Test Feedback: Stage 2 Weapon Adjustments

Personally, I'm pretty happy because Caliburs are my favorite swords in the whole game, but yeah, normal damage isn't as useful as it used to be.

The problem with the Leviathan Blade was that it pushed targets away before the damage could register. The new changes let me clear the Arcade with a lvl 1 sword—not THAT powerful, but still usable.

The Amputator soft rework is interesting, but just like with the CIV, maybe we could "standardize" the swords a bit. Bonus damage isn't that useful on weapons anyway, so we could leave that to armors.

My recommendations:

Amputator:

• [-] Remove bonus damage against Slimes
• [+] Buff base damage (should be less than Levi)

CIV:

• [-] Remove bonus damage against Undead
• [+] Good chance to inflict strong freeze
• [+] Buff base damage (should be less than Levi)

About Turbillion:
It's a pretty unique weapon and isn't intended to be OP. Changes are welcome, though many would agree that the small projectile hitbox and slow swing speed aren't great. There are many ways to fix this, but the simplest and most elegant solution (IMO) would be to add a small vortex effect, since it synergizes well with shock.

I really do love the the damage boosts Leviathan blade, Cold iron Vanquisher and Amputator received my only problem which is a big problem here is that even with these buffs Leviathan blade is still doing more damage against undead and slimes the thing both of those weapons is supposed to be very effective against.

Levi basic attack's
223, 223, 275

Levi charge attack
362

Amputator and CIV against slimes and undead respectively
211, 211, 261

Amp and CIV charge attack
343

both of these weapons do even less damage against enemies the other enemies aswell, I feel as though amputator can get away with it a lil because it now causes fire with its charge attack which is a amazing damage status effect, but for CIV there is no upside to civ, I propose we either remove the Undead damage and lean into the chains or cold aspect of this weapon and have it freeze or bind enemies on the charge attack to give it a edge to be on par with levis damage and Amputators status effect or we can keep it and add the freezing effect aswell but it desperatley needs somthing.

I'll offer my thoughts on two specific swords, for now.

[ Amputator ]
Even as a dedicated "Anti-Slime" weapon, Amputator lags far behind Shadow swords in performance (Acheron/Dread Venom Striker/even Gran Faust). The new chance to inflict fire status does nothing to help it in that regard, and seems like little more than odd novelty with almost no use cases.

Proposed changes:
-Remove chance to inflict Fire (it just feels out of place and makes the weapon into an odd fork of the Fang of Vog)
+Give Amputator the ability to inflict [ Defense Down ] on its charge attack (similar to Seraphynx's Disintegration Ray ability).
No current weapon has the ability to directly reduce defense (poison exists, but is often tied into specific damage types and does not work vs all monsters). This could, in theory, turn Amputator into a unique support weapon which shreds defenses and sets up powerful followups for yourself or other party members. Thematically, it could still make sense - imagine the chainsaw blade shredding enemy armor apart!

[ Cold Iron Carver ]
Unfortunately the Undead VH bonus doesn't help the weapon at all, since DvM bonuses cannot overstack past DMG Maximum - meaning you are far better off just continuing to bring an elemental Brandish for undead levels (especially FSC). While it's good to see the weapon getting attention, these changes aren't enough.

Proposed changes:
Change Cold Iron Carver to Elemental Damage
Give Cold Iron Carver chance to inflict Freeze on its charge attack

These tweaks would instantly catapult CiV out from obscurity and make it a viable mainline pick for undead levels and mobs (while also increasing its attractiveness and usefulness in other content, as an added bonus). Elemental-type damage would allow the weapon the maximum benefit from Chaos/Black Kat armor bonuses, and the Freeze status would allow for powerful combos with Vortex bombs. Thematically, it could still make sense - cold iron is cold, after all!

General feedback: Damage vs [ Monster Type ] ("DvM")
DvM is generally a bad stat because it's competing against powerful bonuses easily available on other gear (universal DMG on Chaos/Black Kat armor). Even in situations where you're not using those specific armors, the benefit from having damage up versus a specific monster family is generally overshadowed by just bringing the appropriate damage type (pierce/ele/shadow). Unless a radical change (such as allowing DvM to overstack past DMG Max) is implemented, I would prefer not to see weapons balanced around this stat, since it just seems like a noobtrap.

I have mixed feelings about the Amputator changes in specific because we're talking about changing an entire class of melee weapon. The changes made to coincide with the swap from Brandish to Calibur definitely fit with how the Amputator feels, but it seems like it also left a big "Normal Damage Brandish" sized hole in my backpack. Please, if you plan on pushing out these changes (won't complain, the new Amputator is fun) I'm sure a lot of knights would be happy with at least a replacement for something to replace the old Amputator's goal of being an all-purpose brandish.

Also the new Amputator charge attack could use some new particle effects maybe, it looks boring

The turbillion charge attack has the same issue that the DA had before. When your knights back is directly against a wall the projectile will not spawn.

I'm not a fan of the amputator becoming part of the calibur line. While it was weak compared to the other brandishes before. Losing the brandish charge just makes it even worse and is a direct nerf to an already bad weapon(I have a soft spot for cautery sword as it was my first crafted item back in 2011 so it hurts to see it be this awful).

I think the fire is a nice touch but what if (when reverted to brandish) the normal attacks cause fire. That would be nice, unique effect (compared to combuster or FoV's fire from charge attacks) and promote a primarily normal attack gamestyle with an occasional charge attack.

The damage bonus is worthless. Amputator was and still is worse at dealing damage to slime even after these buffs, its intended niche, compared to acheron. Here is a comparison of the damages without any buffs at lv 10 (at Slime training dummy in guild hall t3)
Old Amp: 210 210 260 = 680
New Amp: 268 268 326 = 862
Acheron: 304 304 393 = 1,001

With BK set maxing out damage the slime buffs are just negated and it still can't beat acheron against slime.

Old: 246 246 301 = 793
New: 295 295 357 = 947
Acheron: 422 422 532 = 1,376

Even normal attacks against neutral opponents the Amputator loses to the other brandishes (and barely beats an elemental brandish w/ 0 dmg bonus).
W/o BK
Old: 175 175 219 = 569
New: 214 214 264 = 692
Acheron: 242 242 332 = 816
Elem Brandish: 198 198 283 = 679

With BK
Old: 246 246 301 = 793
New: 295 295 357 = 947
Acheron: 361 361 470 = 1192
Elem Brandish: 319 319 410 = 1048

My suggestion to fix would be revert in back to brandish family so it gets back the brandish charge, fire on normal attacks, buff normal attacks so it has at least the same damage as elem brandish when maxed dmg bonus, and could the fire ticks be changed to higher damage(for just amputator)? currently it is 76 (or fire could be applied multiple times).

I think the damage buffs across the board feel nice. Definitely makes these niche Normal damage weapons feel less mediocre, but not too strong as to overthrow weapons of specialized damage types. Turbillion's charge getting some much needed love is great to see, but I think it could use a bit more. Amputator getting Fire fits the flavor of its description and the idea that it's a cauterizing tool turned into a makeshift weapon. But I think the swap to a Calibur Style Charge leaves me feeling ambivalent. The proposed change seems fine overall, but I quite enjoyed the original Brandish Style Charge.

Thank you again for doing changes. It's fun to try these things out!

Leviathan Blade
THE GOOD

- Damage is nice
- Damage zones for the charge feel good

THE MAYBE CHANGE

- The knockback is ABSURD. I think all Caliburs should get the same knockback.
- More damage and give it stun? It still deals less than the Brandishes like Combuster vs Neutral Enemies. To me, it should deal more if it doesn't have a status or about the same if it does.

Cold Iron Vanquisher
THE 'MUST' CHANGE

- If you can even out the Knockback on all the Caliburs, just make Cold Iron Vanquisher PURE ELEMENTAL (not split damage)
- Keep the Undead H or VH, up to you. Or remove it fully. Either way PLEASE give it a chance to inflict FREEZE or STUN instead.
- The above changes makes it have a unique identity so its not exactly like Leviathan with a slight change

Amputator
THE 'MUST' CHANGE
It's so hard to put Amputator somewhere. A lot of talks happen between players about this weapon and I honestly do not know what to do with it. Right now it underperforms compared to Fang of Vog, Leviathan, AND Cold Iron Vanquisher in testing. Here's my thoughts on what could change:

- Revert it back to a Brandish and make its damage between the Status Brandishes (Combuster, Glacius, etc) and the Acheron. Keep Bonus Damage vs Slime High and give it Fire status. This way it can be a Normal-only powerhouse. And keep its flinch on the charge.
- OR Make it the "fire" Leviathan. If Leviathan gets stun or something and is given the suggestion I gave above, it would be nice to have an alternative. Maybe.
- OR Make it like Fang of Vog, but the safer version.
- OR simply give it its own moveset that can be similar to Caliburs and Brandishes somehow. Or give it a completely new one. It's in a weird place but it seems it will always be overshadowed by something else right now.

