Spiral Knights - Single damage-type sword balancing

Single damage-type sword balancing

10 replies [Last post]

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 15:50

Autofire

One small flaw I've noticed in the some swords is how they can deal damages in both extremes to things in PvE and in PvP. This can cause issues in PvE cause the enemies weak to that particular damage type are very weak to them. It isn't balance, either, if they are crap against things strong to them. We can just use another weapon anyway. In LD, they do extensively more damage no matter what. (This is because, say, a FF will only be effected by the anti-piercing part of the jelly armor, while the rest gets by the normal defense. A brandish will be blocked by the elemental and normal parts of, say, a bomber suit.) There are four swords with just one damage type:

Fang of Vog (elemental)
Warmaster Rocket Hammer (elemental) (must be payed for)
Barbarous Thorn Blade (piercing)
Final Flourish and branches (piercing)

While I think it is good to have a few single damage type swords, I think it is good to have it limited to only one for each type. As for the ones that should go split norm, here are the reasons:

Warmaster Rocket Hammer
There are several reasons I think this needs a change. Being an owner of one, I've found it to be super-duper OP. It is speedy, "slow", and pure elemental. For !@#$%'s sake it's a hammer that is being flung at things! :P I think the crushing blows should be doing some damage, not just the exhaust. (To clarify, I think it should be norm/elemental.)
Also, this makes it really unique in T1, in a bad way that is. It is the only T1 item to do date that doesn't have any normal on it. This should be fixed, being that elemental resist is in very short supply in T1.
Barbarous Thorn Blade
The BtB is the boss of piercing swords. The charge is awesome compared to the others, getting a large AoE, as well as range. This, how ever, is all the more to help make is deserve a small nerf. One thing that makes it make more sense to have it do split normal/piercing is that the snarbolax actually gets a red telegraph on its attacks, rather than a yellow one like all the other wolvers in the same level.

Short and simple, the FF isn't in such need of a nerf being the charge leaves you open and is hard to use. The FoV isn't because, well, it's slow and the charge burns the user.

This is mainly my thoughts on it. I'm busy atm and can't refine it further until I find the time. (Also, we have no pure shadow swords. Anyone noticed yet?)

EDIT: clarified somethings hopefully.

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 15:59

Oatmonster

Lick

I'm fairly certain pure damage weapons only get the bonus of split damage weapon on the monsters they are strong against, yet they do substantially less against monsters that resist them, if that makes sense.

What exactly are you trying to change in the WRH? The swings do do damage.

Why should the BTB be changed but not the FF? Both charge attacks are situational and you shouldn't change the damage type of a weapon based on its charge. The FF charge being "hard to use" (it really isn't) doesn't justify leaving it pure piercing.

The FoV doesn't do pure elemental and it's charge attack doesn't suck.

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 16:28

Luguiru

The priority target in balance is Clockworks gameplay. Lockdown is secondary.

The hammers are essentially an inverse mechanic of Troika; instead of getting enemies away from you, it brings you to them. The second basic swing for the hammers can also be used to flee but with the amount of damage it can potentially inflict people tend to prefer using that dash for offense. Are you going to complain about the knockback on the Troika charge next?

Calling the Barbarous sword charge overpowered is basically calling Brandish line charges overpowered, which is arguably still correct. Would you be willing to nerf Brandishes about the same amount as the Snarbolax sword?

Final Flourish is fine, especially after the swing range "nerf"/rebalance; Flamberge and Rigadoon lines, though Rigadoon is a little better, are still noticeably underpowered compared to Final. Is it Iron Slug kind of underpowered? No.

See above.

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 16:44

Addisond

Graveyard one of your threads and make sure you've got everything straight. I'll read it then.

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 18:39

Autofire

Wait...did I say something odd?

People are saying I said the hammer is weak against undeads. I think I said something wrong...

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 19:02

Autofire

Um, let's see.

I'm not necessarily saying ruin the weapons! I'm just saying tone down the damage a little to things weak to them, that's all. Look, if you hit a wolver with a giant hammer, that's gonna hurt more than just 30 damage, right? Dealing 300 damage or so to skeletons on one swing is also really high for something that fast.

For the BtB, it's actually covered in dark energy by how it looks. Looking at the damage tables, the damage output is EXACTLY the same as the FF ones. This seems odd, being it seems like a dark weapon in nature. Having split norm/pierce would make it do equivalent damage to things neutral to it while making things strong to pierce take a little more damage and things weak to pierce take a little less.

Short point short, I'm just saying doing such huge extremes of damage doesn't feel right. I also feel as if I really did it badly to get it across to you guys. Sorry about that. I guess it's a bad idea to post anything like this without giving it plenty of editing. ^^

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 19:22

Addisond

Response

HAHAHA you ignorant fool (jk no offense), these swords actually do the exact same damage as a split sword when working on the right type. I made a thread about it here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/57105

They have the same mechanics as a pure damage gun when hitting a resistant target. There is no upside to a pure damage sword in PvE, but I'd say from shield mechanics that there is an upside in LD.

FoV does split damage. Hammer needs to get changed slightly, but not nerfed specifically, I need to be able to interrupt that stupid combo. There's no way to defend myself against an incoming spammer. Hammer probably needs a nerf, but it lies in it's non-interruption and somewhat ridiculous single-target (stationary) DPS.

BTB charge has less range than a FF charge. It makes you step back and the things don't go very far. I'll grant that I have a stake in this because I own a BTB and not a FF, but I feel that converting it to normal damage is unfair to anyone who has a UV'd BTB (or really anyone with a BTB at all). Though the FF charge is *probably* weaker, this doesn't justify a nerf across the entire sword. Just nerf the part that's OP.

FF and BTB are in need of a nerf in their combo, and I really really want that range reduction reverted. Sweet-spotting strikers with hammers/GFs is painfully hard.

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 19:34

Oatmonster

Lick

@Addisona, Yeah, the info on that thread is what I was talking about earlier. Yes, the hammer should also be made interruptable.

@Autofire, How so? Why shouldn't the BTB do pure piece? Because it glows red? So now weapons do damage based on what color they glow? The BTB is not a dark weapon by nature, it is a pointy weapon, and as such, does pierce damage.

The hammer does slightly more damage than the brandish line on its normal swings. It is also slower. It also does much less damage on resistant targets. It also has a dash that takes more planning than your standard three hits.

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 19:52

Little-Juances

How about tweaking normal defense in general. It should reduce any damage source, but not as effective.

I'll thow in an example with random numbers:
Flourish deals 100 damage to someone without pierce defense.
Right now, jelly would reduce that damage to 70 due to its' pierce defense.

With my idea, the normal part would further reduce that damage to 60. Not great, but not useless either.

Mon, 10/08/2012 - 20:24

Luguiru

Them defenses

Maybe normal could defend against both normal damage and have 10% defense for all specialized damage per bar (one bar of normal counts as a tenth of a bar of pierce, element, and shadow as well as normal). Not too big, but still pretty significant when you get 5* stuff.

This would make shields like APlate and Omega a lot more useful.

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 02:27

#10

Skold-The-Drac

@Lug's numbers

So you're requesting a 10% defense bit for all special damage on normal...

So APS would get approx. a specialized damage med. UV when fully heated?

Not bad at all...

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Single damage-type sword balancing