.

I would be disappointed if we completely lost this new weapon though. I know it'd be kinda redundant, but maybe give us an alternative that keeps normal damage, or revert DVS and then give a shadow poison alternative or something? It's a weird issue to resolve to be honest. I really like the new DVS, but it'd be nice to have a good normal status weapon but it'd also be weird for cutter to branch into both a shadow poison AND normal poison weapon, wouldn't it? If we had to pick one, I'd honestly prefer shadow poison though. Feels great blending slimes and gremlins with this thing.

Edit: Moments after writing this I remembered turbillion existed. Turbillion always felt similar to cutters in a way, so maybe we give Turbillion a new poison line and then it's like the old DVS never left but instead got better while retaining its normal damage? Or shock, or freeze. Put any status on that while keeping it normal and I think we'd have a decent normal status niche filled again.

The changes to the weapons have been amazing, and I'm glad that after over a decade, weapons that were long left behind are finally being revitalised. Off the bat, both Troikas and Strikers have been made way more rewarding for their riskier use, while the flinching being added to Dread Venom Striker has also ailed prior issues with the weapon. These changes are a step in the right direction, with a few more tweaks before perfection. Mixmaster and Orbitgun seeing tweaks, fingers crossed to bring them in line before a large drop is also a sight for sore eyes, we're polishing out the stains on the game!

That said, reading the replies to this had me feeling a way. I have a lot of words for many of you (don't worry I'm not going to bite, but please reconsider where you stand after reading my chime-ins.)

Also, I have too much to say so I have to split this across multiple posts.

@Zosu

> Don't touch Mixmaster and Celestial Orbitgun. People will quit for good.

> 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.

These weapons have been problematic for over a decade, these changes were long overdue. There are a handful of bugs that were to be squashed around these guns, and if this brings them closer to being more readily available for all players, these changes are for the better. Also, Mandolin is quite respectable, even strong which is good. I'm not sure why you think so lowly of the weapon. I've seen in the past you have it out for Grey Havens amending the lack of enemy reaction to the bullets but this was evidently a mistake from day 1. They need to properly balance the guns (mostly just fix the existing issues like enemies not reacting) before distributing them to the wider playerbase. There shouldn't be paid variants that are different from free variants.

@Top-Platinum

> Just a reminder about the Acheron, currently dealing more damage than it should with normal swings. It should be the same as all the other Brandish swords.

Acheron does more damage because it lacks a status, compared to its elemental counterparts. It originally did do the same damage but if my memory serves, this was increased to match Gran Faust after the release of Obsidian Edge. This is generally the rule for weapon families with different variants with statuses. E.g. Plague Needle does less damage than Blitz Needle due to it having poison, and against neutral targets, Supernova does more damage than the other three variants of pulsar.

@Fangel

> 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.

DVS is absolutely shredding with its basic attacks at the moment. It might not be crazy to say it's the worst shadow sword, but when you effectively have 3 options (post change), the 3rd option being the worst isn't so bad. And again, it's not so far behind like the competition if you consider it to be. Definitely way better than its previous position in the game's meta.

> The swing from a Sudaruska dealt comparable damage to a Gran Faust in a brief lockdown test my partner and I tried

I'm not really sure why you would be doing tests in lockdown and sacrifice performance in the main game. The last time we had the game's weapons change around lockdown we lost damage on Polaris, and attack range on Flourishes, with the latter being felt to this day. I'm very against lockdown being used to dictate the shape of the balancing. Lockdown has a host of its own problems that should be ironed out first before making these sorts of moves.

Didn't address it before but being able to shield cancel the striker charge attacks would be a welcome change.

@Mergu-Md

> A way to satisfy current mixmaster / orbitgun owners is to mark the existing items as "(Legacy)"

This would not be a healthy change for the game when it's slowly being phased out of the game. Please don't suggest this thoughtlessly.

@Amnimonus

> Dread venom striker is good, maybe too good, it does more damage per hit on the regular attacks than the Acheron even before poison status.

Acheron is really strong and brandishes were designed to be a middle ground of bombs and swords. Dread Venom Striker is primarily a single target mower. It's okay for the weapon to have a lot of damage in its basic attacks.

I agree with your assessment regarding damage calculation in the game as a whle, though flourishes were already on the weaker side (Acheron outdamaging them~ whoops!) I don't have much of a solution but it would be nice to see something to address it, your ideas would be a nice starting point.

@Retrofit

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I said this earlier in this post but it really is true, DVS just does not work at the moment. The shadow changes opens up so much more for it.