Turbillion
THE GOOD

- The shock and damage increase is nice! Its somewhat underwhelming but its still nice.
- I would actually like to keep Turbillion Normal-only. It just needs more oomph.

THE 'MUST' CHANGE
Like the Amputator, the Turbillion was released in a time where it was thrown into the game with no real thought. Nothing against GH but it is how it looks.

- Please make its charge much slower and pull in enemies. It's a tornado but it doesnt act like one. If the charge is made REALLY unique and GOOD, then it could be a good Normal-only contender.
- Basic bullet attacks should proc shock. Or the whole blade in general should.
- Increase the damage. Its hard to compare it to anything but right now it feels off.
- I am personally not opposed to making it Pure Elemental, but I would like try to make Normal-only work.

Conclusion
This is a good step for a first round. It does need some changes, though. I think that Bonus Damage vs Monster Family abilities are kind of restricting when you put them on Normal-only weapons. I would much rather these bonuses come from SHIELDS and ARMORS. Putting them on weapons feels silly.

I also want to ask again: Are you able to make damages different on Split-Damage weapons? If so, there's a lot of experimenting that can be done with that for ALL weapons. Please answer this so I can stop asking lol

I also want to ask about HEAT LEVELS. 5 star equipment from levels 1 to 7 are weaker than a Level 10 4 Star piece of equipment. That should probably be fixed for testing to be better.

THANK YOU FOR GIVING US LIVE VS TEST WEAPONS. It helped A LOT to compare instead of going back and forth and to help those test that didn't have the weapon already.

Thanks for the changes, I hope my feedback helps. Cheers!

The defence-down idea for the amputator is a clever one, actually, I like that.

Try testing a shadow or normal/shadow amputator so we can see how broken is. I mean, this is supposed to test it and get more feedback, right? (Obviously it will be crazy)

Actually, I know that the point here isn't to start introducing entirely new status effects, but the Amputator line could really do with something like Bleed (guaranteed small DOT effect) - or imparting a brief, guaranteed stun, or some kind of slowing effect. The way you give the Amputator a role is by allowing it to do something that a player might find valuable on a consistent basis. Something else that comes to mind is swapping its charge attack entirely for something that pins an enemy in place and deals all five charge splashes right at them - you know, to play up the chainsaw look, like you're really tearing into someone.

One thing that my friendgroup often talks about is how frequently we find enemies lingering with a tiny sliver of health left - if the amputator did some kind of bleed effect, it'd immediately be valuable by taking a whole action less to mop up an enemy without actually having to be mercilessly overpowered, but it does need *some* kind of love...

I totally agree with Doodleman and Promethiean on keeping the Amputator a normal Brandish. But if it needs changes, please increase the damage bonus vs slime to very high. Keep the chance of setting enemies on fire though since it perfectly fits the description and theming. As well as making it stronger to better keep pace with the elemental brandishes. Whoever suggested defense down though, that could be a good one too. But either way, please keep it as a Brandish with damage bonus vs slime for sure.

Maybe Damage Bonus vs Monster Family could be made to not apply to the damage cap if it helps them and UVs get better. But that's another can of worms I worry, even if it allows for tunnel vision against certain enemies pretty much. That's gonna need more work and testing to see how could that work.

I like the changes to Leviathan and Cold Iron Vanquisher though, Very High vs Undead is very good on the latter. But I personally would add a little elemental while keeping the current changes for normal damage to make it even stronger vs undead. The chance to freeze idea is a perfect thematic one too since it's supposed to be cold iron as the name says. I feel the normal damage should stay since it's part of the Calibur line, but adding some elemental to it can help improve the damage to undead and make it more viable as well.

In case Turbillion did have shock effects added also, please keep those too since I think it's a fitting thematic addition too.

I hope these suggestions can help. And in addition to keeping the damage bonuses for the theming and lore, hope Cold Iron can still keep normal damage and Amputator can still be a Brandish too.

I had a quick testing session with these - I don't have either on the main game, but I've been working towards the Turbillion (currently heating a Winmillion). I think that these status effect additions, alongside base damage buffs, are a valuable improvement to these two swords and fit in well with their styling/flavour. I agree also with Promethiean's suggestion to make the tornado projectile draw in enemies - it would make the Turbillion act something like a Vortex bomb, which I feel would grant it significant utility in crowd-control situations.

+1 to the idea of the Amputator inflicting a special defence debuff to struck monsters!

The question of changing the Amputator from a Brandish-style to a Calibur-style sword is intriguing; I can appreciate that there is value in retaining it as the Normal-damage line within its current family, but I wonder whether it plays better with the Calibur line's sweep charge or with the Brandish line's explosion-chain charge. If its charge attack can be at least as effective with the Calibur's play style as it was before, the change might be justified.

I appreciate also that the current iteration of the test server permits direct comparison of the existing weapons with their modified testing counterparts, so kudos to the devs on that.

I still want Amputator to remain the normal Brandish with defense down or chance of fire in addition to buffed damage vs slimes. But if we need a new Calibur line weapon, please make a new line instead. Maybe if Cold Iron Vanquisher gets some elemental added to it's already high normal damage while keeping damage vs undead adding freeze. we can try adding Arkus' sword as a new Calibur line with minor shadow damage added to normal, but inflicts stun. Can that better suffice for a possible new Calibur line weapon?

Wait, if the Amputator has to become a full Calibur, that means there is space for a new Brandish! what about a full normal stun one? or a full shadow that poisons but not grapple? or a very controversial normal/pierce brandish that use spiked cluster bombs for charged attack and serrated edges?

Cetta kinda has a point, and I still prefer Amputator as the normal Brandish. So why not experiments with other ways to make Amputator stronger as a Brandish still? Adding different effects like the aforementioned chance to set on fire or apply defense down are already some options. I hope more suggestions for added bonuses or effects can possibly help.

Also, I rather a normal/piercing line for the Brandish be a completely new line. Maybe that one could be the poison Brandish, other than the Obsidian Edge and how it's an event-only weapon. This reminds me of how I already tried to suggest some Shadow Lair weapons together with some other users before. But maybe that is better saved for another discussion instead.

I like the suggestion on the buff on normal damage weapons because they played being underwhelming and sucks with very low damage (except iron slug.

I really would love the amputator to not be calibur-type of a weapon. I would like it to be remain brandish, it's unique for that brandish to have a normal damage variation other than shadow and elemental. I would love to keep the amputator as brandish with the new fire effect and damage buffs as well.

If you going to improve the numbers of hits, what about Sweet Dreams and Celestial Saber or are they included? They are normal damage caliburs but separate weapons from CIV, Levi blade. Would they get changes as well?

Can we have a calibur that have pierce or shadow damage? It would be very nice to have them in the game. It would make them fun to use. Plus we would have way too much caliburs that deal normal damage. With these new changes, it would be 5 calibur normal damage style - CIV, Levi Blade, Sweet Dreams, Celestial Saber, and Amputator. Would this be necessary, to be really honest with u?

Turbillion line would be a complete rework. The damage buffs are still underwhelming, not good numbers on the basic and charge attacks. I don't like the attack and charge style of turbillion. I believe other people would agreed with me that this weapon really do SUCKS. Rework of a turbillion are must-need situation in regarding this type of weapon to be honest with you. I would be fine if you change this damage to pierce or shadow, to be honest.

what if the charged attack can homing on enemies, explode and somewhat ignore part of the walls hitboxes (not blocks themselves), and the normal attacks is a full circle around the player (like you can harm enemies even if they´re on your back) and makes you move while doing it in the funny fashion it already does?

If there are going to be more turbillions, consider the same treatment pulsar variations have, a Dark freeze, Elemental Fire, Elemental Shock, Normal Stun.

Amputator's chainsaw animation does not play when switching between two Amputators, or switching from a gun to an Amputator. Seemed consistent between the old version and the test version.

Hello! Thank you for continuing to give buffs to some of the weaker weapons in the game. It breathes new life into the game and is something we've all been eagerly anticipating for a very long time. I have a few thoughts on each of the changes so far I'd like to share.

