Yes yes yes yes this comes up at least once every two weeks, but while I usually complain about the cutter's effectiveness in PvP, I now must complain about it's utility in PvE as well. With the most recent update and the addition of "elite mode" (and in past updates: new enemies), I think cutters are now slipping from being "underpowered" to being "Slightly-more-practical-than-the-Winmillion".
First on that list, "Elite Mode".
Hardcore SK players (and general challenge-seekers like myself) have been asking for something like this for some time, so I'd like to thank the devs for finally giving us this mode. Granted, the enemies are still very, very stupid, but hey - it's a start. However, while enemies getting higher attack power and more health was what I was expecting, it makes the cutter near-useless. Granted, all the weapons are less effective; but while the Sealed line swords can still interrupt and knock everything back with it's two-swing combo, and the brandish family still has a long series of rolling explosions, all cutters have is delivering many fast low-damage hits with no interrupt in a long combo -- and it makes this weapon a death sentence for the user.
Because enemies can tank more hits not even full combos kill anything. Of course, some high-health enemies like Lumbers & etc. could always survive full combos, but now even variants of Devilites are surviving them. Keep in mind, while in the clockworks I already have sword damage and speed MAX and I usually solo -- which means that my weapon is maxed out in both speed and power, and the monsters are at their lowest health and the cutter is still too ineffective. Playing with others, all it does is annoy my team - doing close to no damage while shoving everything around.
Increased monster attack power and the inability to interrupt means that attacking anything head-on is now too dangerous. For some enemies this is excusable - lumbers, as I said before, are easy to get around and thus I can easily flank them and rip 'em apart by then cutting around them - easy. But there are still major enemies where I have no choice but to attack head-on -- Jelly Cubes and other slimes can attack in a 360-degree sweep and T3 Gremlin Thwackers have shields on their backs, meaning that I can't flank either of them. Especially Thwackers - who attack too fast for me to finish the DVS combo (yes, even with ASI MAX) and interrupt them before getting hit myself. Due to higher monster damage, my shield can't tank as many hits from single monsters in a straight-up assault or multiple monsters flanking me while I'm flanking something else - so it even further eliminates my options as a cutter user.
Fortunately, I'm smart enough to bring a second (and more effective weapon), but I always like to focus on my Cutter just due to my preferences in play style - but now my "HIGH DPS OMG" play style is becoming obsolete. The DPS for the DVS & WHB is lower than most swords . I'm fine with the damage per-hit being low - it's the point of a high-DPS play style - speed and maneuverability at the cost of single-swing power, but when what should supposedly "Slow-hit, High-Power" Swords like the GF and DA of the Sealed line do more DPS than the "Death by a million tiny cuts" DVS & WHB of the Cutter line, something is wrong.
Second point - -- New enemies --
-- Minis --
With the addition of the minis and the Gorgos, we got enemies (referring to minis) that were small, fast, and weak that made up for their diminutive status with sheer numbers. A good addition, even if some variants like the slime drops got annoying as hell. Theoretically, the DVS & WHB should do well against them - having less health than normal monsters should mean the quick, low-damage hits should take them out fast. It usually does, but cutter players also die the fastest as well, because none of the minis are interruptable. I'll admit that this is only a problem due to my perspective - if you have a brandish or a bomb, this isn't even an issue; but for me, I was expecting them to be like Devilites and being small would mean that they are easy to flinch. Hell, outside of Elite Mode, Devilites fall fast to cutters due to this - but not minis, who swarm and ironically lock the players up instead of vice versa.
Cutters in a Compound level is suicide.
-- Gorgos --
High health, fly unpredictably, uninterruptable, attack fast, deal high damage, bites in a looooooong chain, each bite has an unreasonable amount of reach, and come in packs of anywhere from 3 to 8. Also suicide. Actually, these guys are terrible no matter what you use besides a bomb or a blitz needle, so maybe this is actually just common ground.
