Spiral Knights - The Gran Faust charge attack is too much of a punishment with hardly any reward.

The Gran Faust charge attack is too much of a punishment with hardly any reward.

19 replies [Last post]

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 12:32

Renpartycat

The Gran Faust. Seems like a great heavy sword, right? Well it has one problem. Four problems, in fact. Other than it's severe punishment and minimal reward, there are other things that make it bad. Here's a list:

- Charge time is too long, even with Maximum CTR
- Curse time is too long, even with Maximum Curse Resistance
- The bullet blade tends to fail often
- The first swing cannot curse (Also a problem with other status-inflicting heavy swords)

Starting with the first problem, the charge time. Let's say you have maximum CTR on swords, whether it be from UVs or Trinkets. Even with max CTR it takes quite some time to use the Gran Faust charge attack. And in the time you could spend charging this cursed sword, you could do multiple charge attacks with pretty much every other sword out there. Heck, anything beats charging the Gran Faust. It's such a waste of time for such a giant punishment. Which leads me to it's next problem:

It's insanely long curse time. Even with Maximum Curse Resistance, you'll be spending quite some time under a curse. You either have to wait it out or use a remedy capsule, and even then you risk taking damage if your capsule is cursed. The only true solution to getting around the curse is by having 3 or 4 weapons. But why should I have to spend CE on weapon slots to avoid this harsh punishment? Even then, it's still useless because even if you manage to use the charge, it might fail. Here's the next problem:

The charge attack on the Gran Faust, known as the "Bullet Blade" tends to fail often. If your back is on a wall when you use the charge attack, it'll disappear. Go on, try it. Charge the Gran Faust, put your back against a wall, and try shooting your bullet blade. Another problem with the bullet blade is that if it gets even a pixel close to anything that's not an enemy, it'll disappear. What, you wanted to kill that gremlin? Your charge attack hit a box, the gremlin got away, and you're cursed for an eternity. Fun, huh? The charge attack is so masochistic, it's not a surprise that you'd want to forget about it and use the regular, good old fashioned swings. But where did your utility go? Let's move to the final problem:

The first swing cannot curse. Why? I don't know. Other heavy swords like Triglav and Sudaruska have reduced utility because only the second swing can inflict status, but that's another story. Cursing enemies with normal swings is something you see once in a blue moon. If the Gran Faust had a chance to curse on it's first swing, you'd be able to curse enemies easier. The sword should be able to curse on both swings. It hardly has any utility at the moment. And I thought all weapons, ESPECIALLY 5 star weapons were supposed to have a good amount of utility. The charge isn't worth the effort, the actual attack is a failure, and it's utility is way too small.

Wanna know why these problems exist? But wait, I have an even better question for you. Do you want to know why these problems haven't been fixed? Because everyone's okay with them. People only like Faust and Gran Faust for their shadow element. If people keep saying that Gran Faust is fine as it is, it'll never get changed. But it isn't fine. It needs changes. Sure, curse is a strong status effect, but it's not enough to compensate the rest of the problems. I know it's a cursed sword, but I never knew it was so horrible. Discuss.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 13:54

Juances

hate me in 3 2 1....

Except for the insanely long chare ei have no problems with it really.

"The first swing cannot curse"
Weapons that normally inflict satus on all hits become weaker (FoV vs Combuster, Flamemberge vs Flourish, etc).
On the other hand, weapons that inflict status only on charge get no damage reduction (glacius and nightblade)
Faust has similar stats to avenger so the rare curse on second hit is a bonus.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 15:01

Renpartycat

@Juances

Are you saying Heavy swords are stronger?

Hah, that's a good one. Believe me, Acheron can easily outclass Gran Faust. In fact, many weapons can outclass this cursed blade. But there are two things that make DA and GF different. Their charge attacks and damage types. Right now, DA has a far better charge than GF, and it's not punishing at all. What's the point of having a charge attack if it's completely useless, even with max UVs? DA and GF might have similar stats but utility is much more important than stats. Like I've said before, the problem with Gran Faust is it's lack of utility. Oh it has utility all right, but it's severe punishments destroy nearly all of it. Light Swords have been outclassing Heavy Swords for ages. The only good heavy sword is DA at the moment, until they revamp Triglav, Sudaruska and Gran Faust. And just why are Light Swords better? They deal much more DPS, they have better charge attacks, and they have more utility. Right now, the only use for Heavy Swords are their knockback. Nothing more, nothing less. I won't sit here and watch my favorite blades get outclassed every day. The point is, we can't let weapons get easily outclassed, as it kills the variety in this game.