Some prefaces:

-Damage versus monster-
Damage versus monster (DvM) is a mechanic that was semi relevant in the early 2010s and it is no longer relevant due to how easy it is to get chaos and black kat. Increasing them does not help the weapons, unless the player opts out of chaos or black kat. This could be more relevant with an armour rebalancing, but currently, increasing these will not bring extra power to the weapons. If you want a weapon to be better against a certain family, then it has to be made into the damage type that is effective against that family, or give it the ability to apply a status but only to that family (this hasn't been done yet.)

-Knockback on charges-
The calibur lines have inconsistent damage because of their knockback. You can mitigate this with shock, sleep, walls, or other methods, but it can really ruin the potential the weapon has. I would like to be able to test how the charge would feel if only the FINAL hit caused knockback. This way, all hits would easily connect, and the weapon would retain its “get off me” feel. Alternatively, if this is too much damage, make only the first hit not deal knockback, just to give the rest a bit more time to connect.

-Cold Iron Vanquisher-
-Same damage as amputator on basics, more damage on charge, less knockback on charge than levi, equal to amputator's.

The higher damage on the charge compared to amp makes it a straight upgrade in all levels. Fire doesn’t justify less damage. The lower knockback does help it compared to levi, but the damage profile is still pretty low. A change I would like the opportunity to test out would be giving it some elemental damage as well as freeze. Freeze would make enemies not get knocked back, and elemental damage would make it actually good against undead. Remember how Wild Hunting Blade was made piercing because in order to do well against beasts you need to be piercing? Same rationale here. I am speaking through hypotheticals right now, so I'd love a chance to test this if possible!

-Leviathan blade-
-Much higher damage all around, beats Combuster on first two swings against neutral targets, and received a buff to its charge's knockback.

I enjoy how much damage potential the weapon now has. With less knockback on the initial hits of the charge, it would become more reliable. Also, why did the knockback get increased? It is far too high right now.

Just as a preface to these next two weapons, Amputator and Turbillion have always been awful. We knew they were awful the day both of them were added to the game respectively. Damage values, normal damage as a whole, and bugs have kept them from ever being seriously considered at all aside from niches like using Turbillion to break blocks quickly while speedrunning black kats.

-Amputator-
-Same damage on basic attacks as CiV, but less charge damage. Can inflict fire on the charge.

Amputator is still bad, as it was before. It is better, but it loses to CiV. In my opinion, there isn’t enough space to design amputator as a calibur without it being a statistical upgrade or downgrade to levi and CiV. I would like to test the weapon as a brandish, but give its charge attack the ability to inflict defense down. It would give it a very very unique niche, and it'd be flavourful (it has cutting razor blades). A supportive sword player could pair it with an obsidian edge to seriously amp their party's damage, and it would allow damage amping of your team in levels where poison isn't an option. If this isn’t possible, then the weapon has to be redone entirely, away from the flavour text suggesting anything to do with slimes. It has sawblades, so why not try a piercing weapon. Right now it's a CiV downgrade, and as a brandish it’s absolutely terrible. Larger steps have to be taken in new directions for the sword to be worth considering over the other options that beat it numerically. DvM doesn't save it, as others have said.

-TURBILLION-
This weapon should receive the most attention; it needs a lot of help.
The charge still has many fundamental problems:
-can be redirected by turning
-can be deleted randomly and by shielding after firing
-has too many startup frames
-inconsistent damage dealt
-small aoe
-small damage values
I don’t want to suggest a total redesign of the charge, but it’s very bad, bugs aside. What I would like to see is it spawning a suction bomb projectile (it's a tornado, so…) that slowly moves forward before exploding. Others have suggested a suctioning effect, and it is a tornado that it shoots so... I think it'd be very cool.

The basic attacks were improved, and the projectiles do respectable damage now. There is still a problem with its third swing. For some reason, the third swing is a heavy sword swing and has many recovery frames and has an extremely extended swordstep window. The projectile is also fired from where the third swing begins despite how far forward the knight steps, so the projectile has a much shorter effective range than it otherwise should. Enemies also dodge the projectile, which seems weird for a sword. I saw someone else suggest to make the projectiles an arc rather than a small ball, which would give the weapon more of a chance against groups of enemies. This seems like a very interesting idea.

-Summary-
DvM is not a valid way to buff weapons due to the prevalence of black kat and chaos.

The damage buffs are good.

The normal damage caliburs are insanely oversaturated. There aren't enough ways to differentiate them, and Amputator suffers heavily for it.

Knockback could be made less of a detriment.

Amputator needs a lot of help.

Turbillion still needs an overhaul to the charge. The charge is buggy and can't deal damage reliably. The third swing also has issues.

Thanks again for putting so much effort into balancing these weapons and reading our feedback!! It means a lot.

AWESOME idea on giving calibur charges more hits. Needs knockback changes though because otherwise you're not hitting enemies with the new hits.

CIV still useless. Brings no new niche and in current meta is overshadowed by regular levi via the damage cap from armor bonuses (which the vs. undead bonus can't overcap).

Amputator style change on its own i don't like, maybe change its line from brandish to calibur too then? Other than maybe sealed sword upgrades, the style change on upgrade is quite unintuitive, i really don't see the benefit of keeping it in brandish line of weapons if it's calibur style now. But still has the same problems as levi. If the change is reverted and it's kept as a brandish, i'd prefer if it had no or very minor knockback on its charge unlike the other brandishes, making it safer to use against a group of monsters without breaking their formation. But the best suggestion so far is giving it defense down debuff to give it new niche, regardless if it's kept as a brandish or changed to calibur style.

Turbillion still needs a niche. If you give it enough of damage buffs to shift meta in its favor, this will be a sad state of the game because the weapon is just not fun to use, regardless of its damage. Vortex effect on the charge i'd like to see implemented, it probably still won't see much use but will be a fun gimmick.

Overall, that is not to say that these changes are not welcome. If i were to choose between the live versions of these weapons and the test versions, i'd prefer the test versions. But these changes alone are just not enough to change the meta in any tangible way, needs more work.

So far, thank you for buffing these weapons.
Although There're something I like and dislike about the chance. I will go through the list one by one and try to keep things simple and short.

Leviathan Blade

• I like the change overall. Good damage. Charge is good when the target is close to the wall
• I wish all Calibur Knockback used the same preset as the Sweetdream sword. Current Knockback is too much cause the extra hit added doesn't matter since the mob got YEETed outta the attack

Cold Iron Vanquisher

• I am not satisfied with the change. Mainly overlapping with the current Leviathan Blade.
• I wish the sword received split elemental damage or pure elemental damage with a chance of Freeze. This is to enforce the concept of an Undead-killing sword.

Amputator

• I have mixed feelings about the change. Mainly because both lines have better alternative versions of the sword that do the job better
• I wish this sword got reverted to the Brandish style, with two higher presets and maybe an ability to inflict Defense down or Speed down. The fire Status was a nice addition.

Turbillion

• I like the Shock being added to the weapon. But many issues persist within the weapon itself
• I wish the sword had a faster attack speed on its 3rd swing.
• The sword has less stepping forward. current sword, with the 2nd and 3rd swing, can propel you 5 tiles away from the original spot, which most of the time put yourself within danger. Make it not worth playing with the full combo or even trying to combo
• The sword charge attack animation is TOO SLOW and mostly puts the user in danger with not much benefit to justify the waiting
• The charge attack should not be canceled by shield cancel or redirected at the last second when the user turn
• I wish the charge attack projectile had suction power similar to the vortex bomb, which would make the weapon more interesting
• Change the single disk projectile from the basic attack to a wider arc with no collision box (so it penetrates), like here or there
• Make mob AI no longer react to the basic attack projectiles

That is all for now. Thank you for taking a look at these weapons.

It was a fun experience to try out these rebalanced weapons! Here are my thoughts from playing solo with them, listed out as pros and cons:

Turbillion
Pros
+ The damage increase is great!
+ The added Shock to the Turbillion charge attack is a nice addition.
+ The slower projectile speed of the Turbillion charge attack means more hits, which is great.

Cons
- Critical: if holding the shield button immediately after initiating the charge attack, there is a chance that the tornado does not spawn at all.
- The charge attack wind-up is too slow compared to similar charge attacks such as from the Brandish weapons.
- The knock-back/pushing of the tornado projectile seems to result in enemies not taking a good amount of damage. I would like it if there was a pulling effect instead where the tornado could pull enemies towards its center while dealing damage.
- A further increased projectile area size for the charge attack would be helpful in catching smaller enemies and hitting them multiple times.
- I would like to see the tornado slowed down even further, with its lifetime extended more. This, combined with the proposed pull effect, would result in more consistent damage.

