Wheel of Time MUD

I am deeply disturbed by the changes to fencing blades. There are very few play styles on this game. Abs (trash as long as combo weapons do as much damage and bash just as well), combo bash (every weapon is basically the same - high defense, high OB, good bash), then there is THE playstyle of piercing combo weapons, poor bash, high OB, average defense, ok-good damage.

We have devastated and decimated an integral part of the game. Piercing weapons are the best brainless form of PK and the best for a leader to just run around and spam and not have to worry about bashing! The change also makes no sense other than just being an even better channeler weapon? But any channeler who uses their melee weapon for anything other than pure PB is borderline a few crumpets short of a tea party!

I am personally injured that despite my decade+ long complaints against stab and short blades, the staff has decided to down my favorite weapon before the trash skill - backstab!!

I will continue to play just as much if not more but I will be mortally wounded inside and also bored switching from wicked axe, razor blade, heron, DST, serrate polearm which are just variations of the same dung. No one uses any other weapon in todays game. It is only rares and craftables.

Can I trade in my rank 8 fencing blade for a rank 8 medium blade?

Smh Matheus clearly just wanting to be able to abuse dodge fblades with 340 defense on his alts.

Lies! I don't have a wolfbrother for that dism 190 db!! Matheus is also never dodge unless im really scraping the bottom of the barrel for gear! Which is only once or twice a week!

Matheus can’t fight absers without weapons that attack while he’s in full dodge

I don’t get hit while using justice in abs 3v1

We are not the same

..I mean if they want to give channies and dodgers a 2 lb 7d5, who am I to stop them..

matheus wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 08, 2026 7:35 pm

I am deeply disturbed by the changes to fencing blades. There are very few play styles on this game. Abs (trash as long as combo weapons do as much damage and bash just as well), combo bash (every weapon is basically the same - high defense, high OB, good bash), then there is THE playstyle of piercing combo weapons, poor bash, high OB, average defense, ok-good damage.

We have devastated and decimated an integral part of the game. Piercing weapons are the best brainless form of PK and the best for a leader to just run around and spam and not have to worry about bashing! The change also makes no sense other than just being an even better channeler weapon? But any channeler who uses their melee weapon for anything other than pure PB is borderline a few crumpets short of a tea party!

I am personally injured that despite my decade+ long complaints against stab and short blades, the staff has decided to down my favorite weapon before the trash skill - backstab!!

I will continue to play just as much if not more but I will be mortally wounded inside and also bored switching from wicked axe, razor blade, heron, DST, serrate polearm which are just variations of the same dung. No one uses any other weapon in todays game. It is only rares and craftables.

Can I trade in my rank 8 fencing blade for a rank 8 medium blade?

This. With the exception that I am less likely to play moving forward. This comment is not intended to be dramatic or a rage quit post due to one weapon change. I am however, experiencing most changes as removing variability and therefore the fun I have when playing. I am truly not sure why there is a felt need to continuously change things. You know that saying, when it's no longer fun walk away? Well it is no longer as fun for me. Stay safe until the next time I see you all.

The funny thing to me about fencing blades it that the game could probably tolerate a slightly higher level of disarm now.

1. Yes, disarm to the ground is broken.
2. And yes, the original hit->disarm efficacy was too high.

But a big issue historically for the game was that absers routinely had to wield 1 handed weapons. I can't tell you how many logs I read (or participated in) where an abser had to wield a finely crafted axe and simply sat there being decimated (100% disarmed) and removed from the fight.

What abs weapons are 1 handed now? I can't immediately think of any. How many people are still playing "abs stab"?

Maybe they could have an anti-combo role. Would have to make sure they disarm 1.5 handed weapons.

Likely obnoxious, but so was the abomination that was fencing blades attack. Anyway, won't happen. Coding. Such is life.

Eol wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 12, 2026 8:57 pm

What abs weapons are 1 handed now? I can't immediately think of any.

Crimson Lance, and Diamond Tipped Lance.
you would still want to train shield parry for the pb bash chance while using them, but with 0 pb on those weapons traditional combo armor set ups don't work well.

daggers and throwing weapons (other than the boulder) can all be disarmed to the ground, which gives them a bit better of an anti-rogue angle than anything.

Eol wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 12, 2026 8:57 pm

How many people are still playing "abs stab"?

Maybe they could have an anti-combo role. Would have to make sure they disarm 1.5 handed weapons.

Likely obnoxious, but so was the abomination that was fencing blades attack. Anyway, won't happen. Coding. Such is life.

I've only ever seen wolfbrothers attempt it, as even for humans with crazy high mentals, the pracs make you into a troll rogue gimp set up in most cases.

The "anti-combo" angle would be interesting if weapon/combat mechanics allowed that to work, without also being anti-everything and likely anti-dodge/abs even harder than anti-combo.

As being one who has lost multiple craft rares to disarm-to-ground.... I have to say that unless fblade disarm gets a coding change to make it disarm-to-inventory ONLY, it's the wrong direction to go.
It would probably need a coding change to distinguish 1.5h's from 2h as well.

With the Fblade core identity being removed, and making them exclusively non-bashing channeler weapons that hit on par or harder than the long/med blade counterparts I think they should get the chains/whips treatment until a coding change goes through that addresses what made the pierce-attack based set up less stupid, such as maybe the 2nd attack in an attack round not getting rank damage bonuses, in addition to some disarm-related code changes.

Sort of wondering what you two are on about.

1) Finely axe hasn't been considered an "abs weapon" for at least 26 years, if it ever was. That's like calling bone club a historically abs weapon -- it was always a combo weapon that fully relied on a shield for parry, but played fine in abs too, so some people ran it that way.

2) Who's actually playing "abs stab"? Have either of you looked at a Kandori Merchant lately? Half of them are abs stab. In case you mean "abs stab" in the sense of practicing an abs weapon but also stabbing, that is laughably easy to practice on any human hunter with 16 int and 19 dex. Also comically easy on a fade. Just because some of you are under the impression that anything below 99% everything is poverty doesn't make it so.

As for fencing blades -- what can you do but laugh?

It started in an interesting niche: high damage, low defense, defensive setup. Then that flipped to high defense, high ob, with attack if you could afford it -- which at least forced channelers to think about pracs to leverage the upside. Now it's high defense, high ob, and high damage, no attack, with a ~2 lb option sitting just shy of heron damage and no real trade-off in pracs. It pretty much benefits channelers exclusively at the expense of variety for everyone else. The damage is in the same ballpark as before, just without attack's twist of a higher rate. It's like someone noticed a few channelers discovered pearl sabres a while back and decided that needed to be turned up to 13.

Fencing blades is kind of a dumb class to begin with -- its original niche probably should have just been a prac-driven offshoot of short blades (read: melee short blades). But the timing is what's really bizarre: about a week after "downing" channelers roughly 5 db with the armor weave, we're already handing back an option that, alongside other dodge eq changes, probably recoups nearly all of it -- with a hell of a lot more offensive upside at the cost of some parry compared to a yew setup.