I'm split on the elemental Cutter Fang of Vog for some emotional reasons I don't even understand. The game designer brain in me knows its for the better but some other part of me doesn't want it to change, maybe I'm closer to the normal DVS agenda maintainers than I realise. But yeah, would probably be for the greater good to just change it to a cutter.

question mark

FoV normal attacks are functionally fine as they are. You don't need to completely replace the way it attacks to make the weapon good. Having extra range makes it handle crowds of enemies with its normal attacks better as you can more consistently hit 2 or 3 enemies at once. The problem it faces is purely that the damage it trades for fire isn't remotely worth it and the charge attack's self fire is too punishing for what it offers. I genuinely don't understand how just removing this unique offshoot of a calibur would actually be a reasonable change. Just because it has the model of a striker? Just make a different elemental striker, don't completely remove an entire weapon. How about a shock striker? That'd be pretty useful for that style of weapon, imo. I would be extremely sad if they actually replaced FoV with another cutter.

There's obviously going to be further rounds of weapon adjustments. We don't need to discuss FoV or Turb yet. Since we are, IMO the only change FoV needs is to be able to apply strong fire with it's standard attacks. Currently only the charge applies strong fire.

Anyone who thinks that people will quit the game if orbit/mixers projectiles are fixed to not be an exploit that bypasses how enemies are supposed to behave when they get shot at, is clearly playing the game for their own reason.
If your only reason to play Spiral Knights is that you enjoy broken weapon interactions that let you cheese certain types of enemies, I don't know what to tell you.

This thread was created to get feedback on the current round of balance changes. Let's try to not dilute the pool of actual feedback by talking about other weapons or making requests for future balance change tests. Fill this thread with well-thought feedback (hopefully AFTER actually trying the weapons) so that balance changes are done right.

All of us know that there's more to discuss, and the time for that will come. Let's be patient and take the balance changes one step at a time.

Changing how a weapon functions has nothing to do with it becoming more readily available for all players. GH can just put it in depot for 3500E and it's available alright. Doing this with Mixy/orbit will not break the game. It will actually make it more fun for a while, maybe forever. These guns are around for like 10 years and they did not break anything. They are part of the experience. You guys are so delusional.

Picking a weapon that's good for a task is part of the game. For Vana you bring Blitz if you have it and for devilites you bring Mixy if you have it. What you don't bring is Mandolin. That's because it's a trash gun. And now, instead of making the best weapon for the task more available, some of you weirdos want to cripple it to make sure there is no best weapon any more. Do you want to nerf Blitz too maybe? It makes Vana clearly too easy, following your naïve logic. Maybe remove poison and curse from the game, because that makes the Jelly King too easy? Oh and let's remove bombs from the game, because they make compounds too easy.

If the goal is, to make my teammates spark as much as possible, because they can't hit the devilites while I shoot and the devilites hit them instead, then you're right on track.

> Picking a weapon that's good for a task is part of the game. For Vana you bring Blitz if you have it and for devilites you bring Mixy if you have it. What you don't bring is Mandolin. That's because it's a trash gun. And now, instead of making the best weapon for the task more available, some of you weirdos want to cripple it to make sure there is no best weapon any more.

That isn't the weapon being good at a task, that's a bug. Devilites and mecha knights are supposed to react to bullets, them not reacting to the orbit and mixer needed to be fixed. My friend and I both use the mandolin on devilites, I did a few games last night with him and he used the mandolin exclusively against several levels with them. They'd dodge on disc, and get hit by all of the others he fired, there's nothing wrong with it. You just have to actually think when shooting at them now, that's all that changed. It really isn't that hard, and it isn't the end of the world that they're getting brought in line with the rest of the game.

Making devilites dodge is a way of manipulating enemy behavior, by making them dodge you prevent them from attacking briefly and for a short while they stop dodging. This is a way to help your teammates and allow them to use the opening to deal damage. Maybe if you had taken the time to think about more dynamic ways to interact with enemies and your teammates rather than thinking the gun needs to ignore enemy design norms or it's "garbage" and insulting people, you'd have realized this.

Divine Avenger got fixed, because it had a bug. Mixy and Orbit intentionally behave like this, though.

However, it's obviously a bug Blitz charge has 15 shots, instead of 12. Should have been fixed years ago. I think it's time to address this.

Really loving the buffs to the Cutter lines getting turned into Hunting Blade Piercing and Venom Shadow damage as that sword line was the most fun to use for me but the normal damage left them stuck as meme weapons. (Haha please give us an Elemental Striker sword with shock effect named “Lighting Striker” next please Grey Havens?). Cutter line could maybe use a boost to the speed its charge attacks come out at? Its so long that using it is almost asking to get hit even against incredibly slow enemies like Trojans and Lumbers.

