Spiral Knights - Heavy Weapons Buff?

Heavy Weapons Buff?

16 replies [Last post]

Wed, 04/09/2014 - 16:14

Blastpod

"And THIS is my weapon..."
Hi, Aggroid here. I'm well known as a bomber in my guild, but recently I've been playing around with Heavy Weapons. This includes (Sudaruska/Triglav and the Spiral and Anceint Plate Mail). I've been told however that the "Massively Underpowered Troika Line" is FAR LESSER than the "Brandish Master Race". This bothers me. If I took a survey, I garuntee 80% would agree that the Sudaruska and Plate Mail are underpowered. And here's the point.
Weapons like the Polaris and Brandish can deal up to 600 damage in rapid succession, and I'd like to see a Sudaruska do the same amount in the two swings it has. I'd like to clear out a room in Vanaduke just as a brandish user can do. I'd like to see the plate mail get some ACTUAL defensive power, rather than being a mockery of a failure.

So, my Idea is this.
Sudaruska should deal around 250-ish damage in the first swing, then 300 in the next. The change attack should do about the same, if not more.
Plate Mail should have an increased Health Bonus, or maybe even a Charge Time Reduction for swords. Ancient plate mail (Being as hard to aquire as it is) should have some Elemental defense, much like the Volcanic plate mail, as well as the possible CTR suggested before.

I'd also like to make it fair to buff the other "Heavy Weapons", which includes the Iron Slug. This gun also has been ridiculed for it's low damage compared to the Driver series. My ideal version would have less of a stunning effect, but trade this for a higher (Maybe 190 per shot) damage.

Post your feedback, altough I'd like to see some SMART feedback.

Wed, 04/09/2014 - 17:09

Dibsville

As a user of both Sudaruska and Triglav, I am going to have to disagree about the Troika part. They do great damage for the fact that they do NORMAL damage. In fact, they do almost as much per hit as a specialised Brandish, or a Final Flourish, versus things weak to their respective damage. The difference being that Troikas do this huge damage to all six family types, and in exchange, you get a very slow two-hit combo.

I'd also like to point out that they have an insanely powerful charge (my favorite thing about them!).

You say you're a bomber? When I bomb, although it is rarely, I usually bring Suda along just for clearing means, over my Leviathan Blade, and over my Divine Avenger and Gran Faust.

What you supposedly want to see is something Troikas can already do. Yeah, it won't be as flashy or as quick as just charge spamming with a Brandish, but it gets the job done, and in my opinion, it's a solid weapon that earns its place very well in the arsenal.

My Sudaruska and Triglav sends its regards.

That being said, I'll comment on the rest of the gear--
+1 to Plate Mails giving more health, but -1 to CTR.
-1 to Ancient having Elemental defense, Volcanic already covers this, and Ancient has significantly more Normal defense than Volcanic/Ironmight already.

I'd agree that something should be done about Iron Slug, but I can't really comment on what you have suggested, as I personally only have a Callahan.

Wed, 04/09/2014 - 17:27

Pipipipipi

Behold, the evil squares shall take over the world!

And make Iron Slug balanced? No way!

Wed, 04/09/2014 - 22:36

Fangel

What Three Rings needs to do is learn how to nerf

The current heavy weapons we have that deal normal damage don't deal a bad amount of damage, but rather the other swords deal too much. The fact that split-damage swords do so much damage is because, when stacked with damage bonuses, both the damage typed are buffed.

In my own opinion, the high DPS weapons need to be nerfed, not the heavy weapons be buffed. Lower the overall damage values of the brandish lines slightly, say by 20 points of damage per normal swing, and then adjust the damage output so that the specialized damage is more, and the normal damage is less.
Why should we do this?
This makes these weapons as effective as they were before on things they're super effective against, less effective against things their neutral against, and suddenly not a viable choice against things they're weak against. You shouldn't fight a zombie with an acheron, but we do it because of the insane amount of normal damage, plus a fair sum of shadow damage (that is made weaker, but not that weak). The other specialized heavy swords we have (Gran Faust, Divine Avenger) could keep their current damage values.

Now onto the armors:
Plate mail series should have +1 health to their respective star level. I.E., a 5-star armor would have +5 health by default, and be boosted to +6 at heat level 5.
They should also have sword CTR: Low. The attack speed decrease on the armor makes it a less viable option as is, so encouraging players early on to use charge attacks with their swords isn't a bad idea. Ironmight could maintain sword CTR: Low, while volcanic could replace the sword CTR with bomb CTR: Low. Sure, as a dedicated bomber there are better choices, but as a dedicated swordsman there are better options too.
Lastly, I think the ancient plate set needs more love. Give it a damage bonus of low, or a sword damage bonus: low on the helmet and a sword CTR low on the armor. ASD and MSD of medium don't encourage using these pieces as is, especially because using slow swords follows its targeted players.