What I suggest:
To be honest, I just wanted to spread awareness of how some of the less popular weapons are now slipping from merely being "less optimal than killing everything in 2 hits with the Gran Faust" to "This sword is so bad it is more dangerous than the actual monsters".
Because my previous calls for buffing cutters were based around my gripes with PvP mechanics like "Invinciframes cutting out half the hits from the weapons' standard attack and thus neutering them", this post differs from my previous suggestions and brainstorming ideas because I now suggest that they should get a direct buff as well to stats like attack power, speed, and etc. due to their inability to be used with the current changes to the game's difficulty.
- Higher damage: From that last sentence, speed is not needed - that was merely a part of the example - but power, I feel, is a definite must. The role of the cutter is to do less damage than other swords while dealing higher DPS, but seeing as nearly everything else already DOES more DPS than the cutters while also dealing more damage on-swing, I feel that cutters should be buffed to get more DPS while staying relatively low-damage. Somehow, the DPS must be increased and to my knowledge the simplest manner of doing this can either be done by buffing it's on-hit damage, adding more hits to it's combo, or somehow making it even faster (I know, I just contradicted what I just said earlier).
However it also needs some other mechanical fixes too, to be a viable weapoin choice for elite mode and the new monsters:
- More frequent flinching/interrrupt: Instead of dealing the full 10-hit combo to flinch an enemy, perhaps just add a flinching strike after every five? The combo is too long and performing the full combo on certain enemies (once again, like Thwackers) is suicidal. the weapon's charge could definitely use this, as using this on practically any enemy, even before elite mode, was more likely to get me killed than whatever I was attacking. It's all the crappiness of the cutter combo without the one good aspect of at least being able to move and thus avoid more damage. If the devs are unwilling to up it's normal damage, then at the very least they could introduce specialized-damage variants to do higher-than-normal amounts of elemental, piercing, or shadow to get that DPS up and be competitive with you know, every other commonly-used sword. For that last point, it would definitely give me a reason to craft more than one.
- Less/no knockback: Knockback is great; the sealed line and the brandish line wouldn't be the same if their second swing or line of exploding fireballs (respectively) didn't also send monsters flying. However, this is not useful for cutters. It's actually downright detrimental! Another weakness of the cutter is it's point-blank swing reach - I can only get all those little hits in if my opponents stay close enough for me to actually hit them. Knocking them out of range is not only detrimental to myself, but since it happens with nearly every swing it makes them fly around too fast for squad members to shoot or catch up and attack themselves. If it wasn't only annoying, it's also dangerous as it will occasionally knock monsters into traps which -as you know - only affect players. I've put the knockback to good use before, such as escaping crowds of monsters by punching a hole in the mob for me to escape, but with the addition of the shield-charge, it's not longer needed. Frankly, if I had to choose between those rare moments where it's legitimately useful and being consistently able to sink in and continuously hack at them without throwing them everywhere, I'd prefer the latter.
Closing statement:
I first started to use the cutters as a challenge/joke in LD when I felt like being silly, but having become familiar enough with their mechanics over time and with practice, I find in my own opinion that it's a real shame that a sword with its own unique niche can not function as a viable weapon due to what comes across as a mere lack of oversight. If something doesn't make these things a viable weapon series, many other of us few cutter die-hards will have to give it up and become like the other clones and just faust-spam the clockworks, robbing the game of even less variety in both available gear and player interactions than it has fought so hard to obtain.
after a year of using cutter (now WHB), I feel I have something to say.
first things first, knockback is needed. right now if you shield cancel with a cutter, you gotta do it on the second hit, becuase the first has no knockback and leaves you exposed as you just stood there. how am I supposed to shield/evade an attack that comes from an inch from my skin? just make the reach of the ghost attack hit the monster. that's the main problem, I often hit the monster 3 times on 2 swings.
damage buff is needed, yes. very very much.
flinching and interrupting, yes, makes sense until fluorish has it.
I think I'm done here.