Gran Faust getting its charge attack time sped up is well overdue. The chance to curse yourself seems like enough of a downside especially when the meta armors all have negative curse resist, making the charge attack mostly unusable unless you run a loadout specifically to counter the curse.

Troika line getting sped up is also awesome. It probably won’t make them meta, but I’m hoping it makes them close enough to a sword version of the Iron Buster that remains a crazy weapon through raw damage.

Looking forward to seeing forgotten Elemental swords like Fang of Vog and Divine Avenger get a little love in this world of Brandish supremacy, as well as potential armor reworks in the future to see some really bad armors like Plate Mail to get… anything.

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHH DDONT TOUCH MY MIXY WAHHHHHHHH 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺. I EVEN CREATED MY OWN CUTE LITTLE NICKNAME FOR MY $1000 WEAPON CAUSE IM SO ATTACHED TO IT EVEN THOUGH I COULD SHORTEN IT TO "MIXER" LIKE EVERY OTHER NORMAL PERSON. 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺. WAHHHHHHHHHHHH.

shut UP bro. GH please nerf this weapon into the ground or just delete it entirely, its owners are so irritating.

oops

In today's Spiral Knights, normal damage is unfortunately antiquated in design for the most part. 14 years ago it had some value as Arcade didn't have equipment stations, but most places in the game now allow you to swap weapons at the beginning of the depth. The game should instead encourage building wide arsenals.
It's difficult for normal damage to exist in the way it does and be healthy, this is because normal weapons have to be really strong to be relevant, which has the consequence of reducing meaningful variety. This can be seen with Mandolin for example, a strong weapon that can basically be taken everywhere. On the flip side, the less good options are mediocre and never see play.
I think reducing the number of normal damage weapons is the correct move here. Normal weapons are already pretty bloated, there's a lot of them and most of them do not provide meaningful value to accounts, some argue that they exist for newer players but I think giving newer players items with what's effectively an expiry date is worse for them than letting them specialize and begin building an expanded arsenal sooner. And this is before I even get to some normal weapons that are flat out terrible and/or completely replaced (Cold Iron Vanquisher/Amputator/Grand Tortofist / Valiance), not to mention the restrictiveness of crafting early on.

Changing some of the existing normal weapons to a different type can add variety in having more mechanical options to deal with different monster families. I keep harping on about how there is only really one piercing sword and two shadow swords but it really is a sore spot.

**Post Note**

This post is directed toward the developers and is intended to communicate my feedback on the current changes. It is not an invitation to debate, and I will not try to defend these opinions further in the replies.

I've considered these points carefully and stand by the feedback as presented. I will not be responding to comments after posting this, including attempts to argue against or challenge individual points. Others are free to discuss the feedback among themselves, but I won't be participating in that discussion.

My observations are primarily based on Elite solo play with the full BK set, so some conclusions may differ in multiplayer or with other equipment setups. I'm intentionally focusing on the changes in this current round; I'll look at the remaining weapons separately as they come.

**Diskguns**

**Preserving Weapon Functionality**

I'm generally in favor of leaving Mixmasters and Orbitguns as they are. I don't think they need to have the same functionality as the Mandolin, and preserving their current functionality seems like the safer approach.

**Investment and Player Expectations**

I wouldn't object to changes if there's a specific balance or design goal behind them, but changing the functionality of weapons people have already invested significant time or resources into could be frustrating. Unless there's a clear gameplay benefit, I'd prefer to leave them as they are. Even if they were not originally intended to work like this.

**Troikas**

**Buffs and Damage**

I'm enjoying the buffs and can see myself using them in certain levels, although they still feel somewhat underwhelming. I'm not convinced that more damage is necessarily the answer, since that could push them too far in the other direction.

**Charge Attack Knockback**

My biggest concern is the charge attack's knockback. I'd prefer it to pull enemies toward the impact point rather than launch them away. That would make the charge more useful as a setup tool, allowing follow-up attacks if it doesn't kill the target, instead of forcing the player to chase enemies across the room.

I think this would improve their effectiveness without simply adding more raw damage.

**Gran Faust / Divine Avenger**

**Charge Time & Divine Avenger Comparison**

The Gran Faust charge-time reduction is a good change and brings it closer to Divine Avenger. With Max CTR and Max ASI, I'm seeing roughly 3 seconds per charge on Preview versus 4 seconds on Live, which makes its unique Curse application much more consistent.