Finally, the other "heavy weapons":
Iron Slug has been in need of a buff for a long time. I believe what it needs is a special status that inflicts ASD: Medium on whatever it hits (Give it a good chance of moderate ASD).

Thu, 04/10/2014 - 07:24

Drischa

@ Fangel iron slug idea

Basically you want it to inflict stun. stun is MSD and ASD. that is stun.
I do too.

Sudaruska and triglav are great but are just sub-par simply due to the speed. Sure the charge does massive damage, comparable to that even of the brandishes, but the charge is so sloowww that you can't get as many charges out as often. It also leaves you way open for any attack.
It's a bad example, but in lockdown you can hit someone with the second wing of sudaruska, but it's so slow that even with the knockback they still have time to striker boost right back up and faust your face off. stun on the second hit would basically fix this. It happens with zombies too, if they start that jump attack and you hit them, you've basically buggered yourself as the knockback is almost exactly the same as the distance of the jump but leaves you open for it. Same goes for the charge - if you miss it you'll probably take a hit. Compare this to brandishes, where you can shield cancel the charge so that it takes almost no time at all.

Plate mail is a joke. using palte mail and a slow weapon is, like, the worst idea you can have. It basically jsut gives your already slow weapon even more slowness to the point where you're going to take hits no matter what - this would be fine if the palte mail actually provided decent defence, something that does not seem to exist in this game.

Giving plate mail damage low would probably compensate for it. ASD would be a -4% attack speed - damage is about a 7% increase. This would give you roughly 3% more overall DPS - something that isn't even that important but it would give an actual point to the palte armours.
Couple this with a big health bonus (ancient palte levels) and you might actually have a balanced defence armour. it won't be proper defence because this is spiral knights, but it'll make you feel tanky.
might as well make teh damage bonus global to all weapons as the ASD is.

I've noticed that if you're going recon bombing in lockdown then plate mail is actually already viable as the ASD basically doesn't affect bombs. Someone once went Ironmight bombing, my Flamberge and Sudaruska just bounced right off them.

Solution to most balance issues - get rid of split damage, nerf brandishes.

Thu, 04/10/2014 - 20:30

Fehzor

I think it could do a bit more on the normal swings, and that goes for gran faust AND DA as well as troikas in general. Just up the damage + knockback + range a little bit but not a ton and call it quits, that way they can be 'balanced' with the brandishes.

Plate armor could use a buff, and one possible result is definitely "The Tradeoff", which is something like:
-ASI: Negative low
-MSI: Negative low
-Damage against everything: High
-Charge time reduction for everything: Low
-Charge time reduction for bombs: Low

It makes you tanky and dangerous at once.

Your iron slug suggestion is iffy due to how stagger works with damage, especially with a buff potentially on the way with the gunner update. There have been many better ones as well.

Fri, 04/11/2014 - 01:38

Fangel

Oh, I know full well about stun.

If I had wanted a stun status I would've just said that, silly.

The piercing variant already has a stun status on it. Stun isn't a status that really sticks around for too long (Fire will stick around for 5 seconds or so, stun for only 2). This ASD would basically be the attack-part of the stun status, but it would last longer and not affect movement speed. Perhaps it would also inflict a temporary CTI as well.
Granted, there would be no way to avoid having these effects cast upon yourself if you're fighting an iron slug (i.e., lockdown). But, seriously, you won't be fighting it as it is currently in lockdown without there being some sort of gear boost in play as well.

And Fehzor, reduce that damage against everything: High to be low per piece. Either that or make the damage bonus be low for swords, and low universally on each piece(?). This is essentially the damage boost for the "heavy" weapons, and makes you fit for the guardian role in both lockdown and the clockworks.
That plus I don't want to think about the Black Kat Cowls + plate armors, especially ancient plate, becoming a common thing.

Fri, 04/11/2014 - 18:57

Fehzor

I seriously don't care what the exact specs of that are, the point is that its been suggested many many times.

