Wheel of Time MUD

Hey folks,

As the title suggests, we are entertaining feedback on the weapons changes we made this summer. What do you love, what do you hate, what do you not care about? What do you feel is overpowered, what is underpowered, what is balanced? Please try and be objective (I recognize that this is a silly request).

As always, please be civil and try and stay on topic. If you post your feedback and it does not get implemented and this upsets you, please mail Tlaloc your grievances.

Well right off the bat, I feel like "a scimitar with a hilt of twisted iron" is probably too consistently high damage compared to other 1h long blades. If the player testing that has been done is fairly accurate, it has nearly the damage cap of "a wickedly scythed longsword", but with much more consistent damage rolls (6d6 vs 8d4). A closer comparison would be "an ivory and gold-hilted longsword" (4d8). Same damage cap, much less reliable damage. Again, no idea if the player tested numbers are completely accurate, but in-game scimitar definitely seems to match damage consistently in PK vs a lot of weapons it seems like it shouldn't.

Axes and clubs now just plain suck, unless you have postures. From an non-master abs trolloc perspective they just don't bash reliably and if you cant bash what's the point? 2h long blades are better, but for most people it's claymore as the number one choice. So much for diversity.

As an aside, bash in general seems to be lacking in consistency. But that might be due to more people being dodgy.

Dimmu wrote:Axes and clubs now just plain suck, unless you have postures. From an non-master abs trolloc perspective they just don't bash reliably and if you cant bash what's the point? 2h long blades are better, but for most people it's claymore as the number one choice. So much for diversity.

As an aside, bash in general seems to be lacking in consistency. But that might be due to more people being dodgy.

I quite like the saw toothed, have it on Firimei and her str is below 15. Granted not as good as a stronger specimen, but it's nice having some damage.

Saw axe has the same damage as scimitar which Weir described above.

It doesn't, according to the wikia. It has the same stats as the I&G, at 4d8, which is a lot less consistent.

http://www.wotmudarchives.org/forum/vie ... f=4&t=2421

The actual testing is located above - that data was the source that would occasionally be transferred over to the Wiki.

I think the changes did a few important things. I haven't stared at the numbers, so any of you can prove to me I'm wrong if I am!

-Weakened combo setups by taking away the clear best option (2h defensive longs) and by reducing parry on weapons across the board. This was particularly important for short blades, which were way way overtuned for way too long.
-This helps for dealing with the classes that have the most griping directed their way, rogues and channies. Either they pick a higher-risk setup by going dodge or they get hit more often through their lower defense. I'm fine with that being the choice. Lower parry across the board also makes it easier to tweak dodge if that's an upcoming project.

Possible areas to look at:

-OB seems a little bit too low (by around 5-10 OB) on bashing weapons. There's nothing more frustrating than landing a bash on someone and seeing it get parried. This is a hard one to solve with postures, but I'd recommend erring towards breaking defense.
-Damage on some 1h bashing weapons might be a little low. Particularly the 1h clubs. It's good to have clear differentiation between classes, but even with master damage it feels like I'm tickling with the cudgel and mace. All anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt.

Steel warhammer: Seems weak for a rare. Relatively low damage, bash is just ok. It feels comparable to a non-rare 1h longblade. Name also seems underpowered for a rare.

Steel sai: Might have been too good, not sure didn't use them before nerfs. Since nerfs they're useless. PB and damage is so low you may as well just go abs stab and use a real dagger if you need to save the pracs. Damage is very inconsistent as well as being low; sometimes stab for nothing basically.

Daggers in general: Pretty much red stone or basilard are the go to. Others just dont have anything going for them to make up for the lower damage. Clear curved might be ok on a master for chance of blick due to high variance. Could probably use a few pb. Overall though, I like where daggers are now.

Javelins: Dark oak jav is probably where steel sai should be, and dark oak should get a few pb above that. Pine jav probably good where it is, lower damage/ob, higher pb than daggers. Class could do with a rare.

Jade partisan: Damage seems too high. Needed buffed for sure, but I think it's too good now. Remainder of spears: Seems good where they are.

1h meds: From a channie perspective, only bone-handled is good and it seems fine where it is. RQ damage is too low for the very meager pb boost; may as well go 1h staves and use a yew. Amber hilted is just not good for anything really and used to be the standard fc medium. For bashers: silver plated is trash, and is the only basher medium. Should be a higher pb, slightly lower ob version of the 1h longs. Damage way too low. So heron medium has no real backup weapon.