Tl;dr: The increased damage, Shock status, and slower projectile speed are good changes. There is a bug that needs to be addressed. Besides the bug, the Turbillion could use some more improvements to its charge attack.

Leviathan Blade
Pros
+ The damage increase is fantastic!

Cons
- I would like to see the knock-back significantly reduced as it currently knocks enemies out too far away from allies' attacks.

Tl;dr: Love the increased damage, but I would like to see less knock-back.

Cold Iron Vanquisher
Pros
+ The damage increase is great to see despite currently being overshadowed by the Leviathan Blade.

Cons
- While I could see this weapon being used for those who lack global damage buffs, it becomes overshadowed by the Leviathan Blade the more global damage buffs one has on them. I would like to see the sword induce Freeze to give the weapon a bit of a twist.
- The knock-back is currently a bit too strong, so I would like to see it reduced.

Tl;dr: The damage buffs are good, but the sword currently lacks identity. The knock-back could also be weaker.

Amputator
Pros
+ The Fire status is a nice addition.
+ The increased damage is helpful.

Cons
- Not a fan of this being so similar (and, IMO, weaker) to the Fang of Vog. I would like to suggest that the charge attack be a single, slow slash that deals multiple hits to enemies caught within the slash. Think chainsaw.

Tl;dr: While the Fire status and increased damage are nice changes, the new sword is similar to the Fang of Vog. The only change I would like to see would be if the charge attack became a long chain-saw-like slash that dealt multiple hits to enemies caught within the slash.

Monster damage perks are overall not as useful as you'd really want them to be. Worse is that to get them many weapons have to give up raw damage output which is more often than not ignored when players pick a set that reaches max damage anyways.

Instead of boosting the Monster damage perk why not set it to low and grant the CIV and Amputator more raw damage along with both status and some sort of unique feature that helps them stand out.... such as lack of knockback on the CIV, and overall higher flinch chance on both.

Amputator is fine enough as a Brandish style weapon but the Fire status makes it a bit less useful against Oilers and Toxoils. If you want you could try one of my previous suggestions and grant it both Fire and Poison status, which would at least counter the healing that you have to deal with when lighting Oilers on fire. It would also make it even more general use by letting it deny healing.

(Fire is good on Amputator, adding poison would just fit the "denies tissue regeneration" thing that Cautery is themed around)

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I also do agree that the CIV should probably be tested for Elemental, maybe even try it with Freeze to go with the "Cold" theme.

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Turbillion is sadly in need of a total overhaul... if you wanna get crazy you could try to keep the current charge attack and then give it the attack combo of something else. The Warmaster Rocket Hammer might sound weird but it could fit...

I don't see a way to make family specialization weapons work. The bonuses are too small and quickly cancelled out by other gear damage bonuses. Things like Amp and CIV need to just be different weapons.

Here's a shower idea: What if we basically remove the charge attack from the Amputator and instead give the player a short (like 5 second) big damage and attack speed bonus with fire added to normal swings every time the player charges? The charge attack basically becomes the act of revving a chainsaw because well you know it's a chainsaw sword. I think lacking a whole charge attack would warrant making the buff pretty damn hefty compared to other buffs in the game so I don't think it'd be too unbalanced.

Turbillion's normals are generally okay but I think it's pretty clearly a single-target focused weapon and kinda struggles to back that up. I think its projectile should be like at least a couple tiles wide and pierce in the same way its current charge attack does to make it a more crowd-control focused weapon since we don't really have many weapons that can achieve that kinda CC. The charge attack itself is also massively underwhelming still. I genuinely don't think the concept will work when it's so simple. I've suggested this before but I think it'd be REALLY cool if the tornado would slow down as it travelled and pulled enemies in like a vortex bomb.

I cannot think of anything for CIV lmao I never really cared much about the weapon I will let other people think of something neat for it.

Starting with the Calibur line weapons;

The extra radius on the weapon line's charge is great; it gives it extra consistency on hits, however the knockback is too severe so it has trouble hitting things as it tends to knock everything off miles away. I do agree it needs to be toned down to somewhere close to around current Sweet Dreams' level of knockback.

The extra damage changes are good; it puts the Calibur (Leviathan Blade) line weapons in a good place as an all-rounder.

With Leviathan Blade, Cold Iron Vanquisher and Amputator all being normal damage Calibur line swords (alongside Sweet Dreams and Celestial Saber) it feels tad oversaturated;

Cold Iron Vanquisher unfortunately falls off hard comparatively to the Leviathan Blade as soon as you go anything over +2 (Medium) damage due to vs Family bonus; as others mentioned this doesn't give any reason to use it over anything that doesn't have vs Family bonus lines (others e.g Brandish line swords Acheron included, Fang of Vog) due to the total damage bonus being hard capped at +6.
I like the idea of it having pure or split Elemental damage plus chance of Freeze as it would not only help fix the issue, but also make it a well worthy and safer alternative to the Fang of Vog.

Same cannot be said for Amputator unfortunately, as not only it suffers the same issue of having a vs Family bonus, but the new one is essentially a watered down version of Fang of Vog. Turning it into a Calibur line weapon and giving it chance of Fire on charge is an interesting choice and sounds good on paper, however, it's hard to justify it when there are already four to five different versions of normal damage Calibur. It's also in a tough spot with the previous version being an inferior version of any Brandish line weapon.
The idea of it applying Defense down debuff sounds intriguing; it provides an interesting gimmick for a normal version of Brandish being more of a support role weapon and it compliments the theme of the Brandish line being a big status applier. It works thematically being a Calibur line as well due to it's design, however I'd be leaning in more towards leaving it as a Brandish with said gimmick.

Talking about weapon reskins, Sweet Dreams and Celestial Saber act like Caliburs but slightly different, so I'd like to see these integrated into being reskins of Leviathan Blade and Cold Iron Vanquisher respectively; it works well in theme and it reduces the bloat of different normal damage Calibur weapons.

Turbillion unfortunately still has a LOT of fundamental issues as mentioned above and I very much agree on Aino's take on it. The piercing arc projectiles on the basic swings and the vortex-like behavior on charge projectile would spice this weapon up significantly.

If I can add onto all these recent comments still, I totally agree on Amputator being better as a Brandish (love the charge effect too). But thinking on it more, fire may not be such a good idea due to Oilers and Toxoils. So could defense down like some suggested be best after all? Like Pineytea said also, it can fit it thematically and match the other Brandish swords as well. And Fallen-Feces, I hope defense down Brandish charge can still fit that saw theme possibly. What you suggested might require a new line I think, even if I see what you had in mind.

Also if we make Cold Iron Vanquisher deal elemental damage after all, please make it hybrid normal and elemental so it can still be of use against other enemies too. And the freeze idea for it is a pretty good idea too. And I feel Sweet Dreams being a Leviathan Blade or Cold Iron Vanquisher reskin could be good. But Celestial Saber being either a Fang of Vog reskin to match the sun theme, or Cold Iron Vanquisher to match the cold of space. That is a good question.

EDIT: In case anyone wants Amputator to be a Shadow Calibur, that doesn't fit neither design nor charge in both iterations. We already have two shadow Brandish, and Amputator looks nothing like a shadow sword too. Please suggest adding a new shadow/normal line based on Arkus instead if you really want a Shadow Calibur line.

Bug:
* Turbillion vortex do not always spawn: when against a wall, or when receiving a tick of dmg at the moment of releasing the vortex (after the charge swing), or when shielding just after swinging the charge

Feedback

Turbillon
* dmg buf is great
* elec effect is sweet
* for a fast weapon, I feel like the dead time at the end of the 3rd swing is very long
* charge vortex could have a bigger hitbox
* testing a vortex pulling enemy in for the charge attack vortex would be cool, making the charge attack worth it
* getting the normal swing projectile to pierce would be a nice buff too

Leviatan blade
* dmg buff is nice, could be higher to deal more dmg than brandish against neutral target (or same dmg)
* charge attack is nicer, but knockback happen still too soon

Cold Iron Vanquisher
* redundant with leviatan blade (and there are alrady a bunch of reskin of the leviathan blade)
* dmg buff against undead does not compensate and do not par with must other weapon -> it make it a starter player weapon, but a chaos set makes it irrelevant
* would like to try with elem damage
* chance of freeze would be nice

Amputator
* not sure, seems redundant again, both as a brandish or a calibur line blade alternative
* fire is nice
* could stay brandish, with chance of fire, and dmg buff (to be equal or higher than elem brandish against neutral target)
* OR could be an other fire elem calibur style
* OR could be a piercing stun calibur style weapon ?