Because of people like you, people that don't see the truth, people that are fine with using broken weapons, Gran Faust will never get the changes it deserves. And neither will Triglav, neither will Sudaruska, as well as other weapons that sit in a scrapyard because they've been outclassed countless times. I'm not the only one that knows Gran Faust needs a revamp. But sadly, because the consensus thinks that it's fine as is, it'll never get fixed.

Now I'm not trying to shoot down your post, but what I'm saying is the truth. Sorry, but there's a reason why Three Rings is revamping weapons that don't need changes, and why outclassed weapons never get the changes they deserve. Tell me, just how long have you used Gran Faust, and how many heavy swords have you used? And finally, name all of the heavy swords you used.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 16:46

Diabound

First off, Gran Faust causes

First off, Gran Faust causes curse so inherently it has to be inferior to the divine avenger in terms of charge attack or else the divine avenger is worthless.

Second, self inflicting curse isn't terrible as long as you make sure to use it at the end of the battle and in fact, it's still better than the fang of vog in that regard.

Finally, Gran Faust is still superior to many other charge attack swords. I would definitely without a second thought, take it over the troika lines charge, Cutter line charge.

As a side note, yes I do believe that the super mega-buff on brandishes was ridiculous especially considering every other person i saw even before the buff was wielding that stupid weapon

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 19:40

Duke-Sky

I want to agree with everything Renpartycat said....

...but I've seen more players using Gran Faust than ever before. Therefore, I doubt Three Rings will buff / fix GF anytime soon.

The main reason I hadn't made this thread myself is I believed it'd get shot down. Thank you Ren for saying making it.
The disappearing Bullet Blade problem definitely needs to be fixed and I see no reason for the Charge Time to be so long given the severity of self-Curse.

I've tried using GF as my Jelly King sword and it's a joke. Divine Avenger owns GF vs Jelly King soooo much. This causes me not to even bring my GF on JK runs because I like having my 2nd sword as utility (hate both my swords being slow 2-swing types). I even have aquired Max Curse Resist and CTR through UV's and trinkets and it's still not worth bringing my GF setup in the Royal Palace. (I do use it vs Gremlins and BTB & GF vs Beasts)

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 19:32

Round-Shinigami

I have to agree that GF

I have to agree that GF charged attack seems out of place. Sure, it has a chance to inflict curse, powerful status effect that has a chance to kill enemy without you helping. But lets be honest: when was the last time you relied on curse to kill your enemies periodically? Wouldn't it be faster to simply chop them down with other attacks or just gun them down?

In my opinion, curse effect is very, very out of place. Yes, it can help a LOT, but having the player experience same good old curse for 60 seconds is just way too much of a burden.

PS: why do I not get poisoned when using poison weapons or their charged attacks? Why do I not get frozen when I use freeze bomb? Why do I get cursed when using gran faust and burned when using FoV?

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 21:26

Metagenic

the issue is the illusion of potency

The weapon designers at OOO probably thought that a sword with the ability to curse would be massively overpowered, so they put this limitation on it.

Imo, they should tweak the GF so that only the second swing of the normal combo can inflict curse, and the charge attack cannot inflict curse on the player or the target, meaning that you can spam it but not be able to curse everything in sight.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 21:58

Renpartycat

MAGNETS

@Diabound
And why exactly does GF need to be inferior? DA is elemental. GF is shadow. I don't see how there would be a problem with revamping GF, because everyone likes elemental weapons. You're the millionth person to attempt to shoot down a good weapons idea because it's "competition against DA"

@Dukesky
Haha, thanks. I'm not afraid to post good ideas, even if I have everyone trying to shoot it down. Glad to see I'm not the only one who knows how chaotic the forums can be.

@Round-Shinigami
I'm glad you understand this.