Staves: 2h staves feel strong compared to 1h staves, on a 16+ str channie. Can pull more defense with 1h of course, but the prac savings from going 2h staves seems better. Yews have always been the high pb, tiny damage option, but I'm not sure the few extra pb is worth the low damage and extra pracs. Probably more worth it on low str fcs. I'd consider a small damage bump on yews, just so you dont have to switch to a 2h staff to exp/smob. Overall I like the fact that staves are in vogue now with channies. Would love a rare 1h or 2h staff implemented.

fblades: Seem pretty nerfed, used to be much higher pb I think. For a while a lot of people were using them, but now almost nobody does. Foil/rapier do lower damage than 1h daggers, and they don't stab. They have better ob and pb of course, but I'm not sure it's enough for a strictly melee weapon. Maybe increase pb and damage slightly? Pearl handled/tulwar seem like trash; not sure what the point of these are now. You can go 1h longs and bash better, do more damage, and have similar ob/pb.

2h def polearms: A bit weak, aside from the rare. Maybe a small pb boost. You're almost better off going 2h spears if you don't have dst.

Whips: Seem good now. Have their uses for sure.

1h longs vs clubs vs axes: The general rule of longs for ob, clubs for bash, axes for damage is true here, but longs are definitely the best of all worlds. Club bash generally does not seem good enough to justify the lower ob/pb/damage that they have. Axe damage generally does not seem enough to justify the lower ob/pb/bash they have. Generally speaking, the 1h scimitar for longs feels pretty good to me and everything else not so much. I basically never bash dodge with it, but ob is high enough I can get an occasional hit with something else to break defense. The other 1h longs are just ok; any ob or pb they have over the other scims doesn't justify the damage loss. 1h clubs should bash dodge enough that it's worth rolling timers on dodgers. I dont think they do currently, someone confirm?. I haven't played extensively with 1h axes, but the ob/damage should justify low pb and bash. They shouldn't bash dodge, I dont think they do currently but maybe up the ob a little, up the damage a tiny bit, and keep weight same or lower a tad. PB is probably fine.

I guess the real question is, is the 1h scimitar overpowered, or are the others underpowered? To me, on my non-master hunter, I feel pretty good with it as long as I'm not fighting a dodger. Other weapons, I feel pretty weak. 1h scim vs abs I win, vs combo I do ok or go even (beat chargers, stabbers, 2h polearms), and I lose vs dodge if they've got a decent ob weapon. Generally in this game combo>abs>dodge>combo, so I guess that's fine. If I were to go anything besides 1h scimitar, I'd go 1h or 2h spears and start charging bc it seems good right now too. I dont think the other 1h swords, clubs, or axes seem good enough. Maybe I'd try axes, maybe fblades if I was a master. Clubs suck and polearms suck. This steel warhammer rig donated to me also sucks, and it's a rare 1h club.

Unique weapons in general seem very strong, which they should, but many seem too strong. I don't know if it was that many of them were upped or that pb in general went down on most weapons, or that so many of them are in play now, but the gap is huge. There seems to be at least one, often more than one unique weapon in every pk session. And they just destroy non-unique wielders. On my channeler I can obviously stand up to them, though I die super easily to them, but non channelers just have no chance even with mobsupport. PK seems very unbalanced by the uniques. Even more so when it's a bonused character wielding it, which it often is (wb, warder, fade). I appreciate the effort to keep uniques in play, but I kind of wish more of them were out of play considering our playerbase is so low and they are so strong. It seems like I see more uniques in pk than rares at this point, which is also strange. I don't really know the answer; uniques should feel special, and we're all excited to have one when we get one, but they do just make fights one sided and not fun for the other side particularly in the small-numbers 2v2/3v3 pk that we usually have nowadays.

Probably should reread it, but I suspect I agree with most of what Aishana said...

-1 handed clubs are non-viable due to the low damage.
-Polearms do have some nice traits, but the PB is so low that unless you are a master you really can't buff anything. Amusingly, back in the day one of the interesting questions for longs and 2 handeds was the idea that with a 2 handed you could fully practice a weapon. You can spend the full 99% on a polearms and in combo you'll essentially top out at just over 120 PB.
-I'm less concerned about the relative crushing that fencing blades and short blades received - essentially both these weapons relied upon standing there and piercing. Masters imo are over the top with high damage piercing weapons + attack and even though I've used CC extensively, it deserved the PB downing it received. CC is now the reverse of Basilard/red stone 3d7 vs 7d3.
-I'm not bothered by steel sai being downed because... it doesn't need to exist. It was created for players who lost a PoD and were stuck with bad practices. They can just reset now. Sure, it can be fiddled with, but the niche it filled is no longer there.
-Longs do appear to remain viable. There's something comical about the history of iron scimitar. Essentially, jagged used to be king and was ..8d4 in one of its early iterirations and scimitar was 4d8 with better defense. People still thought jagged was too strong at that point with great PB, weight, OB. Then they swapped the damage on scimitar and jagged upping the scimitar damage and creating some space between the two concerning weight and OB and PB. And then it went 1 handed... I digress.

I'm just sort of skeptical that there really is that much room for creating viable and different weapons. I kind of think ya'll had the right idea back in the day when you didn't touch mediums because you couldn't see where they fit.