After playing with the new Leviathan Blade changes, I like it! The damage buff is nice, it's not too strong that it's overtaking elemental weapons vs undead/constructs, and it's not to weak that you'd feel like you wanna use something else, it's just right and feels like the all rounder I think it should've been. The knockback should be looked at, at the moment in the test server you more often than not are sending stuff careening into the moon, and the knockback can still occur before all the hits land, but more often than not, at least in my testing, I was able to land 4-5 hits out of the 6 in the charge attack should the knockback occur early. I would suggest tweaking the strength of the knockback, and have it occur after the final hit lands if possible.

Amputator imo should've remained as a Brandish, though maybe instead of setting things on fire, why not have the charge attack inflict defense down? It can be the only weapon that would have it and it would fill a niche of it being a normal Brandish like it currently is, but is able to inflict defense down. But if it were to change weapon types again should it get another tweak, why not have it become a new weapon entirely since it is a chainsword, and have the charge attack do a single, multi hit attack that grinds into whatever it is you're attacking inflicting defense down. Maybe play with the idea of it being a chainsaw and a sword at the same time and see how it plays out, personally I think it being a much tamer, SFW version of Fang of Vog, is not that interesting.

Cold Iron Vanquisher being the "anti undead" weapon and it still being surpassed from Leviathan Blade vs Undead shouldn't happen, Amputator is also guilty of this too vs slimes if I remember correctly in this regard specifically. Perhaps this weapon should become normal + elemental with a chance to freeze targets? It'd push this weapon into being an undead killer that it's described as in the description than it still being normal.

I'm against Defense Down but not fully opposed to try it. I think Amputator should try other gimmicks, including new ones, before adding a gimmick that directly ups your damage. We do enough damage with the best weapons, so I feel like Amputator getting Defense Down is asking for it to be brought along in meta kits just to boost weapons like Brandishes and Blitz.

To meet in the middle, Amputator can reduce Normal defense of enemies maybe? If GH is even considering this a possibility.

Leviathan Blade
The damage buff feels just about right for solo play and the reworked charge is dealing damage much more consistently. The main problem of this weapon remains the insane knockback on charge, flinging every enemy that doesn’t die across the map. Reducing the charge knockback would be the only change i would love to see done to levi.
Amputator
Changing amputator to a calibur style weapon and adding fire just doesn’t feel right to me… it is now way too similar to fang of vog in my eyes, just lower risk lower reward. The damage vs slime very high does basically nothing as in the current state of the hame with chaos and black kat sets being so widespread, monster family damage bonuses provide nothing of value. My suggestion on amputator wpuld be to keep it as a normal damage brandish and swap out the slime damage bonus for stun status, while keeping damage scaling from the preview server and the charge explosion flinching from live server. These changes would make amputator a great way to apply stun for those who don’t have stagger storm unlocked.

Cold Iron Vanquisher
Same as for the amputator, having a damage bonus against undead does not improve the weapon any bit. As much as appreciate increased damage numbers, it just won’t cut it. In my eyes, CIV could work great as a pure elemental damage weapon and undead damage bonus swapped for a chance to freeze on charge.

Turbillion
This sword despite the changes still performs horribly during the tests. Damage increase and shock on charge are just too little to make it viable. Normal attacks launch the user too far forward, charge takes too long to release and the tornado damage is clearly not high enough. Not even mentioning the tornado sometimes gets cancelled by shielding. I would like to see a chance of shock in the notmal attack bullets or even the swings, shorter steps forward with each attack, quicker charge release, a major damage increase on the tornado OR having the tornado suck enemies in and drag them along its path together with a minor tornado damage increase.

I wanted to pop in after running arcade stages testing the weapons as a batch of 4. While the changes themselves are good, namely the "base damage" improvements, certain aspects of the reworks are confusing or "miss" the point of using a weapon. While it is entirely too difficult to compare the Levi, CIV and Amputator to any brandish 5* variant, i think that a player should be given a reason to use them aside from just looking cool.

Fundamental Problem:

- The main issue is "Damage Bonuses" as a stat on a weapon are irrelevant, while yes, the game does have many armor types and sets, the only ones used by the majority of the playerbase, and the ones that veterans push new players to use, grant the player an initial "damage bonus" of very high up to maximum, depending on if the player is using chaos set or black kat set.

- By having all damage bonuses pool into one "overall" increase, as the game functions now, many people will test these weapons and come to the conclusion that there is no reason to use Amputator or Cold Iron OVER Leviathan which deals the most flat damage, and benefits the most from having maximum damage increase.

- I would like to see some feedback or information on the possibility for the devs to make damage bonuses separate, or at least make the damage increase curve weaker as you stack more damage past the current "maximum", call it overcap or whatever, but give the players a reason to have "vs monster family" bonuses on gear.

Individual Changes:

- Leviathan - It feels good now, albeit the knockback might be too much, it now consistently hits 2-3 times with its charge attack, allowing you to instagib many monsters when playing solo, this is good!

- Cold Iron - The general calibur changes greatly benefit this weapon, the damage bonus vs undead does nothing, as explained before. While yes, it is a better weapon than before, the Leviathan outclasses it always.

- Amputator - Same situation as the cold iron, damage bonus vs slime does nothing. Aesthetically why does a saw blade inflict fire? I dont mind the weapon turning into a calibur, but by being a calibur clone, it now competes with leviathan, which has more raw damage and works out better in the end. Since we are still in testing, consider removing the fire, turning it back into a brandish type, and give it split piercing and normal damage, JUST to test it out. It can always be reverted.

- Turbillion - its better now, the charge attack is still a bit janky and gets deleted randomly. I would like the attack animation to be sped up just a bit, as currently for some reason the third attack leaves you "stunned" ending up with lots of situations where you get randomly hit because of it.

+1 to those who agree that Damage Bonus vs Monster Family abilities on weapons feels weird and somewhat restrictive. In my opinion, the damage bonus should come from Armors and Shields or have synergy with the weapon Damage such as Wild Hunting Blade with Damage Bonus vs Beast High

Thoughts on the couple other swords:

[ Leviathan Blade ]

Good changes to damage, the weapon is less of a deadweight now, and I could justify bringing it for casual Arcade runs now. However, the insane instant knockback on the charge attack is very disruptive and limits its viability.

Proposed changes:
Move the Knockback check on Levi Blade's charge attack to the final tick of damage.

This would make the charge attack significantly more reliable and increase the weapon's overall viability. In a world where weapons like Brandishes and Iron Slugs can just obliterate things with very little effort, I can't see the justification for Leviathan Blade instantly neutering its own charge attack damage versus anything that isn't pinned against a wall.

[ Turbillion ]

I'm not sure how you fix this weapon with just pure numbers tweaks. It frankly needs a technical rework and that's probably outside the scope of resources allocated to these balance passes.

Proposed changes:
Make enemies not react to the sword's projectile (similar to how mechaknights/wolvers/etc did not react to old mixer bullets). This would make the weapon less disruptive vs those enemies and slightly improve its performance.

Convert Turbillion's charge attack into a "suction projectile" which pulls enemies in/along as it travels (somehow you would have to bolt the suction functionality of a vortex bomb onto the charge attack projectile). This would give the sword very unique functionality instead of just being another source of direct damage. Visually, I'd like to see the charge attack projectile increased in size, too - right now it's very small and wimpy. It is a tornado, after all!

Turbillion
Huge delay before charge attack
Buggy charge attack, whirl isn't guarranted
Amputator
Poor knockback animation after charge, mobs moves too fast, it's almost teleporting
Great charge vs heavy mobs

Overall, it's still not as good as brandish lline.

First up, I'm a bit too lazy to read all of these replies, so this may or may not be duplicate feedback;

Overall I'm happy to see you looking into these weapons, I'm also instantly going to say, I never used Turbillion, so no feedback for it here.

Leviathan Blade

An overall damage increase is very welcome for this weapon, due to it only having one damage type the scaling in lower levels falls behind and looking at those numbers, should be a priority on your end. Everyone constantly compares anything ever with Acheron, and I feel like Leviathan Blade should be as well, in my dream world Leviathan Blade would end up slightly above normal Damage of Acheron, but the likelihood of this happening, even with further damage buffs is unlikely, Acheron scales off of Normal and Shadow Damage, while Leviathan Blade only has Normal.

