I want to give some feedback on swords in Lockdown, and this seems to be the most relevant place to do it now. Keep in mind this is an opinion piece, but based on chatting with other players in game, it seems to be a common opinion. Certain swords are better than others in Lockdown, and are more popular than others. Other swords have issues that are as of yet unclear to me because you can't see damages in Lockdown, at least yet.

To start with, there are a couple types of swords that excel above others in pvp so far. These swords are the Sealed Sword and Troika archetypes (2 hit combo swords). Under these, the 3 hit combo swords, such as Brandish and Flourish, do almost as well. On the other side of the spectrum, quick and high combo swords such as the Cutter/Striker (10 hit combo with 5 swing swords) are very suboptimal. This is what I've gathered so far:

Troika and Sealed Sword (5 star versions are Triglav, Sudaruska, Divine Avenger, and Gran Faust): These blades are meant to be strong but slow. However, the striker class in Lockdown easily removes the speed restriction inherent in these swords, and because they do so much damage you don't have to do full combos to kill players - one hit is usually enough, and two is always enough. In addition, one or two stacks of the Intel class damage debuff will almost always bring damage into the one shot range.

I don't truly believe that these blades are grossly unbalanced, but they are definitely stronger than the rest of the swords in the game in Lockdown. A small change, such as a few frames more recovery on each swing, could be the answer. Directly nerfing their damage is probably not the answer, because it would make these swords suboptimal in pve. My suggestion is bringing their speed in line with their damage (by calculating dps based on what other swords can do).

Cutter/Striker (5 star versions are Dread Venom Striker and Wild Hunting Blade): This archetype is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum - meant to be fast and weak. However, they are too weak in Lockdown, and my theory is that this is because the 2 hit combo from each swing isn't registering correctly against other players. This sword is meant to do 10 hits in 5 swings. Based on my own damage tests against other players, not all of the hits are counting each time. Again, I can't fully verify this because you can't see damage in pvp, at least yet.

The largest problem with this sword type is the damage per second it can output compared to the Troika and Sealed blade - since it takes much longer to finish the combo and the hits don't all connect, the dps suffers dramatically.

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I have kept an eye on other sword types and have only noticed large unbalances with the ones described above. The most "balanced" swords appear to be these:

Brandish and Flourish (5 star versions are Final Flourish, Fearless Rigadoon, Furious Flamberge, Acheron, Combuster, Glacius, and Frostedge): these swords have 3 hit combos, and more or less, appropriate damage distribution placed between each hit. Their speed also seems to be the most balanced. If every other sword were brought to the level of these two types in terms of damage per second, it might make every sword in the game viable in Lockdown.

If anyone has feedback, information, or testing to add to this, please do!