@Metagenic
I agree, but also disagree. I would make both swings on the normal combo have a chance to curse, and change the GF's charge to the DA's charge while giving GF better charge time.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 22:14

Arkate

dude you are making a big deal out of dumb stuff

The gran faust doesn't have that big of a problem, and really, it is much better than several swords i can name for instance:fang of vog, wild hunting blade, leviathan blade... i could go on for a very long time, plus that "single pixel" prob is a bug

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 22:20

Metagenic

You want to change the GF's charge attack to a shadow version of the DA's charge. Would you still be able to curse yourself with this charge attack? (Because if the self-curse was still there, nobody cares about the charge attack being more powerful; they'll still avoid it.)

Also, you wanted to be able to curse with both swings. Theoretically this would be a good idea and I somewhat agree, but then we'd get a lot of complaints from victims of GF spammers in Lockdown - curse is a death sentence for a knight and it wouldn't be fun if everyone was shield canceling off the first swing while being able to effectively cripple their opponent so frequently.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 22:35

#10

Renpartycat

@Metagenic

PvP is PvP. I'm concerned about this game's balance when it comes to PvE.

And yeah, I'd make it so each swing can curse, but the charge attack doesn't, and you can't curse yourself. If we made it like this, we'd have a great shadow sword with a nice charge attack and some decent utility with the ability to curse on both swings. Overall, it would make the Gran Faust much more balanced and useful. It still wouldn't be competition to the DA, because DA is elemental it's great against undead and construct, and people tend to use elemental weapons because of FSC, IMF and the fact that constructs are annoying in general.

As far as I'm concerned, Three Rings can easily make weapons work differently in PvE and PvP. Even if PvP never gets balanced, you can always try T2 or T1 PvP, I've heard it's a bit more skill-based. But that's another story.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 22:37

#11

Arkate

dude the GF isin't the only weapon

if you are unhappy with the GF then pick a dif weapon there are a million others

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 22:38

#12

Metagenic

^ dude, stfu

Ren posted a legit suggestion. If you have nothing constructive to say then just leave.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 22:39

#13

Duke-Sky

@ Arkate

Thanks, next time one of your weapons gets broken I'll tell the same to you.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 22:41

#14

Metagenic

lol

Arkate, you were the one who posted something about dual wielding.

Mon, 01/23/2012 - 22:49

#15

Metagenic

Alternate suggestion

Why not keep the GF's charge attack the same way it is, while making the normal combo's speed actually match the speed bar? It's supposed to swing as fast as a Brandish according to the inaccurate stat bar, but it currently has the same speed of a DA.

Tue, 01/24/2012 - 03:37

#16

Round-Shinigami

I believe there is no place

I believe there is no place for curse in Lockdown - as said above, its death sentence to the one who is cursed.

At the same time, inflicting curse to a mass of jelly cubes in jelly farm level is tons of fun! You just run past them and they pop :) I should mention that those jellies would have popped if I attacked them once more with Levi, DA or Faust (not even gran faust). I cannot see why this weapon gets so many limitations - self-inflicted curse (unless you have a good curse resistance) plus narrow area of effect of its phantom blade plus very long charge time. In some situations it helps more than other weapons, true, but the same can be said about using DA vs constructs. Or fire alchemer gun that sets enemies on fire.

Tue, 01/24/2012 - 08:47

#17

Arkate

well there is an unfairness

if the gran faust was to be improved that much, then the divine avenger, currently the best weapon, would be rendered useless, and so would several other swords, face it these changes would tie into so many other things, that a simple fix, would turn into a massive update, all to level out everything else.

Tue, 01/24/2012 - 12:51

#18

Thimol

-----

-Curse time is too long, even with Maximum Curse Resistance

I died a little.

Wed, 01/25/2012 - 09:48

#19

Round-Shinigami

Arkate GF is totally useless

Arkate
GF is totally useless in Vanaduke, shadow vanaduke - the two end-game bosses. So no, DA won't be rendered useless, more like DA will get a decent alternative in the 2-swinger category. Because are there any currently? Not as far as I know - the only other shadow sword is acheron, which is a 3-swinger.

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The Gran Faust charge attack is too much of a punishment with hardly any reward.