Additionally, I feel like it is time to give Leviathan Blade the treatment Valiance got in the gunner update back in 2014-12-03
giving us an Elemental, Piercing and Shadow Variant via Basil, with that we get to the other two swords;
(if you ever get to bombs you will see the same feedback for the Blast Bomb btw)

Cold Iron Vanquisher

Cold Iron Vanquisher would in my world be the Elemental variant of this weapon set, I see a lot of people call out giving Cold Iron Vanquisher the Cold Status, which is still a valid approach! I'll explain what I mean at the end.

Amputator

Amputator would be the Shadow variant in this scenario, while I can't see it competing with Acheron or Dread Venom Striker even with this buff, it would still be another shadow sword option, we kinda don't have many of those somehow.

In this test you added Fire to the weapon, which I personally do not understand but we can keep it that way.

Now to my proposed new crafting path:

Calibur -> Tempered Calibur -> Ascended Calibur -> Leviathan Blade
Calibur -> Elemental Calibur -> Ascended Elemental Calibur -> Elemental Leviathan Blade (NEW pure Elemental Sword)
Calibur -> Elemental Calibur -> Cold Iron Carver -> Cold Iron Vanquisher (Elemental + Cold)
Calibur -> Piercing Calibur -> Ascended Piercing Calibur -> Piercing Leviathan Blade (NEW pure Piercing Sword)
Calibur -> Shadow Calibur -> Ascended Shadow Calibur -> Shadow Leviathan Blade (NEW pure Shadow Sword)
Calibur -> Shadow Calibur -> Cautery Sword -> Amputator (Shadow + Fire)

The Status effects would be added at the 4* point to show the player why there is another split tree.

Any Cautery Sword currently owned would simply turn into a Shadow Calibur and Advanced Cautery Sword would only be a rename, dropping the advanced, since we no longer have a "basic" Cautery Sword.

This Crafting Tree would also place Celestial Saber and Sweet Dreams simply as a [Normal + Stun] Leviathan Blade, which would be able to simply have the same damage scaling as the Cold Iron Vanquisher (Elemental + Cold) and Amputator (Shadow + Fire).

Another Idea I had for Amputator was to keep it in the Brandish line, give it an entirely new face and simply make it the Piercing Brandish, this would instantly catapult it onto the same throne Acheron currently sits on and even if you decide to keep it doing Fire Damage it would still receive the full Dual Damage type scaling the other Brandish line swords have. Though I'm much less a fan of this idea, since all the flavor texts about this weapon line would have to be updated, though Amputating wolver limbs with a chainsaw does make for an interesting take.

Guys... remember, Poison does this already has well has cutting attack to any affected monster. What you are saying is that the Amputator should be a poison weapon? (It would be an anti slime agent possibly)

Another idea for the amputator should it be to be its own different thing instead of shoehorning into another sword line.

A good reason to ask for Amputator to be split shadow is not only that it works better against slimes (Wich is the same vein asking CiV to be split elemental), but that the other split shadow sword whit poison, its behind an event and that should be more than ENOUGHT TO IGNORE IT HAS A REASON TO NOT ADD ANOTHER SPLIT SHADOW SWORD!. Let alone one whit a poison and not grapple effect.

If that is much of a problem maybe the weapon should become a split pierce Brandish whit stun, making it the second split pierce weapon in the game (Getting rid of the vs Slime bonus has Knight´s Scientist discovered it is actually very efective in general against almost everything that is not outright intangible)... And even if it was not a Brandish and stayed has a Calibur, making it split shadow poison should not even by accident dethrone the obsidian brandish at all, and become an always available option.

Day two:

Caliburs: I think the Levi is almost in a sweet spot. It's usable, yet it could be better—maybe less knockback, or guaranteeing the knockback only on the last hit (it would be a monster, but hey, we got WBH and DVS as monsters and they were very welcome in the "meta").

Amputator: After playing more and sharing thoughts with the community, I have mixed feelings. Yeah, Amputator as a normal Brandish was a thing; its only problems were the lame normal damage and the bonus vs. slimes. Personally, I wouldn't like a fire effect if it returns as a Brandish because we already have the Combuster and fire is the strongest status effect. Stun, on the other hand... could be interesting. That's just considering existing status effects. That said, the idea of giving it some special armor-"shatter" effect or gimmick is sick. I would love to see more weapons with gimmicks, though poison already exists. Maybe this "shatter" could reduce defenses, but only for Amputator damage sources? Idk.

Cold Iron Vanquisher: Levi already exists as an all-rounder, and CIV is one of the most unique weapons design-wise (and one of Nick's favorites, if I remember correctly). There are so many good suggestions around—some more disruptive, others more conservative: non-split damage with 1/4 or 1/3 converted to elemental, pure elemental, or just normal damage with a freeze chance. Maybe it could find a place as an Ice version of the Fang of Vog? Freezing ourselves in exchange for an excellent all-rounder with a chance to inflict freeze sounds good (even if I'm not a big fan of self-inflicted statuses).

I have a lot to say about the Turbillion, which was one of my biggest heartbreaks back then as a "noob trap with an unfinished alchemy path."

After testing the preview Turbillion in depth, along with its issues as a big amalgamation (same as Tortoguns), I'd say hybrid weapons are pretty interesting. However, since specialized gear rules the game (due to damage resistances and monster families/behaviors), hybrids don't have much room to shine. Even if they did, their performance is currently underwhelming.

Here are the problems related to the weapon itself, plus some bugs that make using it a worse experience:

Bugs:

• Projectiles disappearing.
• Charge attack not spawning if you shield-cancel too early or close to a wall (same issue as Slicers).
• Idk if it's because of preview server lag, but sometimes the disk on the second hit doesn't appear.

Weak points:
Due to its nature, it ends up being a mediocre ranged weapon and a mediocre sword—mostly because of the normal damage, though not entirely.

Basic attacks:

• For a curved blade that had "Arc" and "Razor" in its precursor names, the hitboxes are practically vertical lunges. Also, the disk disappearing upon touching a single enemy makes fighting groups quite disappointing; it's like removing the 180° swing from the Rocket Hammer.
• The disks do almost nothing on their own, considering that the total damage is split between the melee attack and the disk. This is particularly due to the weapon's nature and the fear of overbuffing it: if you buff the disks too much, it becomes better as a gun with a poor basic attack; if you buff the melee attacks too much, the projectiles have to be nerfed; and if you make both good, well, it's too much damage. (In my opinion, a single-target weapon with massive damage could actually have a niche, though again, we already have Cutters.)
• The recovery time sometimes feels kinda messy for a "fast sword."

Charge attack:

• Having shock (an inconsistent status effect that blocks movement) on an attack that pushes enemies away is pure anti-synergy.
• The hitbox of the charge attack is so small that you run into problems similar to the DA or GF when their travel speed was changed, or similar to the Iron Slug, but with much less damage.
• The flinch effect is welcome.
• The damage works well with vortex bombs, but it's still inconsistent due to the projectile's release speed, and the swing itself doesn't hit hard enough.

Turbillion could use its own dedicated testing phase before just adjusting numbers. Personally, I would love to see broader changes to "hybrid weapons" (yeah, Tortos and this sword).

Instead of spending too much time on this weapon, for the sake of time, could we get some little tweaks to Flourish swords?

Note: Sealed Swords still need some finishing touches; it still bothers me that an Acheron with no UVs is better than a GF with ASI H/VH :p

I'd rather not have a second Acheron or Combuster that makes pretty much everything else irrelevant... I'd also like the gameplay to not be... "apply Brandish to every level and win"

Actually all brandish have a common weakness... Fences. The charged attack cannot go beyond any fence any gun can. I hope this is taken into consideration if GH want to make a new boss levels or any new where brandishes are not the first option.

When testing these various sidegrades to the Leviathan blade

Please ask

Who uses Nitronome?

Who uses the Heavy Deconstructor, Big Angry Bomb, Irontech Destroyer?

Not just owns them... but actually uses them...

Then ask... why are you trying to do the same thing to the Calibur sword line? Why make one decent sword that people don't use and then make several variants with the same damage type?

---

As much as I get that this is a "Normal sword" reworking... I don't think all of these should be kept Normal...