Negative ASI: Low
Negative MSI: Low
Damage for all: High
CTR for swords: Low

Is the same concept as

Negative ASI: Low
Negative MSI: Low
Damage for all: Low
CTR for swords: Low
Damage vs Undead: Med
Damage vs Slimes: Med

I did high because: Total = Negative low + negative low + positive high + positive low = Positive med + bomb ctr low because bombs don't usually benefit from damage, and ironmight would be nicest as an offensive tank-support setup. Negative MSI hurts more when bombing as well, so plate sets wouldn't be as good for that to boot.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 14:04

Blastpod

Replying to everyone

@Fangel So, I like where your mind is at. Maybe the heavy weps don't need a buff, but how on earth can we nerf EVERYTHING ELSE? That'd take nerfing dual-defense armors included in your idea. It'd take nerfing dual-defense monsters, and slimes are already succeptable to normal dmg. But the other thing is the plate mail. We Gaurdians NEED a buff for this. It's almost a joke how underpowered it is.

@Fehzor Your idea has in fact been mentioned before, but if it'll get a buff, it needs that damage bonus.

@Dibsville You've bashed this idea completely. If you actually used these weapons, you'd know that other normal damage weapons deal around the same DPS as the suda does, but with three swings, accomplishing more.

Sun, 04/13/2014 - 15:09

Dibsville

"@Dibsville You've bashed this idea completely. If you actually used these weapons, you'd know that other normal damage weapons deal around the same DPS as the suda does, but with three swings, accomplishing more."

I have a DVS, Leviathan Blade, Winmillion, and both Troikas. I use all four of these weapons constantly, but I use my Triglav and Sudaruska most of all of them because they are, in my opinion, the best Normal damage swords in the game.

The other Normal swords have similar DPS? No, that's not true. In fact, heavier swords generally have lower DPS than lighter swords.

I'll take a quick example and compare a Leviathan Blade to Sudaruska. On one hand, Leviathan has solid DPS versus single enemies, and a charge attack that can clear the area around you. On the other hand, Sudaruska can mass murder a huge group in just a couple combos, with a charge that can shatter anything that comes at you, and that's not considering the fact that is has a status effect. It's generally known that weapons that do status effects tend to do less overall damage in exchange, but that's not so much the case with the Troikas, at least to the extent that there's another weapon out there that just completely outclasses them.

IF YOU actually used these weapons, you'd know that they were solid weapons that do their job right. The only thing hindering them is the fact that they're the slowest swords in the game. But that doesn't really matter, because they're still fast enough to get a combo out and clear the area around you, or better yet, just outright kill the enemies.

And how did I "bash this idea completely"? All I did was, as a big Troika user, disagree that Troikas need to do more damage. Yes, they deserve to get buffed, but buffing their already insanely high damage isn't something I'd like to see.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 13:39

#10

Blastpod

@Dibvsville

Implying I DON'T use the Sudaruska almost every day. Learn more about your enemy before you fire a shot like that and miss.

Mon, 04/14/2014 - 14:35

#11

Dibsville

"Implying I DON'T use the Sudaruska almost every day. Learn more about your enemy before you fire a shot like that and miss."

I could say the exact same thing to you.

EDIT: Clearly you're taking this way too far simply because I disagreed, so I'll just stop now.

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 12:54

#12

Sandwich-Potato

I'm going to make myself a barrel of popcorn and watch.

I agree with Dibsville; the heavy weapons are fine in terms of damage, albeit half a block of range might help give it a slight edge over a Sealed Sword. The charge is perfectly fine; I use it all the time.

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 14:51

#13

Vanguard-Xelon

Coolish Concept Comrade?

I admit we don't really need it
but its kind of disheartening that for example my Triglav would deal about 100-150 damage per swing when my Combustor deals about 75-100 per swing on a neutral enemy

this was in T2 though

Tue, 04/15/2014 - 15:10

#14

Bamzalot

I think Troikas need more range but not more power.

As of for now, I feel like the Sealed Swords are reasonable. As for Troikas, I use the Sudaruska all the time. As a back up weapon, a defensive weapon, and overall, just a way to show that you don't need a Brandish to solve all your problems.

I think they should have more range though. I mean, you are swinging around this gigantic chunk of rock, and it barely reaches your feet. Due to the fact that it is a weapon designed for knocking back a large crowd of enemies, this somewhat small attack range is a bit painful.

About those special effects given to Plate Mail sets, yes! I may have a biased opinion, but I think everyone can agree that the heavy armors are in need of a bigger buff than the heavy weapons.

Sat, 04/19/2014 - 03:22

#15

Putkinen

Plate.

Personally I'd just add Sword CTR Low and DMG Med to both pieces. The ASI decrease affects every damn attack you make, including your shield bash. It's no small downside.

Sat, 04/19/2014 - 07:53

#16

Sandwich-Potato

While we're at the heavy weapon buffs, could we also make the Cleavers a bit bigger visually? They seem to have some invisible range, which Dibs pointed out to me while mocking my "noobish version" of the Sudu and Triglav.

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Heavy Weapons Buff?