I use Divine Avenger frequently on Live, and its spread-shot charge gives it excellent crowd control and herding. Gran Faust now feels more comparable as the offensive alternative—a large blade that inflicts Curse—which I like.

**The Self-Curse & Build Investment**

However, I don't think the charge-time reduction addresses GF's main problem: the reward still doesn't justify the self-Curse.

I don't think the self-Curse should be removed either; the Bargain theme is one of the weapon's coolest features. The issue is that the drawback currently requires a substantial build investment without providing enough additional power in return.

Even a heavily Curse-resistant build can still get Cursed, while the alternatives can spend their equipment and perks entirely on offense. GF therefore spends much of its build compensating for its drawback just to reach a performance level that other weapons can achieve without that cost.

Curse-resistant enemies also resist GF's Shadow damage and are immune to its Curse, making that investment feel even less rewarding.

**Reward the Risk**

I'd rather see GF become strong enough to justify accepting the Curse than have the Curse weakened enough to be completely negated. The reduced charge time is a good step, but it still feels less like a "Deal with the Devil" and more like a scam.

**Projectile Speed**

As Spark pointed out, I'd also recommend reverting the projectile speed changes on both Divine Avenger and Gran Faust. The faster projectiles can pass through enemies too quickly and actually register fewer hits, reducing their damage. I like the shorter lingering time, but I'd prefer the previous projectile speed so the charge attacks can consistently register their intended hits.

**Cutters / Dread Venom Striker / Wild Hunting Blade**

**Cutter Specialization**

Overall, I really like the Cutter changes. The split damage and Shadow/Piercing variants give the line more meaningful specialization, and their strong single-target damage fits what I assume is their intended role. They also retain the risk of committing to their combos against groups, which I like.

**Cutter Damage**

That said, their current damage feels slightly overtuned, so I'd favor a small reduction rather than a major nerf. I'd also like to see the forward movement on their normal attacks reduced for better positioning control.

**Dread Venom Striker's Identity**

Separately, I don't think Dread Venom Striker should lose its Normal/Poison identity. Even if it wasn't always optimal, having a Normal-damage option in the Cutter line has some value, and DVS is uniquely positioned as the only Normal/Poison weapon. We already have plenty of Shadow/Poison options.

**Alternative Shadow Cutter**

I'd personally prefer DVS to remain Normal/Poison and have a new Cutter added to the crafting line to fill the Shadow role rather than converting DVS.

**Wild Hunting Blade Charge Time**

For Wild Hunting Blade, I'd also recommend reducing its base charge time. Previously, its slower charge made sense as part of the tradeoff for having flinch capability over DVS. Now that both Cutter lines can flinch with their charge attacks, WHB no longer has a corresponding advantage for its slower charge.

I'd keep the flinching and bring WHB's charge speed closer to DVS. This would preserve the new functionality while removing what now feels like an unnecessary disadvantage.

Gran Faust charge buff is nice, but the regular swings still do as much damage as the acheron. I think it’s regular attack damage should be boosted past acheron’s, it is a slow sword after all.

Please turn on SLs I tried to access them on the test server but they are disbaled. I would like to try the cutters and troikas in SL and see how they preform

for gran faust i would just remove curse immunity, only the duration changes based on their resistance. same as it is with knights.
i would also reduce fang of vog charge time (and sealed sword too if it isnt also being buffed).

@Top-Platinum
Acheron does more damage than other brandishes because it doesn't inflict status.
(justice for amputator)

@Darklordskull
there is practically no difference between triglav and sudaruska, EV vs graviton is by far the bigger issue.

Wild Hunting Blade now feels exactly how it always should have been. Very nice changes.
For Dread Venom Striker though I agree with others that shadow/normal inevitably makes it compete with other shadow swords and ultimately lose its unique aspect of a poison allrounder, which is its current biggest strength.

Troika line buffs are highly appreciated and feel good so far.

For Gran Faust now, as others have pointed out, some more significant changes need to be made to make it worth wielding. As it stands, Acheron would still be the better shadow sword in almost all cases. Quicker charge speed is great, and I love the idea of self-curse and wouldn't want to miss it - I think chance of self-curse could be a bit lower though, while also chance of inflicting curse being higher (for charge and base attacks) would make the bargain of picking this weapon in the first place a better deal overall.
Perhaps also a change to the charge projectile. While a fast flying projectile feels swift and energetic, it's not particularly useful. Especially compared to Divine Avenger's three projectiles, this single bullet feels a bit underwhelming. Now, it doesn't need to copy DA, but maybe the single projectile could be bigger in size while also moving slower? That would feel threatening.

All in all I highly appreciate the effort of new balance changes. Thanks a lot!