CIV and Turbillion for example should probably be something else (probably Elemental), while the Leviathan Blade should be Normal because it's a "stock weapon" for the Spiral Order

Amputator should arguably be a Normal Brandish still... though with fixed up damage and a lot of reworking to help it stand out... more flinch, a very low slime damage bonus, dual status, and a damage number that keeps up with the Combuster.... I get trying to make it a Calibur and adding Fire status... but Fire Status is a "waiting" status... it works better when you can apply it and run, meanwhile Calibur charges would prefer to outright KO whatever you drop them on because of how close and well positioned you have to be... it's a higher risk so you want a higher reward and Fire status doesn't do it

It's ok if it's the weakest Brandish in discussions about falling short for specialized damage, but for neutral damage it should be on par with it's siblings (the non Acheron Brandish swords)

The third swing of Turbillion being an arc like Aino suggested would be great. Its something to think about since Turbillion has a slow 3rd swing in its combo. Here is what it would look like, credits to Aino.

I've been rooting for round 2.

Here's my feedback:

Leviathan Blade:

Appreciated changes, feels better.
Could use a stun status to make its supposed reskins actual reskins and not different weapons.
The knockback should definitely apply on the last hit to improve reliabilty.

Cold Iron Vanquisher:
As you might know now, Damage against Monsters are not useful in the slightest. I would replace Undead VH with strong freeze and make Cold Iron Vanquisher Elemental, even more when we have a third normal damage Calibur.
Likewise, the knockback should definitely apply on the last hit to improve reliabilty.

Amputator:

I like the idea of changing it to a calibur. Fire technically works due to the 3* being cautery sword, but I would really like it having something unique. Retrofit suggested adding defense down to it, I'm all for it and it matches the Blade's identity. I would not like it being split shadow/normal, we got plenty of options to choose from already.
Likewise, the knockback should definitely apply on the last hit to improve reliabilty.

Turbillion:

Turbillion buffs are definitely appreciated. I still find it a bit lacking. What promethiean suggest would be absolutely great, I think it'd be even greater if the arc would come out on every swing. The charge could use some pulling mechanic too, that would make it unique.

I'm gonna try to keep this short but overall I really like the Calibur and Turbillion changes.

Turbs charge attack is still very lackluster, I'd like to see a hefty damage and size increase. Perhaps give it flinching properties as well?

I strongly disagree with the Amputator changes for two main reasons:

1. We already have an excellent candidate for a Fire Calibur; the Celestial Saber

2. The change from Brandish to Calibur reduces weapon variety rather than expanding it. It doesn't offer anything substantial over the other Caliburs. Please keep it as a normal brandish

As many replies above have suggested, the addition of Freeze to Cold Iron Vanquisher would be a nice way to differentiate it from Leviathan Blade. And since we're on the topic, it would be extremely fitting to switch Sweet Dreams' status from Stun to Sleep.

Another note. I appreciate these swords being given STRONG statuses. Aside from Brandishes, there are only a few weapons that can inflict anything higher than MODERATE. I also appreciate that swapping damage types wasn't the first instinct when buffing these swords, it's a really unhealthy approach for this game. So thank you.

After a day my main knight started working on the preview, so I got to testing.

My first impressions of the weapons:

1. Leviathan Blade

Leviathan Blade feels good. The increased damage and range on the charge makes its primary job of keeping enemies away from you much better. Overall, feels much better to use and maintains its current identity.

2. Cold Iron Vanquisher

I love the changes made here too. The bonus damage feels nice, and the additional hits on the charge makes its actual charge hit more times. That being said, it struggles for an identity, as the Undead: Very High is not what makes the weapon good, it's the reduced knockback.

As others have said, I believe changing the damage type to elemental and replacing the Undead: Very High bonus with a good chance at strong freeze would give it a proper identity. The freeze status would be largely beneficial in guaranteeing multi-hits on the charge, and the elemental damage would give it more places to shine. These changes would make it an actually viable weapon to bring along to major content, like Firestorm Citadel, and shake up the meta.

3. Amputator

Amputator's changes don't really benefit it all that much. Turning it into a Calibur while maintaining its focus on slimes keeps it in an identity limbo where it doesn't know what it wants to be. The fire status is a thematic way to buff it, but in practice it doesn't give the weapon anything substantial to work with. Brandish charges are significantly safer to use against slimes, and Calibur charges require you to be in the most dangerous position against slimes for it to work, even with increased range.

Amputator needs a completely reworked identity. I think that removing its reliance on being an anti-slime weapon is the most important step in doing this. This opens the door for more options - for example, Amputator could become our first split normal/piercing brandish, or it can remain as a pure normal damage brandish. Hell, have it remain a pure normal damage brandish with no status, and change the nightblade line to deal sleep as a status so Acheron is brought in line with other brandish damage - this sort of combo-change would give Amputator a proper niche, and become an all-rounder instead of being a specialized weapon that struggles with its own specialty.

4. Turbillion

This is the weapon I think needs the most work currently. The damage increase isn't all that noticeable, and the weapon still struggles with a handful of numbers working against it. The charge attack is nicer to use now, but is still fairly buggy in terms of shield canceling, and thus it overall feels very clunky.

I don't believe it needs a damage buff necessarily, but it does need other buffs. Firstly, the range on the melee swing portion of the sword is too short. It really needs about half a tile of range, and the combo may need larger range due to how melee hits work (they often start from the starting position of the swing, not where your knight ends up - this creates an artificial feeling of tiny range for weapons like Spurs that move you great distances between each swing).

Nextly, the actual projectile needs a buff. Since it does the same damage as a mandolin bullet now, let's have it fire a mandolin-sized projectile. We can keep the boomerang effect exclusive to slicer-styled weapons, but a larger bullet would go a long ways in making Turbillion's projectile actually feel like it hits things.

Lastly, the charge attack needs a much larger area of effect. The tiny projectile can narrowly miss a group, and that feels pretty bad. Expanding the AoE for the effects to a 3x3 range centered on the projectile (ie, it reaches 1 tile out on each side of it) would allow it to properly control crowds, and sweep enemies up in its storm. Heck, you could have it so it only inflicts status in that range and keep the actual damage to the smaller single tile and that would allow it to be a solid support weapon.

I wrote too much, so here's the rest of my thoughts from above.

TL;DR of the below bits at the bottom

One additional thing that's been on my mind since these weapon tests started is this feeling that these weapon tests are being done with the Elite difficulty in mind. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's leading us towards a situation where the weapons will feel just right on Elite, but then feel tremendously overtuned on lower difficulties. I'm not exempt from this - I do all my testing on Elite to see how they feel, but something that isn't really touched on much is how this impacts the overall balance of the game.

Elite difficulty is designed to be played with stacked boosts, optimal gear, and skilled play. The only reason a majority of the playerbase stays on Elite is because it's the only difficulty that have reasonable drops. Crowns, heat, materials, and rarities all drop at good rates on Elite, while Normal's drop rates are pitiful, and the difficulty is only used for new players who don't know any better, and players who are gunning to farm events that don't scale based on difficulty faster.

This is guiding our balance patches to an area where we'll have to buff every weapon in the game to be good on Elite. And while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means that difficulties are going to matter less and less. If we do go down this path, I think the difficulty system needs to be completely overhauled, and perhaps adjusted to focus on different drops. For example, one difficulty would have more heat and fire crystals drop. Another difficulty would have more orbs and materials drop. A final difficulty could have more crowns and tokens drop. This would give players more variety in what they farm for, and certain things like enemy scaling and defenses could be adjusted to best match the correct difficulties.

Case in point: the damage of the Leviathan Blade compared to a 5* Brandish. Combuster deals 198 damage on a basic hit, and old Levi deals 191. This seems pretty fair - slightly less damage for a neutral weapon that will always do OK against monsters. New Leviathan Blade deals 237 damage - that's roughly a 25% damage increase.

Combuster against undead deals 265 damage - roughly a 33% increase. This is assuming no damage boosts on any weapon.

Making Leviathan Blade deal only 8% less damage against all monsters compared to an effective weapon against them is a prime example of how weapons are being balanced around Elite difficulty. On Elite, you need that extra damage to enjoy your damage output.

Sure, max damage boosts skew this a bit, but for context: Old Leviathan Blade deals 265 against Undead at max damage, essentially turning it into an effective weapon, but against everything. New Leviathan deals 324 compared to Combuster's 380, which is more a case of how strong split damage with damage boosts is, but it's still a showcase of how we're balancing the weapon around Elite instead of around Advanced, which is what the game was originally built around.

I don't foresee a difficulty adjustment update being something super near in the future, but I fear if it is not reviewed within the next year, players will become complacent with how easy Elite will become, and it will make any adjustments to the difficulty system in the future have excessive pushback when it needs to be changed.

