petition to make 2 handed weapons relevant

[Ancelor]

as per the title... right now there's no incentive to use 2 handed vs shield and weapon or 2 weapon fighting.

 

would be great f the devs can buff em up a bit in future patches

[dunehunter]

If they do think this is an issue need to be fixed, they already did it in beta, because beta testers had a few meaningful discussion about why 2h weapons are underpowered, how to fix it. So it's either of very low priority of their list, or it is not even an issue in their list.

[Manveru123]

Some 2h weapons are very good and worth using, a global buff to 2h would be too much.

[Boeroer]

You can balance the general weakness of 2 handers with better unique ones, that's true. However I don't think that's the right way. Each weapon type should be equally useful in its "vanilla" state.

 

As I already suggested several times, giving all 2 handers +1 PEN would solve the problem without making those too good. It's also not unreasonable because weapons that get wielded with more kinetic energy should be able to overcome armor more easily.

[Ancelor]

^this

[MrMoe]

It's also not unreasonable because weapons that get wielded with more kinetic energy should be able to overcome armor more easily.

 

Isn't it already working similary, with the higher damage range? At least the loading screen tooltip tells me that very often.

 

 

And 2H are not doing too bad either, at least according to this post:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/102539-dual-wield-vs-any-other-melee-style/?do=findComment&comment=2057725

[Boeroer]

No it's not - because we don't have dmg vs. DR any longer but PEN vs. AR. So dmase per hit doesn't matter as much as it did in PoE. Dps is more important. And being able to deliver Full Attacks.

 

Atm two handers will do less dps on average compared to dual wielding, have less deflection and reflex than weapon & shield (while not granting overwhelmingly higher dps) and I guess due to crits giving +25% dmg and *1.5 times PEN (which leads to more dmg because you either prevent dmg reduction or even get overpenetration) two handers do even less dps than a single weapon approach.

 

They don't have significantly higher PEN than one handers except the Estoc (which has quite low base damage). Great Sword even has low PEN. So why use two handers in the first place if they don't give you even a circumstancial benefit (morning stars excluded because their modal is great)? Mainly because of uniques I'd say. +1 PEN wouldn't topple over the balance of weapons but would give a reason to use two handers over one handers in certain situations (when enemies' AR is high). Of course this could lead to a situation where two handers are more valuable on PotD because there the AR of enemies is altered (which I find to be a bad decision for difficulty balancing).

Edited June 22, 2018 by Boeroer

[hilfazer]

Throwing random buffs at 2H and random speed nerfs at DW won't help.

The core of the problem needs to be struck, and that's Full Attacks.

 

In theory attack speed isn't as good for special attacks as damage (DPH, not DPS) or accuracy. DW = attack speed, 2H = damage, 1H = accuracy. So DW should be worse at special attacks than both 2H and 1H.

But no, they are not because Full Attacks exists and work like they work. Removing Full Attacks is probably too drastic and not something i'd like to see so i'm thinking of reducing their damage when dual wielding.

[Boeroer]

DW should do more damage when executing a full attack than weapon & shield. And equal to 2h. As long as the dps over all weapons is balanced that's ok then.

 

My proposal was to make Full Attacks a series of strikes. So two handers could do 2 strikes, light one handers 4, heavy 3 and so on so that the overall resulting damage of a Full Attack would be kind of equal for all weapon types. At least for melee.

[George_Truman]

I know that people hate nerfs, but I think it might be smart to change some of the full attack abilities to primary attacks. Currently only fighter has notable primary attacks.

 

I also think that 2 handers could use either a flat damage buff or a flat pen buff, or maybe a cleave or "bounce" effect. Like attacks hit primary target and another target within 'x' distance for like 33% damage or something. That might allow them higher damage against mobs, but worse single target/focus damage. 

[theBalthazar]

TWO HANDED = Always maximum damage with maximum attack.

 

I buy it.

[baldurs_gate_2]

WotEP was pretty good, because it hit the target twice. Now they fixed that and other good fighter abilities and you don't pick it anymore.

[AeonsLegend]

Simply nerfing full attack abilties is probably not the way to go. I think that each weapon style should have a bonus with full attack abilities, such as 2 handed gaining either damage or penetration. They are now in favor of dual wield and that is already stronger than the others just with auto attacks.

 

So don't nerf full attack to spite dual wielding because that sends the wrong message. Buff it for other styles that gain no benefit from it.

[George_Truman]

But nerfs make the game harder which can be a plus.

[AeonsLegend]

But nerfs make the game harder which can be a plus.

You can nerf things differently. Removing an entire effect is not the way to go. Having two weapons and only allowing to hit with one because "balance" is dumb.

[dunehunter]

First of all, people have a misunderstanding that Primary Attack always favors 2h weapons, however that’s hell wrong.