TL;DR: We seem to be balancing these new weapons around the Elite Difficulty, and that's going to cause some problems down the line, even if it causes a healthy meta shakeup at this moment.

It's worth noting that flavor text (and even names) for weapons can be instantly edited to any arbitrary sentence.

For example, if Amputator was revised to inflict Defense Down, you could easily change its description to:
"The culmination of cross-family research, this heavily modified Calibur deploys razor-edged reciprocating blades to shred through the defenses of virtually any monster on Cradle."

Or something similar. So I wouldn't get hung up on balancing a weapon around its flavor text.

Ultimately, I think the focus should be on providing the weapon with a viable niche where it's actually desirable. Plainly speaking, we don't need a normal damage calibur which does some extra slime damage - shadow swords already completely fill that niche. So I wouldn't mind seeing some aggressive tweaks to this weapon to slide it into some other functional role. Whether that's making it a "piercing brandish," or giving it def down, or some other change - I feel like there's a lot of room to be flexible and experiment with this one.

My suggestion would be to turn the Amputator into a pure elemental Brandish.

The changes would be relatively simple:

1- Replace its Normal damage with Elemental damage.

2- Remove its damage bonus against Slimes.

3- Give it no elemental status effects, such as burning, shocking, or freezing.

4- Keep its existing Brandish moveset and charged attack unchanged.

The idea would be to make the Amputator a straightforward elemental damage option. Unlike the Fire, Ice, and Shock Brandishes, it wouldn't rely on status effects or additional utility. Its identity would simply be pure elemental damage, while retaining the familiar Brandish moveset and charged attack.

The Slime damage bonus also feels like a poor fit for the weapon in its current state. Despite being designed to deal extra damage to Slimes, the Amputator struggles to compete with alternatives like Acheron and other Shadow weapons, even in its intended niche. Rather than keeping this situational bonus, I think it would make more sense to remove it and, if necessary for balance, introduce a damage penalty against Slimes and other enemies that would otherwise be particularly weak to its elemental damage. This would help establish the Amputator as a more specialised elemental weapon without making it too effective against every enemy type.

I think this change would give the Amputator a clearer identity within the Brandish family without making its mechanics unnecessarily complicated. Rather than competing through status effects or a situational damage bonus, it would offer a simple alternative focused entirely on elemental damage.

Of course, its damage values would need to be balanced accordingly. The goal wouldn't necessarily be to make it stronger than every other Brandish, but to give players a meaningful reason to consider using it.

To Firelo, I agree with there being an "overcap" for damage so we still have some use for damage bonus vs monster family, even if we get diminishing bonuses. That could give it some use instead of all the calls to remove Damage VS Monster Family outright. But I still feel Amputator being the normal Brandish with Defense down would keep it better matching the other Brandish swords and turning it into a Calibur with fire makes it a weaker Fang of Vog now sadly.

I like the calls to add freeze to Cold Iron Vanquisher too, but disagree totally on making it pure elemental. I rather go the way of the Cutter line modifications instead by using split damage for swords instead. If we can implement this "overcap" with diminishing values for going past the maximum, I hope that can be a good way to allow those weapon traits and UVs to stay. I'm not sure how this will work however, so I hope "overcap" can be given its own testing possibly if we cannot fit it here as well.

And for Queen-Hathena, I'm sorry, but Amputator is better off as the normal brandish still and looks nothing like a shadow weapon too. And with the lore being designed for slimes, making it piercing defeats that purpose sadly. So I rather defense down instead to reflect surgical strikes.

If we need new lines for the Caliburs, I recommend this instead: Cold Iron Vanquisher becomes normal/elemental hybrid while keeping damage vs undead very high, but also gains freeze as well. While the normal/shadow Calibur is based on Arkus, and gains added black and purple colors and maybe even some fiendish elements. If we need a normal/piercing line as well, can we call the final version "Excalibur" to fit in with the Calibur line? (Or is that name best saved for a Shadow Lair version of that specific line?) Could become a gold and blue sword similar to the Lionheart Blade to match how it's a normal/piercing Calibur. (Come to think of it, if the normal/piercing Calibur is named Excalibur after all, how bout normal/shadow Calibur is called Clarent to mirror it? Hopefully that can be a good name too.)

I agree with Holy-Nightmare that Amputator needs buff to the normal damage to be on par with the other Brandish swords and prefer that mainly in addition to the suggestion of def down. And I totally agree with Spark-Of-Kill 100% on everything you said, thanks for suggesting those.

Fangel has a point also some to think of it, we've been focusing too much on Elite and Normal and Advanced have been pretty much left in the dirt. So if we can save this for another update possibly, I hope we can find a way to give more benefits to trying out Normal or Advanced instead of just focusing on Elite as well. And maybe think of ways everything can be balanced for those modes too.

Sorry if I have been replying way too much, I wanted to share my thoughts on what everyone was saying and see some possible good ideas.

EDIT: Tried thinking of some names for them, and can these work?
normal/shadow: Whispering Lament > Clarent
normal/piercing: Caliburn > Excalibur

After playing around sometime, I'd like to reiterate and advocate some things for changes. I have everyone's opinions on my mind and I want most players to feel like they're having fun AND doing good with such weapons :)

- ALL Caliburs
This includes Leviathan Blade, Cold Iron Vanquisher, Amputator (if it stays a Calibur), Celestial Saber, Sweet Dreams, and all reskins.

Please make the Knockback of the charge attack equal across all Caliburs. Currently, Leviathan Blade struggles against some enemies like Lumbers and Trojans because it knocks them out of range. Overall, I think all Caliburs should have the same Knockback as Cold Iron Vanquisher for the Charge and the decreased SLIGHTLY.

Please also increase the damage of ALL Calibur basic attacks. The charge does good damage but the basics are a bit behind in damage.

- Leviathan Blade
Do not lower its damage. But Stun would also be nice to have on it. That way some of the reskins can be actual reskins.

- Cold Iron Vanquisher (CIV)

I think it would be very nice to try out a Pure Elemental CIV with Freeze or Stun added to it. The sword wouldn't have Normal damage BUT if the Pure Elemental damage is not liked I would love to try it with split damage. But I highly advocate for a sword that is purely one damage as we only have Flourishes and the Rocket Hammer that have single damage that isn't Normal and those are fun! (ignore the fact Flourishes probably need a damage buff too)

- Other
Some people in the Discords have been wondering, including myself, if split damages could be different such as there being more Normal Damage than Specialized Damage and vice versa. If so, it would be a good time to start trying that during the earlier rounds of balancing. This way, there's more ways to experiment and have meaningful differences in split damage weapons

Also Fang of Vog has slower speed than what is actually shown. It should probably have the same speed as current Caliburs. It is a nice weapon you grind for.

Again, thanks for everything to both GH and the community. Cheers!

Most of my feedback will be regarding Amputator. Before I get into that though, I'd like to report that the Calibur changes are definitely welcome so far, and I enjoy hitting with all the force of a sixteen-wheeler on my spin attacks.

Regarding Amputator - while I appreciate the damage increase, I feel like the decision to swap its charged attack from Brandish to Calibur has done more harm than good (ironic considering I'm a Brandish #1 hater) for the reasons following:

• It brings nothing to the table that the other Caliburs can't already handle well on their own, being a Normal Damage Calibur with the only defining trait being Fire.
• It retroactively "nerfs" Fang of Vog by having the same Fire proc and same Fire strength, but without the downside of self-inflicted fire.
• It takes away from the niche of having been a Normal Damage Brandish, of which there are now none left.

In my personal opinion, I think Spark-Of-Kill's takes on Calibur rebalancing would be the best way to go about this situation:

• LevBlade should inflict Stun,
• Sweet Dreams should inflict Sleep,
• and if people want a Fire Calibur that badly that they don't want to deal with the downside of Fang of Vog, then it would be a thematically more fitting status for Celestial Saber.
• Cold Iron could inflict Freeze as most people suggested which I have no issues with.

Also, thank you from me personally that Grey Havens still care about Damage vs. Monsters. Please do not remove these item stats no matter what people tell you, I think they still have a place to shine in the game and most people are just giving up too soon because no major attempts at improving them have been made yet.

Lastly,
regarding Turbillion: The improvements are decent. I was already a huge fan of the basic attack, and with the damage increase it should be more serviceable than ever. That said though, the charged projectile is still a long shot from being good, and something about the hit detection and the damage MUST be done before the sword as a whole is ready for shipping. The Shock status in my opinion doesn't add nor take away a whole lot.