 

Only Primary attack with very high damage bonus do, otherwise it’s more balanced because with dual wielding u recover faster so there are no difference between using primary attack with 2h or DW.

 

I also vote for giving each style bonus to Full Attack ability. 2h = maximize damage roll, single = bonus critical damage, shield = miss->graze

[Archaven]

i like to see 2H being tweak to have higher PEN or damage to balance things other styles. i hope obsidian dont get the wrong idea of nerfing DW. instead of making weaker stuff better they like to make better stuff weaker.

[hilfazer]

But nerfs make the game harder which can be a plus.

 

Depends on what's being nerfed. Many nerfs affect both players and enemies.

[Archaven]

But nerfs make the game harder which can be a plus.

 

make the game harder with challenging fights and handcrafted encounters. not gimping character abilities and handicap them to show you the game is hard. of course glitches on unlimited procs do need to be fixed (i dont consider that as nerf).

[Boeroer]

I also vote for giving each style bonus to Full Attack ability. 2h = maximize damage roll, single = bonus critical damage, shield = miss->graze

That's good. It's easy to implement, no animation has to be changed and it also makes sense - except the weapon & shield variant: why should somebody avoid misses when using a shield? Since bash is no longer part of Deadfire: maybe allow a single bash with the shield when doing Full Attacks? Don't know if this would require an additional animation. Alternatively a low tier affliction like staggered for a short amount of time (simulating a shield bash)? Or like the AoE Pollaxe: is gives you a short immunity to melee attacks after executing a swirl. Maybe that would be cool for a Full Attack for shield users: even more emphasis on defense while executing an attack?

[dunehunter]

 

I also vote for giving each style bonus to Full Attack ability. 2h = maximize damage roll, single = bonus critical damage, shield = miss->graze

That's good. It's easy to implement, no animation has to be changed and it also makes sense - except the weapon & shield variant: why should somebody avoid misses when using a shield? Since bash is no longer part of Deadfire: maybe allow a single bash with the shield when doing Full Attacks? Don't know if this would require an additional animation. Alternatively a low tier affliction like staggered for a short amount of time (simulating a shield bash)? Or like the AoE Pollaxe: is gives you a short immunity to melee attacks after executing a swirl. Maybe that would be cool for a Full Attack for shield users: even more emphasis on defense while executing an attack?

 

 

I have thought about allow bash with no-bashable shield on full attack, but i'm not sure if it is easy to implement tho.

[Purudaya]

One option would be to give all primary attacks a damage bonus and remove damage bonuses from full attacks (I'm thinking especially of 1.1 rogues, who now lack what little motivation to use one-handed style there already was). Dual wield is OP as it is. 

That or add an accuracy penalty to the off hand and make dual-wielding a multi-tier ability like in every other CRPG, but that's probably not in the cards.

Edited June 23, 2018 by Purudaya

[Veolfen]

I'll just go with a +1 flat penetration for 2handers (or add it to the 2 handers mastery) and a +25% damage bonus on full attacks.

 

Also compare the "unique" 2 handers to unique 1 handers and make sure the bonuses & special effects are at least 50% more powerful compared to 1 handers.

 

 

And if people want a nerf to DW, i don't think it's the good way to go, but if needed, maybe just go for a minus 5 accuracy for DW.
 

Edited June 23, 2018 by Veolfen

[PizzaSHARK]

Throwing random buffs at 2H and random speed nerfs at DW won't help.

The core of the problem needs to be struck, and that's Full Attacks.

 

In theory attack speed isn't as good for special attacks as damage (DPH, not DPS) or accuracy. DW = attack speed, 2H = damage, 1H = accuracy. So DW should be worse at special attacks than both 2H and 1H.

But no, they are not because Full Attacks exists and work like they work. Removing Full Attacks is probably too drastic and not something i'd like to see so i'm thinking of reducing their damage when dual wielding.

 

DW should just impart a Penetration penalty on both weapons.  It makes the most sense from both a fluff and crunch perspective and is in line with how most RPG systems handle it (they may also include an accuracy penalty, but I don't think that would be necessary here and missing is never especially fun.)

 

An alternative might be to increase the resource cost of Full Attack actions by +1 if you're dual wielding, but that seems dumb.

[heldred]

I think the issue is base damage.  For some reason, damage-to-recovery ratio just doesn't make sense.

 

Add in the fact that dual-wielding or shield wielding provides TWICE the buffs, bonuses, ancillary powers...  yeah, 2-H weapons need a base damage buff.  Skip the full-attack nonsense (this game needs less micro...) and just buff the baseline damage for all 2-H weapons.

 

In the cost-benefit analysis you have one pro (looks cool) and three or four disadvantages (slower recovery, less overall damage, less magical buffs, etc.)

 

The other solution is provide two additional magical buffs on two-handed weapons, to make up for the magical effect gulf.